Tokyo's Akihabara is a hub of maid cafe culture. Once catering mainly to male customers, these cafes now also attract women and families. For three days, we went inside to explore one cafe's appeal.

Coming "Home" to a Maid Cafe in Akihabara

At a Tokyo Bookstore That Never Sleeps

Episode 33

Bananas called mackerel, tilapia, mutton, frogs and hot spices. The stage is a multinational food shop in Kinshicho, Tokyo. It is lined with ingredients from more than twenty countries, mainly in Asia, and people from various countries living in Japan visit. A man from Bangladesh who has been in Japan for forty years, but sometimes wants to eat his native food. A Vietnamese woman in her 20s who started working at a Japanese hotel last year. What do you eat in a foreign country in Japan and how do you live?

Multinational food store Living in Japan

Many customers at a drive-through restaurant in Niigata Prefecture order "Italian" - fried noodles topped with meat sauce. For three days, we asked them why this comfort food always hits the spot.

A Niigata Drive-Through Restaurant in Winter

The first series of hospitals!　A cake shop in a hospital that is rare in Japan. Nagasaki University Hospital has more than 870 beds. The shop is lined with strawberry and peach cakes, and visitors visit the clinic, including outpatients and hospitalized patients, accompanying families, and working doctors and nurses. A woman who has been in the hospital for many years and returns home every time she buys a cake for her family. After the surgery, parents and children buy to celebrate. A doctor who buys for his colleagues. Christmas at the hospital. What is everyone looking for for a cake?

Seiya Nagasaki Daihodojo Hospital cake shop

2nd series of hospitals! Moving to a huge hospital. In January 2025, the University of the Ryukyus Hospital in Okinawa was fully relocated. Eighty-five patients, from critically ill patients in the intensive care unit to children in pediatrics, are transported to a new building nearly ten kilometers away in a single day. The end of the hospital, which has seen life for a long time, and the beginning of a new hospital where more advanced treatment can be done. What are the thoughts of working health workers and patients who continue to treat patients? From the move to the start of the new hospital, I looked behind the scenes.

Close! Moving a huge hospital.

The only supermarket in Nishiwaga, Iwate Prefecture is stocked with a dazzling array of products. We spend three days meeting customers as they trek through heavy snowfall to visit this food hub.

A Supermarket in Snowy Iwate

Oku-Noto-Suzu. There are sento that continue to be crowded even though it is in the midst of repeated disasters. In the midst of the widespread water outage immediately after the earthquake, groundwater was pumped up, wood from collapsed houses was burned, and business resumed early. Some people provided a valuable bath, and there were people who met again and confirmed their safety. A year since that. A lot of people come here. Locals, volunteers, and people working in demolition work. The sento became the source of the people, and the danran was born. Listen to people’s voices and minds here.

Oku-Noto-Suzu Seaside public bath

Hot meat buns full of toro toro-toned pork, bamboo shoots, and chrysanthemums. Set in a stand-style Nikumanten on the street corner of Kokubun-cho, an entertainment district in Sendai. It is open until five o'clock in the morning, and various people visit throughout the night. A fellow colleague at work who stopped by after drinking, a person who bought it for the second store to enter the second store, a man in black clothes at a club who finished work, and a mother of a snack shop. The steam that stands up in Sendai in winter. Under the cold sky, I looked at each situation of smiling meat buns.

Winter Sendai at midnight Nikuman Stand

The stage is a botanical garden in the middle of Tokyo. Some people visit for something, even though they think that there are few highlights during the winter. Some people say that they came to see plums at the turning point of their lives, and people who say that there is a taste when they see the appearance of standing withering. Some people sit on benches and look at the trees. People who dare to face the plants in the winter. What’s ahead of that look? We spent three days together.

Tokyo Botanical Garden My only winter

Omelet rice, grilled fish, potesara, ramen, beer and shochu. The stage is a long-established popular restaurant near Kawasaki Station. Many people say that they work late at night or on work holidays, and the appearance of drinking alcohol from noon is conspicuous. A group called a childhood friend who grew up in Kawasaki. A senior junior at a company called the launch of work. Even if you come alone, it is not uncommon for people who happened to be sitting at the table and have a flower in a conversation. A popular dining room on a street corner crowded from morning to night. If you put your camera here for three days, you’ll see what it is now.

