Podcasts about Naoki

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Whispers of Sakura: A Heartfelt Spring at Tokyo National Museum Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ja/episode/2025-04-05-22-34-02-ja Story Transcript:Ja: 東京国立博物館は春の訪れを感じる。En: The Tokyo National Museum feels the arrival of spring.Ja: 窓からは桜の花びらが風に乗って舞い込んでくる。En: Through the windows, sakura petals flutter in on the wind.Ja: この日は学校からの遠足だ。En: This day is a field trip from school.Ja: ナオキ、ハナ、リクは博物館を見学している。En: Naoki, Hana, and Riku are touring the museum.Ja: ナオキは静かで観察力がある。En: Naoki is quiet and observant.Ja: 彼は歴史が大好きだ。En: He loves history.Ja: 秘かにハナを想っている。En: Secretly, he has feelings for Hana.Ja: ハナは明るくて好奇心旺盛だ。En: Hana is cheerful and curious.Ja: 彼女は芸術が好きで、ナオキの気持ちには気づいていない。En: She likes art and has not noticed Naoki's feelings.Ja: リクは社交的で冒険好きだ。En: Riku is sociable and loves adventure.Ja: 彼は誰かを驚かせるのが好きで、ナオキとは親友だ。En: He enjoys surprising people and is best friends with Naoki.Ja: ナオキはこの遠足を使って、ハナに気持ちを伝えたいと思っている。En: Naoki hopes to use this field trip to convey his feelings to Hana.Ja: でも、リクが一緒にいると、なかなか話すタイミングがない。En: However, with Riku around, he rarely gets a chance to speak to her.Ja: 彼の心はドキドキしている。En: His heart is pounding.Ja: 博物館の中は、古代の遺物や美しい絵画がいっぱいだ。En: Inside the museum, there are many ancient relics and beautiful paintings.Ja: 学生たちで賑わっている。En: It's bustling with students.Ja: ナオキは周りを歩きながら、ハナにどうやって話しかけるかを考えている。しかし、リクがいると、話す勇気が出ない。En: As Naoki walks around, he thinks about how to approach Hana, but with Riku there, he can't muster the courage to speak.Ja: 「ちょっと、自由行動しようよ」とリクは提案する。En: "Hey, how about we split up for a bit?" Riku suggests.Ja: ナオキはそれに乗じて、「ちょっと一人になりたい」と言って、一時的にグループから離れることにした。En: Seizing the moment, Naoki says, "I want to be alone for a bit," and decides to temporarily separate from the group.Ja: 彼は静かな場所を探す。すると、古代の遺物の展示室に辿り着く。そこには人が少ない。En: He searches for a quiet spot and ends up in the ancient relics exhibit room, where there aren't many people.Ja: 心が落ち着いてくる。En: He begins to calm down.Ja: ふと見ると、ハナが一人で絵を見つめている。En: Suddenly, he notices Hana gazing at a painting by herself.Ja: ナオキは深呼吸をしてハナに近づく。En: Naoki takes a deep breath and approaches Hana.Ja: 「ハナ、少し話せるかな？」と声をかける。En: "Hana, can we talk for a minute?" he asks.Ja: ハナは振り向き、にっこり笑う。En: Hana turns around and smiles warmly.Ja: 「もちろん、ナオキくん。どうしたの？」En: "Of course, Naoki-kun. What's up?"Ja: 窓から桜の花びらが舞い込む。En: sakura petals flutter in through the window.Ja: その中で、ナオキは勇気を出して言った。「実は、君が好きなんだ。ずっと一緒にいたいと思ってた」En: In this moment, Naoki gathers his courage and says, "Actually, I like you. I've always wanted to be with you."Ja: ハナは驚いたようだが、優しく微笑む。En: Hana looks surprised but smiles gently.Ja: 「ナオキくん、ありがとう。En: "Thank you, Naoki-kun.Ja: 私もあなたといるのが好きよ。En: I also enjoy being with you.Ja: 遠足の後、一緒に公園でお花見をしない？」