The End of Japan's 100-Yen Sushi
Japan's 100-yen sushi era is ending — and the big chains are fighting back.▼ About This EpisodeFor decades, a hundred-yen plate was Japan's everyday luxury — affordable, reliable, almost a birthright....
25 Jun 5min
An 800-Year-Old Card Game Goes Global
An eight-hundred-year-old anthology of Japanese poems is quietly becoming one of Japan's most exportable business assets. In a freshly merged rural cooperative office, Haru and Sakura trace how the Hy...
23 Jun 5min
Why Japan Loves Its Most Divisive Flavor
Chocolate mint — "chocomint" — is Japan's most polarizing flavor: people either adore it or swear it tastes like mouthwash. So why is it suddenly everywhere in the summer of 2026? In this episode of N...
18 Jun 5min
Japan's Minpaku Gold Rush Meets the Law
Japan has nine million empty homes — and welcomed a record forty-three million tourists last year. In an empty factory locker room on the first day of new safety rules, Haru and Sakura unpack how vaca...
16 Jun 6min
Japan's $1 Ice Bar vs Inflation
Why does a humble red-bean ice bar keep breaking records while everything else gets pricier? In this episode of Narrative Japan, Haru and Sakura settle in at a closing-time izakaya counter to unpack t...
11 Jun 5min
Streaming Won, But Japan Fills Cinemas
Streaming was supposed to kill the movie theater. In Japan, it didn't. In this episode of Narrative Japan, Haru and Sakura meet inside a decommissioned solar power plant — where old panels are being t...
9 Jun 5min
Men vs. Parasols: Japan's Last Taboo
Japan's parasol market is being quietly rewritten — and the story goes far beyond sunscreen. In summer 2025, 44% of Tokyo men used a parasol for the first time, driven not by vanity but by necessity: ...
4 Jun 4min
Japan's 10M Dancers Started With One Law
In 2012, Japan mandated dance for every middle school student. Fourteen years later, that single policy decision has created a nation of ten million street dancers, a sold-out professional dance leagu...
2 Jun 5min