Kawasaki Taishu Shokudo Diary

An amusement arcade near Tokyo has row after row of token-operated games. For three days, we asked people about the appeal of games that offer no cash or prizes, no matter how many tokens are won.

The Lure of Token Games at an Amusement Arcade

In Nishiyanagigase, Gifu City, there is a shopping street where nearly ninety percent of shops have shuttered. The bustling days of the night's prosperity as a city are gone, but people's activities still remain. A snack mom who has been working for nearly 50 years. An elderly man cleaning the shopping street with a part-time job. Young people planning events using empty buildings. After the war, it flourished in the textile industry, and was known throughout the country with its hit song "Yanagigase Blues". What would you see if you installed a camera here in the shutter city now?

Gifu-Nishiyanagigase “Shutter Town” Blues

Draft beer, edamame, fried horse mackerel, yakisoba. The stage is a Japanese-style izakaya in Seoul, Korea. The owner was a Japanese and opened in 2004. Every day, it is crowded with Korean customers. A fellow colleague at work who usually eats Japanese food. A family that has been going for more than ten years and is good friends with the owner. There are many couples and couples who visit. The real thing is to spill out with a drink in one hand. What are you all talking about here? 45min Expanding SP!　There is also a mini-corner of various Japanese food in Seoul.

Toast at “Japanese Izakaya” in Seoul, Korea

Locals have slurped down bowls of noodles at a 24-hour ramen restaurant in Fukuoka for five decades. For three days, we asked customers why this simple ramen is more than just a cheap meal.

At a 24-Hour Ramen Restaurant in Fukuoka

Colorful breads lined up on the bed of light trucks, such as red bean bread, bread, tuna dogs and donuts. This time, it is three days to closely follow the moving car of the bread movement. Sales cars go around various places in Yokohama, such as condominiums in the suburbs where there are no convenience stores nearby, facilities where elderly people can not go out for shopping, companies and schools where people are busy working. For the sake of someone, from children to the elderly, for each person waiting for the bread. What will we meet in the spring?

Spring running bread moving sales car

Nozokizaka, a steep hill in Tokyo's Toshima Ward, takes people's breath away in more ways than one. For three days, we asked people why they go up and down this road that's also a test of stamina.

Journeys Up and Down a Steep Road in Tokyo

Half of the residents of a university dorm in Oita Prefecture are from outside Japan. Students cook food, bathe communally and stay up chatting. We learn about their friendships and frustrations.

Student Life in a Multicultural Dorm

A small prefab restaurant in Aomori Prefecture sells only noodles and oden hotpot. For three days, we asked local customers why this no-frills business holds such a special place in their hearts.

At a Prefab Soba Restaurant in Aomori

Bonsai is a living art form that requires attention to detail and patience. For three days, we asked visitors to a hub of bonsai nurseries near Tokyo about the appeal of bonsai in a fast-paced world.

Bonsai Village: Growing a Small Universe in a Pot

The venue is set at a small zoo for free. This zoo in Yamagata Prefecture is popular for its elderly deer and peacocks, and has been popular for more than seventy years. Some animals have been protected from injury or illness, such as birds that are injured and unable to fly, and foxes that have been in traffic accidents. Various people visit here, think about something, and leave, such as people who come every day and talk to animals, and people who repeat themselves to the injured and protected animals.

Yamagata At a small zoo

A roaring golden lion statue outside Shinjuku Station is a donation box for disaster relief and youth support. Many walk past while others offer small kindnesses. Who donates over 72 hours, and why?

Lion Statue Donations at Shinjuku Station

One hundred years since its founding, it is set in a hardware store in Chiba Prefecture. From pots and knives to carpentry tools and farm equipment, there are twenty thousand kinds of items to be handled. A carpenter who comes to buy indispensable business tools such as nails and scoops. Farmers seeking barbed wire to deal with wild animals that ravage the fields. In addition, there is also a request to repair the mulberry that parents love for a long time ... What kind of life do you see if you put your camera on the “town yorozuya” that is close to the problems of the local people?　Three days of "preparation" before the summer.

