Hometown Stories
5.5
2011
Documentary
Stories about people, stories about life. Intimate portraits of people from around Japan, each leading diverse lives while enriching lives of others.
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- Cast:
- lae astra
Episode 9 : Uniting the People of the Sea: Kumejima, Okinawa
October. 30,2016
Uminchu, literally "people of the sea", is the name for the fishermen of beautiful Kumejima in Okinawa Prefecture. Filled with coral, tropical fish, and the tuna varieties that swim the Kuroshio Current, the sea around Kumejima has a rich diversity of life. Many locals make their living fishing, and use traditional skin-diving skills and pole-fishing techniques that have been passed down for generations. Get to know the young people training to become uminchu, and the older fishermen who are mentoring them, eager to share advice. This is an island journey to meet people who have truly embraced the sea.
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Episode 6 : A Life of Service: The Station Barber of Obama
July. 31,2016
On the JR Obama Line, a local railway that links Fukui Prefecture with Kyoto, stands Kato Station. Although unstaffed since 1973, the sleepy station building still contains a small barber's shop. The owners are Hisao Tsukamoto (72) and his wife Asako (68). Seeing the station as an important spot for local people to get together, in between haircuts this industrious couple not only sells tickets, but also makes the time to clean the building and its surroundings. We follow this duo as they come to grips with old age and illness while striving to maintain their barber's shop in an empty station.
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Episode 3 : Young Thunder: School Taiko Team
April. 13,2016
The All Japan High School Cultural Festival is like a national arts championship. We follow the efforts of Osaka's Akutagawa High School taiko team, which includes every junior and senior, to win the top prize in taiko drumming. More drummers add impact, but it's hard to keep everyone in sync. The program spends 2 months with typical Japanese teenagers who sometimes struggle to speak up and address problems openly. We'll watch their personal growth as the competition looms.
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Episode 2 : For the Sake of the Classmates We Lost
March. 26,2016
Hashikami Junior High School's class of 2011 graduated just after the devastating 3.11 earthquake and tsunami, in a school gym housing refugees. There should have been 57 students, but 3 fell victim to the disaster. The survivors are now 20 years old, right on the cusp of adulthood. How have they come to terms with the loss of friends and family at the age of just 15? And how has this changed their plans for adulthood? This program reviews 5 years lived in the shadow of the tsunami.
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Episode 1 : A Hiroshima Family's Prayer
February. 27,2016
In Hiroshima 70 years after the atomic bomb, many survivors' belongings have been inherited: items they wore the day of the bomb, diaries and more. Some families are coming to terms with this legacy for the first time, and want to pass it on. This year Arei Shirakami, age 41, read the diary of her grandfather, who died 17 years ago, for the first time. It shows a side of him she never knew. Feeling regret that she long ignored his story, she makes an emotional journey into her family's past.
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