Brandon Chin Show: Raw Japan

Raw Japan is a loose, first-draft account of life, art, and creative work in Japan. The show’s center of gravity is everyday experience in Fukuoka and Itoshima, with beaches, mountains, rice fields, shrines, work breaks, and neighborhood walks all becoming recording spaces. It does not move like a scripted culture program. It talks, notices, circles back, corrects itself, and keeps going. That gives the episodes a direct, sometimes uneven energy that fits the title. Recent installments move through Hatsumode, the New Year shrine visit, and the small rituals around omamori and mikuji. They also linger on the difference between American and Japanese holiday rhythms, especially the family weight of New Year in Japan. Traditional craft is another deep current. Noh theater, Hannya masks, hinoki wood, Kyoto performances, taiko, flutes, washi paper, old book styles, yokai imagery, ukiyo-e, and satirical printed material all become ways to think about culture as something made by hand. The show is also about making books. Episodes discuss Yokai Shadows, Kickstarter, washi printing from Tottori Prefecture, Japan-based thrillers, romance, historical fiction, fantasy, mystery, and the pressure of producing work without a large budget. There is a strong entrepreneurial thread. The speaker considers how to support artisan relationships, sell traditional crafts abroad, build a wellness community, and possibly create dome-house spaces in the mountains rather than near the beach. Climate anxiety, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, and the pull toward a safer, more intentional life appear as practical concerns, not abstract talking points. The tone can be funny, blunt, sleepy, rambling, or unusually reflective within a single episode. It is strongest when observation and ambition collide: a shrine charm in a wallet, a Noh mask maker in his 70s, a vacant lot in the mountains, a book project trying to become real. For listeners curious about Japan beyond tourist checklists, Raw Japan offers the texture of someone trying to understand a place while building a body of work inside it.