En: After the field trip, shall we go to the park for ohanami?"Ja: ナオキの心は弾む。En: Naoki's heart is leaping with joy.Ja: 嬉しさでいっぱいになる。彼は笑顔でうなずく。En: Filled with happiness, he nods with a smile.Ja: 「ぜひ行こう！」En: "Let's definitely go!"Ja: 二人は再び合流し、リクも交えて博物館を見て回る。En: The two rejoin their group and continue exploring the museum with Riku.Ja: しかし、ナオキはもう一人じゃない。En: However, Naoki is no longer alone.Ja: ハナと一緒に、美しい春を楽しむことを心に決めた。En: He has decided to enjoy the beautiful spring with Hana.Ja: その日から、ナオキは自分の気持ちを伝える勇気を持てば、良いことが起こると知ったのだった。En: From that day, Naoki learned that when you have the courage to express your feelings, good things happen.Ja: 物語は、大切な人と心を通わせることで、春のような温かい気持ちでいっぱいになって終わる。En: The story concludes with hearts connected with cherished people, filled with a warm feeling like spring. Vocabulary Words:arrival: 訪れflutter: 舞い込むtouring: 見学しているobservant: 観察力があるsecretly: 秘かにcheerful: 明るくてcurious: 好奇心旺盛sociable: 社交的adventure: 冒険convey: 伝えたいpounding: ドキドキしているancient: 古代のrelics: 遺物bustling: 賑わっているmuster: 勇気が出ないseize: 乗じてseparate: 離れるcalm down: 落ち着いてくるexhibit: 展示室approach: 近づくgaze: 見つめているdeep breath: 深呼吸courage: 勇気surprised: 驚いたようだgently: 優しくleaping: 弾むrejoin: 再び合流しdecide: 決めたcherish: 大切なheart: 心

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Cherry Blossoms and Secret Messages: A Journey Through Tokyo Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ja/episode/2025-03-22-22-34-01-ja Story Transcript:Ja: 春が来た。En: Spring had come.Ja: 東京は古い姿を残しながら、新しい生命を見せている。En: Tokyo was showing new life while preserving its old form.Ja: 崩れたビルの間から、桜の花が静かに咲いていた。En: Amidst the crumbling buildings, cherry blossoms were quietly blooming.Ja: その美しさと対照的に、人々は生き残るために必死だった。En: In contrast to their beauty, people were desperately trying to survive.Ja: ハルトは妹のアカリとともに、かつての祭りの場を歩いていた。En: Haruto was walking with his younger sister Akari through what was once a festival site.Ja: 彼の心には、安堵できる場所への強い願いがあった。En: In his heart was a strong desire for a place of refuge.Ja: ある日、死にかけた桜の木に奇妙なメッセージが刻まれているのを見つけた。En: One day, they found a strange message carved into a dying cherry tree.Ja: 「安息の地がここにある。」En: It said, "There is a place of rest here."Ja: そんな文字だが、文面は途中で途切れ、全てを伝えきれていなかった。En: The text, however, was incomplete and did not convey everything.Ja: ハルトはその言葉に希望を見出した。En: Haruto found hope in those words.Ja: 「この地が私たちを救うかもしれない。」En: "This place might save us," he thought.Ja: アカリは好奇心で目を輝かせ、未知の冒険に心踊っていた。En: Akari, her eyes sparkling with curiosity, was thrilled by the unknown adventure.Ja: 「お兄ちゃん、行こう！きっと何か特別なことがあるはず！」と彼女は催促した。En: "Big brother, let's go! There must be something special!" she urged.Ja: そんな時、彼らの前にナオキという謎の人物が現れた。En: At that moment, a mysterious figure named Naoki appeared before them.Ja: 彼は旅人であり、何かを隠しているようだった。En: He was a traveler, and he seemed to be hiding something.Ja: 「あのメッセージに興味があるのか？」