Learn Japanese from the News - Season 4 / Year 2025
Season 4 / Year 2025
Episodes
Traditional Japanese Brewing Recognized by UNESCO
In December 2024, UNESCO added Japan's traditional techniques for making sake, shochu and awamori to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Alcoholic drinks have long played a vital role in Japanese culture, such as in Shinto rituals and festivals. Join us as we review the story, learn about the essential ingredient that is koji and study terms like "mukee bunka isan" (intangible cultural heritage) and expressions like "ganbatte kudasai" (do your best).
Very Few Are Prepared for Nankai Trough Quake
In August 2024, Japan Meteorological Agency issued what it calls Nankai Trough Earthquake Extra Information, which is a bulletin about the possibility of a major quake occurring in the Nankai Trough. An NHK survey showed that even in areas expected to suffer significant damage, only a fraction of respondents took new steps to prepare. Experts called on the public to review safety measures. Join us as we review the story and study expressions such as "fudan" (usually) and "itsumo" (always).
Railway Introduces Facial Recognition Boarding System
Amid growing inbound tourism, railway companies are introducing new services to ease congestion at ticket counters and ticket machines. We review the story and learn words such as "saabisu" (service).
Recently Updated Shows
The Librarians: The Next Chapter
The Librarians: The Next Chapter centers on Vikram Chamberlain, a "Librarian" from the past who time traveled from 1847 and now finds himself stuck in the present. When Vikram returns to his castle in Belgrade, Serbia and discovers that it is now a museum, he inadvertently releases magic across the continent. With the help of a new team of eclectic heroes, including a savant in world history, a scientific genius, and a highly skilled Guardian, Vikram has only six months to clean up the mess he made.
Yellowjackets
Yellowjackets follows a girls' high school soccer team. In 1975, the Dearborn High Yellowjackets became the first team in state history to qualify for the Girls' U.S. Soccer Championship Series in Manchester, NH. They never got the chance to compete. Equal parts survival epic, horror story and pitch black coming of age, Yellowjackets tells the story of the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness, chronicling their descent from a friendly, cooperative team to warring, cannibalistic clans. At the same time, it follows the lives they've attempted to piece back together nearly twenty-five years later, proving that the past is never really past and what began out in the wilderness is far from over.
Revival
Revival is set on one miraculous day in rural Wisconsin when the recently deceased suddenly rise from their graves. But this is no zombie story as the "revived" appear and act just like they once were. When local Officer and single mother Dana Cypress is unexpectedly thrown into the center of a brutal murder mystery of her own, she's left to make sense of the chaos amidst a town gripped by fear and confusion where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect.
Mayor of Kingstown
Mayor of Kingstown is set in a small Michigan town where the only industry remaining are federal, state, and private prisons, the story follows the McLusky family, the power brokers between the police, criminals, inmates, prison guards and politicians, in a city completely dependent on prisons and the prisoners they contain. It is a stark and brutal look at the business of incarceration.