Chiba 100 Years hardware store

There are places where many travelers come to the Nagoya specialty Kishimen. A stand-up restaurant on the platform of Nagoya Station on the Tokaido Shinkansen. There are only eight seats at the counter, and it is large enough for people to pass each other. However, there are still few customers who can stop. People who always eat kishimen before a business trip, people who go all the way to buy admission tickets, and people who come to check the taste of memories before visiting their mother. Why can’t we stop by each of these things?

Nagoya Shinkansen platform Kishimen store

Newsstands have all but disappeared from the area around Shibuya Station in Tokyo. Yet, one still operates, even as sales keep falling. For three days, we asked customers what they bought, and why.

The "Last" Newsstand Near Shibuya Station

What are all the people looking for in Shohei Ohtani and what kind of days are they spending? The stage is a park near Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, USA, and a park in Otsugi, Iwate, the hometown of Otani. We will shoot at two places at the same time and look at the feelings of the people of Japan and the United States for heroes. A person who repeats Otani in his own situation, a person who gets courage to continue to challenge. Protests against immigration in Los Angeles. What will come of the life of those who look at Otani? An expanded 72-minute version.

Staring at Shohei Ohtani Los Angeles and Iwate

An outdoor community pool in Ehime is super cheap even with a competition pool and water slides. It's been a local hotspot for 50 years. Meet the visitors making midsummer memories over three days.

A 10-yen Pool in Midsummer Ehime

From affordable petit plastic to high-class depacos. In the station building directly connected to Osaka Station, there is one of the largest cosmetics shops in western Japan. I want to be beautiful, I want to be beautiful, I want to express myself. Everyone has their own reasons for making-up. A woman who likes herself better than her makeup, and a man who says skin care is an investment in ten years. Some people don't really want to wear make-up, but they can't match it around them. To hide or hide. Three days to meet people who are looking for their ideal self that they have not yet seen.

Giant cosmetics store

A bus terminal in front of Nagasaki Station where five thousand people come and go a day. Buses connecting all over Kyushu and Nagasaki are coming and going one after another. In August, which is especially crowded with homecomings and travel, various lives are intersected in this place. A man who travels with the memory of his late wife in his heart, and his father returns home for the first time in months after working in the distance. There are also people who miss the bus and come with a special feeling on August 9th. People who travel, visitors, and each person has their own circumstances, where to go

Nagasaki at the bus terminal in August

"Karaoke Izakaya" is located in Nishinari, Osaka, near the Tsutenkaku Tower, where you can drink and eat and sing. For a hundred yen, anyone can sing their favorite song whenever they want. Former civil servants who sing hit songs of the 70s, men who work late at the factory, people who come from other prefectures to stay overnight, customers with various circumstances visit and sing songs as far as they can. You can sing alone in your own world, or you can have fun with the customers next to you. I listened carefully for three days in this place where people gather day and night.

Karaoke Izakaya

Streetcars have been rolling through the streets of Kochi City for more than 120 years. For three days, we asked passengers of all ages where they were going and why they chose to travel by streetcar.

Rolling Along on Kochi's Streetcars

A gold mine in Kagoshima has 190 staff, from teens to veterans in their 60s, who work to extract gold used in jewelry and electronics. Spend three days with people toiling above and belowground.

Life in a Kagoshima Gold Mine

A yakiniku grilled meat restaurant in Tokyo's busy Shinbashi district is tailored to solo diners. Why do these customers prefer to eat alone? For three days, we got down to the meat of the matter.

Dining Alone at a Shinbashi Yakiniku Restaurant

An apartment building in Kobe offers residents on-site care. The lounge is open to the public, and locals and kids gather to socialize. We spend three days in the comforting warmth of a shared home.

A Modern Shared Home in Kobe

A 24-hour bookstore in Tokyo attracts a diverse range of customers. For three days and nights, we asked people what they are buying — and why — in an age of digital books and online shopping.

Episode 36

An unusual documentary series that delves into human dramas through chance encounters with ordinary people at selected spots. Filmed over 72 hours in a single location, the show captures glimpses into people's lives as they open up and share their stories.

Coming "Home" to a Maid Cafe in Akihabara

Seasons17

Season 16 Episodes36

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