とナオキが問いかける。その眼は意味深だった。En: "Are you interested in that message?" Naoki asked, his eyes hinting at deeper meanings.Ja: ハルトは警戒しつつも、ナオキと組むことを選んだ。En: Haruto, while cautious, chose to team up with Naoki.Ja: 「一人じゃ危険だ。彼から何かを学べるかもしれない。」そう考えて、彼は信じることに決めた。En: "It's dangerous to go alone. I might learn something from him." Thinking this, he decided to trust.Ja: しかし、道は簡単ではなかった。En: However, the path was not easy.Ja: 他の生存者のグループが巡回し、彼らの動きを妨げた。En: Other groups of survivors patrolled the area, hindering their movements.Ja: ある日、祭りの遺跡で彼らは追い詰められた。En: One day, they were cornered at the ruins of the festival.Ja: ナオキの過去が明らかになり、彼は一度敵に囚われた者だったことを告白した。En: Naoki's past was revealed, and he confessed that he had once been captured by the enemy.Ja: 彼の知識は、暗い過去の産物だった。En: His knowledge came from a dark past.Ja: 「ナオキ！どうやってここを抜け出せる？」とハルトは強く詰め寄った。En: "Naoki! How can we get out of here?" Haruto pressed urgently.Ja: 緊張の中、ナオキはかすかに微笑んだ。En: Amidst the tension, Naoki faintly smiled.Ja: 「君たちを信じることだ。そして、恐れを乗り越える勇気を持つこと。」En: "Trust in each other. And have the courage to overcome your fears."Ja: 彼らは力を合わせて逃げ出した。En: They joined forces and escaped.Ja: アカリはナオキの過去を知っていたが、彼を責めることはしなかった。En: Akari knew of Naoki's past, yet she did not blame him.Ja: 「安心して、ナオキ。皆、過去があるの。」そう言って、彼は微笑んだ。En: "It's okay, Naoki. Everyone has a past." She said with a smile.Ja: そして、彼らは謎の断片をつなぎ合わせ、安息の地へと向かった。En: Then, they pieced together the fragments of the mystery and headed toward the place of rest.Ja: 新たな希望の中で、ハルトは他者を慎重に信じることを学び、より良い未来を夢見た。En: In this new hope, Haruto learned to carefully trust others and dreamt of a better future.Ja: 空には桜が舞い、世界はまだ美しい。En: Cherry blossoms danced in the sky, and the world was still beautiful.Ja: 旅は続くが、彼らの絆は何よりも強かった。En: The journey continues, but their bond was stronger than anything else.Ja: ハルトは、恐れを超えて前進する術を手に入れたのだ。En: Haruto had gained the ability to move forward beyond his fears.Ja: 安全な未来は、彼らの歩む先にある。En: A safe future lay ahead of them. Vocabulary Words:crumbling: 崩れたrefuge: 安堵carved: 刻まれているpreserving: 残しながらcontrast: 対照的にsurvive: 生き残るmessage: メッセージconvey: 伝えるsparkling: 輝かせcuriosity: 好奇心thrilled: 心踊っていたurged: 催促したmysterious: 謎hiding: 隠しているcautious: 警戒hindering: 妨げるcornered: 追い詰められたconfessed: 告白したtension: 緊張courage: 勇気escaped: 逃げ出したfragments: 断片mystery: 謎bond: 絆gained: 手に入れたsparkling: 輝いたpatrolled: 巡回revealed: 明らかになったpast: 過去trust: 信じる

2025.02.14 OA Life in Fukuoka "Vietnamese" #255 LOVE FM 76.1MHz http://lovefm.co.jp/

2025.02.10 OA Life in Fukuoka "English" #254 LOVE FM 76.1MHz http://lovefm.co.jp/

