This week on the podcast, we welcome ORiHANA, a Chicago-based J-pop and anime duo founded by award-winning musicians: violinist Olya Prohorova and pianist Hana Fujisaki. Enamored with heartfelt Japanese pop melodies from an early age, violinist Olya Prohorova founded ORiHANA after discovering J-pop through anime. Her passion for Japanese music and culture evolved into ORiHANA, [...]
Chie Schuller is the founder of Mano Global Learning and a U.S.–Japan intercultural trainer and consultant. Bringing people together despite differences is at the heart of everything she does. Having lived and worked extensively in both Japan and the United States, Chie is a Japanese-English bilingual and bicultural professional who has spent nearly 30 [...]
This week's guest is Harumi Yamamoto, a Toronto-based audiovisual translator with a particular passion for crafting subtitles for Japanese films. Having lived extensively in both Japan and Canada, she brings a nuanced cross-cultural perspective to her work, helping Japanese voices and stories resonate with global audiences while preserving their authenticity. An avid admirer of both [...]
Joining us this week is a filmmaker who is redefining international independent cinema. Born in Las Piñas, Metro Manila, and trained at the Tokyo Film Center School of Arts, he has spent the last two decades bridging the creative worlds of Japan and the Philippines. He is the mastermind behind the gripping action-thriller Crosspoint, a [...]
This week, we have Chiaki Yanagimoto back on the show, a Japanese-born, Los Angeles-based producer of award-winning features. Chiaki has produced multiple cross-cultural documentaries, including “KAMPAI! For the Love of Sake,” which premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was released by IFC Films/Sundance Selects. Her first directorial feature, "AUM: The Cult at [...]
Our next guest is Taro Kawasaki. Born in Yamagata and a graduate of the Tohoku University of Art & Design, Taro Kawasaki represents the next generation of Japanese directorial talent. He sharpened his skills working as an assistant director under celebrated filmmakers such as Yuji Nakae, Shinobu Yaguchi, and Natsuki Seta. Taro’s thesis film, [...]
On behalf of the Chicago Sister Cities International Osaka Committee, Michael William Foster and Rosemary Skeen spoke about the vibrant city of Osaka and its rich connection to Chicago. Michael highlighted the many striking cultural similarities between the two dynamic cities, while Rosemary walked the audience through the history of their sister city relationship. Together, [...]
This week's guest is Mariko Anno, a Japanese American scholar and performer bridging the worlds of academia and traditional Japanese music. An associate professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo, Mariko brings a unique perspective as both an ethnomusicologist and a professional flutist. She is the author of the award-winning book Piercing the Structure of [...]
This week, our guest is Roland Kelts, an award-winning journalist and the author of "Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US" and "The Art of Blade Runner: Black Lotus." He writes for publications in the US, Japan and Europe, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York [...]
This week on Showtime at Japan Expert Insights, Maya Matsuoka and Michael Foster are taking a deep dive into the 2025 film Rental Family. Directed by the visionary Hikari, this poignant dramedy follows an American actor in Tokyo who joins a daiko agency to play various roles for hire. We will explore how Hikari [...]