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: New Year's Dawn: A Journey Through Kyoto's Sacred Gates Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ja/episode/2024-12-31-08-38-19-ja Story Transcript:Ja: 京都の冬は寒い。En: Winter in Kyoto is cold.Ja: 風が冷たく吹きる元旦の朝、陽が昇る前に、広志、愛子、直樹の三人は伏見稲荷大社に向かっていた。En: On the morning of New Year's Day, with the cold wind blowing, Hiroshi, Aiko, and Naoki were heading to Fushimi Inari Taisha before the sun rose.Ja: 神社は新年の雰囲気で包まれ、赤い鳥居が山の上まで続いていた。En: The shrine was enveloped in the atmosphere of the new year, and the red torii gates stretched all the way up the mountain.Ja: 参道には着物を着た家族たちが集まり、焼きたてのせんべいや甘酒の香りが漂っていた。En: Families dressed in kimono gathered along the approach, and the scent of freshly baked senbei and amazake wafted through the air.Ja: 広志は高校三年生で、大学進学について悩んでいた。En: Hiroshi was a high school senior, troubled about which university to attend.Ja: 都市部の大学に行くべきかどうか決めかねていた。En: He couldn't decide whether he should go to a university in an urban area.Ja: 家から遠く離れることが彼を不安にさせた。En: The thought of being far from home made him anxious.Ja: そして彼は愛子のことを考えた。彼女は広志の幼馴染で、彼が離れてしまうことを望んではいないだろう。En: He also thought about Aiko, his childhood friend, who probably didn't want him to move away.Ja: 「広志、お姉ちゃん、早く！」と直樹が先に走り出した。En: "Hiroshi, onee-chan, hurry up!" called out Naoki, who had started running ahead.Ja: 彼は広志のいとこで、神社の訪問を楽しみにしていた。En: He was Hiroshi's cousin and was looking forward to visiting the shrine.Ja: 鳥居をくぐりながら、広志は愛子に話しかけた。En: As they passed through the torii gate, Hiroshi spoke to Aiko.Ja: 「愛子、実は俺、進学について不安なんだ。」En: "Aiko, actually, I'm really anxious about going to university."Ja: 愛子は少し驚いた顔をし、優しく微笑んだ。En: Aiko looked a little surprised but smiled gently.Ja: 「広志、どんな決断をしても私が応援するからね。でも、無理はしないで。」En: "Hiroshi, whatever decision you make, I'll support you. But don't push yourself."Ja: 二人はゆっくりと階段を上がり続けた。En: They continued to climb the stairs slowly.Ja: 木々に囲まれた道を行くと、心配事が少しずつ和らいでいった。En: As they walked along the path surrounded by trees, Hiroshi's worries gradually eased.Ja: そこで、広志は新年の願いを決めた。「幸せな未来を望む。それが、一番の願いだ。」En: Then, he decided on his New Year's wish: "I wish for a happy future. That's my biggest wish."Ja: 「わたしたちも一緒に願おうね。」と愛子が言った。En: "Let's wish for it together," Aiko said.Ja: 山の頂上に着いたとき、広志は不思議と心の平穏を感じた。En: When they reached the top of the mountain, Hiroshi felt a strange sense of peace.Ja: 変化を恐れる必要はないと気づいた。En: He realized there was no need to fear change.Ja: 未来は未知数だけれど、可能性にあふれている。En: The future was uncertain, but it was full of possibilities.Ja: そして友人や家族の支えがあることを知った。En: And he knew he had the support of friends and family.Ja: 「ありがとう、愛子。本当に。」と広志は言った。En: "Thank you, Aiko. Really," Hiroshi said.Ja: 「こちらこそ。」愛子は少し涙ぐんだ目で微笑んだ。En: "Same here," Aiko replied, smiling with tears slightly in her eyes.Ja: その日の夕焼けは特別に美しく、三人の心に新たなきらめきをもたらした。En: That day's sunset was especially beautiful, bringing a new sparkle to their hearts.Ja: 彼らは下りながら、新しい一年に向けての希望と共に、その日の特別な思い出を胸に刻んだ。En: As they descended, they etched the special memories of the day into their hearts, along with the hope for the new year.Ja: 未来は不確かだが、友情がある限り、一人ではないことを知った。En: The future was uncertain, but as long as they had friendship, they knew they were not alone. Vocabulary Words:enveloped: 包まれたatmosphere: 雰囲気torii: 鳥居approach: 参道kimono: 着物scent: 香りfreshly: 焼きたてbaked: 焼いたsenbei: せんべいamazake: 甘酒anxious: 不安realize: 気づいたpossibilities: 可能性childhood: 幼馴染decide: 決めるwish: 願いsupport: 支えstrange: 不思議peace: 心の平穏fear: 恐れfuture: 未来uncertain: 不確かfriendship: 友情memories: 思い出etched: 刻むdelight: 喜びsunset: 夕焼けsparkle: きらめきdescend: 下りるgentle: 優しい

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Tokyo's Year-End Karaoke: A Duet Sparks New Beginnings Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ja/episode/2024-12-26-08-38-20-ja Story Transcript:Ja: 冬の夜、東京のオフィスはいつもとは違う活気に満ちていました。En: On a winter night, the Tokyo office was filled with a different kind of energy than usual.Ja: 窓の外には明るい都会の光が輝き、事務所では年末のカラオケイベントが始まろうとしていました。En: Outside the window, the bright city lights sparkled, and inside the office, the year-end karaoke event was about to begin.Ja: オフィスの一部はクリスマスツリーと飾りで華やかに装飾されていました。En: Part of the office was festively decorated with a Christmas tree and ornaments.Ja: Harukiは少し緊張しながら、人々の笑い声と音楽が響くブレークルームに入りました。En: Haruki entered the break room where laughter and music echoed, feeling a bit nervous.Ja: 彼は普段、社交の場を避けがちでしたが、親友のNaokiに誘われ、今年初めて参加することにしました。En: He typically avoided social gatherings, but invited by his close friend Naoki, he decided to participate for the first time this year.Ja: Naokiはイベントのホストを務め、元気いっぱいに場を盛り上げていました。En: Naoki, serving as the event host, was energizing the room with boundless enthusiasm.Ja: 観客の中にはAikoの姿もあり、彼女は同僚たちと笑顔で話していました。En: Among the audience was Aiko, who was chatting and smiling with colleagues.Ja: HarukiにとってAikoは少し敷居が高く感じられる存在でした。En: To Haruki, Aiko seemed a bit intimidating.Ja: 彼女の明るさとは反対に、Harukiは控えめな性格でした。En: In contrast to her brightness, Haruki had a reserved personality.Ja: 「これが新しい自分への挑戦だ」とHarukiは心の中でつぶやいて、気持ちを鼓舞しました。En: "This is a challenge to the new me," Haruki whispered to himself, encouraging his spirit.Ja: 年の終わりとともに、彼は自分の生活に変化を求めていました。En: With the end of the year approaching, he was seeking change in his life.Ja: イベントが進む中、Naokiがマイクを手に取って、場をさらに盛り上げました。En: As the event progressed, Naoki took the microphone to further enliven the atmosphere.Ja: 「次はHarukiとAikoのデュエットだ！」と。En: "Next up is Haruki and Aiko's duet!" he announced.Ja: Harukiはドキドキしながらも、マイクを手に取りました。En: Despite his nerves, Haruki took the microphone.Ja: Aikoはにっこりと微笑み、彼を迎えました。そして、二人は一緒に歌い始めました。En: Aiko greeted him with a bright smile, and they began to sing together.Ja: 曲が進むにつれ、Harukiの緊張は和らぎ、彼はAikoと目を合わせて歌う心地良さを感じました。En: As the song went on, Haruki's tension eased, and he found comfort in making eye contact with Aiko while singing.Ja: 二人の声が溶け合い、曲が終わる頃には、その場の全員が二人の歌声に拍手を送りました。En: Their voices blended, and by the end of the song, everyone in the room applauded their performance.Ja: その後、AikoはHarukiに話しかけました。En: Afterwards, Aiko spoke to Haruki.Ja: 「歌、とても素敵でしたね。また一緒に歌いましょう。」En: "Your singing was wonderful. Let's sing together again."Ja: Harukiは少し照れながらも笑顔で答えました。「ぜひ、またお会いしたいです。」En: Feeling a bit shy, Haruki replied with a smile, "I would love to meet again."Ja: イベントが終わり、二人は連絡先を交換しました。En: After the event, they exchanged contact information.Ja: 「次はもっと楽しいこと、何か一緒にしましょう。」Aikoは言いました。En: "Aiko said, "Let's do something more fun together next time."Ja: その夜、Harukiは新たな気持ちで帰路につきました。En: That night, Haruki headed home with a newfound sense of confidence.Ja: 彼は自分から少しだけ勇気を出し、新しい一歩を踏み出したことに満足していました。En: He was satisfied with taking that small leap of courage and starting a new chapter.Ja: そして、もう一人の自分を見つめ直すための素晴らしい始まりに感謝していました。En: He was grateful for a wonderful beginning to reevaluate another side of himself.Ja: 年が変わる瞬間、新しい友情と可能性が生まれました。En: As the year changed, new friendships and possibilities were born.Ja: Harukiはこれを自信に、さらに広い世界に心を開いていくことを決意しました。En: Haruki decided to open his heart to an even broader world with newfound confidence. Vocabulary Words:festively: 華やかにornaments: 飾りechoed: 響くnervous: 緊張invited: 誘われparticipate: 参加enthusiasm: 元気intimidating: 敷居が高く感じられるreserved: 控えめなchallenge: 挑戦encouraging: 鼓舞approaching: 近づくchange: 変化enliven: 盛り上げるduet: デュエットtension: 緊張comfort: 心地良さblended: 溶け合いapplauded: 拍手を送りましたshy: 照れながらexchange: 交換fun: 楽しいことconfidence: 自信leap: 一歩を踏み出すreevaluate: 見つめ直すpossibilities: 可能性broader: さらに広いdifferent: 違うsparkled: 輝きgatherings: 社交の場

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Finding Home: Aiko's New Year in Kyoto Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ja/episode/2024-12-16-23-34-01-ja Story Transcript:Ja: 京都の賑やかなマーケットは、冬の冷たい空気とともに新年を迎える準備でいっぱいでした。En: The bustling Kyoto market was filled with preparations to welcome the new year, along with the cold winter air.Ja: 彩り豊かな旗、獅子舞のお面、そして華やかな門松が通路を飾り、どこを見ても新しい年の訪れを感じさせます。En: The vibrant flags, shishimai masks, and festive kadomatsu adorned the pathways, making it feel like the advent of a new year was palpable everywhere you looked.Ja: アイコは一人、マーケットの入口に立っていました。En: Aiko stood alone at the market entrance.Ja: 彼女は仕事のために最近京都に引っ越してきたばかりで、まだこの街には馴染んでいません。En: She had just moved to Kyoto for work and wasn't yet accustomed to the city.Ja: 「お正月をどうやって迎えようか」と、少し不安な気持ちを感じながら、アイコは新年の飾りを探し始めました。En: Feeling a little anxious about "how to celebrate the New Year," Aiko began searching for New Year's decorations.Ja: しかし、混雑した通りと買い物客で溢れるこの場所で、何を買えばいいか悩んでいました。En: However, in this bustling place filled with crowded streets and shoppers, she was unsure of what to buy.Ja: 「すみません、これってどうやって使うんですか？」と、アイコは最初のお店の店主、直樹に聞きました。En: "Excuse me, how do you use this?" Aiko asked Naoki, the owner of the first shop she visited.Ja: 彼はにっこりと笑って、「このしめ飾りは玄関に飾るんだよ。En: He smiled warmly and replied, "You hang this shimekazari at the entrance.Ja: 新しい年の幸せを家に運ぶと言われているんだ」と答えました。アイコは彼の優しい話し方に励まされ、次の店にも足を運びました。En: It's said to bring happiness into the home in the new year." Encouraged by his kind manner, Aiko moved on to the next shop.Ja: 次に出会ったのは桜という女性の店です。En: Next, she encountered a store owned by a woman named Sakura.Ja: 桜はおせち料理に使う食材を売っていました。En: Sakura sold ingredients used for osechi ryori.Ja: 「おせち料理は家族で作るのが楽しいよ」と桜は話しました。En: "Making osechi ryori with family is fun," said Sakura.Ja: 「でも、私一人だから」とアイコは少し悲しそうに言いました。En: "But I'm alone," Aiko replied a bit sadly.Ja: 「それなら小さな料理をいくつか選んでみたら？En: "In that case, why not choose a few small dishes?Ja: 手軽で楽しいし、自分らしいアレンジができるよ」と桜は提案しました。En: They're easy and fun, and you can add your personal touch," Sakura suggested.Ja: アイコは色々なお店を巡り、少しずつ自信を持ち始めましたが、まだ心のどこかに不安が残っていました。En: Touring various shops, Aiko began to gain a bit of confidence, but there was still some lingering anxiety within her.Ja: そんなとき、ひっそりとした小さな店が目に入りました。En: At that moment, a small, quietly nestled shop caught her eye.Ja: 中に入ると、そこには家族の家を思い出させるような、どこか懐かしい飾りが並んでいました。En: Inside, she found decorations that reminded her of her family home, evoking a sense of nostalgia.Ja: それは赤と金で飾られたきれいな鏡餅でした。En: Among them was a beautifully decorated kagami mochi in red and gold.Ja: 心が温かくなったアイコは、それを手に取り、店主と話しました。En: Feeling her heart warm, Aiko picked it up and talked with the shopkeeper.Ja: 帰り道、アイコは新しい気持ちで袋を抱えていました。En: On her way home, Aiko carried her bags with a refreshed feeling.Ja: 彼女の小さなアパートに戻ると、買ってきたものを一つ一つ丁寧に飾り付け始めました。En: Returning to her small apartment, she began to carefully decorate with what she'd bought one by one.Ja: しめ飾りをドアに飾り、鏡餅をテーブルの上に置き、まるで家族の温もりがそこにあるかのようでした。En: She hung the shimekazari on the door and placed the kagami mochi on the table, almost as if the warmth of family was there.Ja: アイコは気づきました。新しい場所でも、人々の助けを借りて自分のスタイルで楽しむことができるということを。En: Aiko realized that even in a new place, she could enjoy herself in her own style with the help of others.Ja: 京都の文化と伝統を取り入れることで、彼女は新しい家でも心地よいお正月を迎えることができるのだと理解しました。En: By embracing the culture and traditions of Kyoto, she understood that she could have a comfortable New Year's even in her new home.Ja: 家がどこであれ、心の温もりは作れるのです。En: No matter where the home is, the warmth of the heart can be created. Vocabulary Words:bustling: 賑やかなadorned: 飾りpalpable: 感じさせるaccustomed: 馴染んでanxious: 不安decorate: 飾り付けvibrant: 彩り豊かなcadre: 門松shishimai: 獅子舞kadomatsu: 門松confidence: 自信encountered: 出会ったlurking: 残ってevoking: 思い出させるnostalgia: 懐かしいrefreshed: 新しい気持ちshimekazari: しめ飾りosechi ryori: おせち料理kagami mochi: 鏡餅embracing: 取り入れるlingering: 残っているnestled: ひっそりとgenuine: 本物のadvent: 訪れsolitude: 一人vendors: 店主pathways: 通路confusion: 悩んでいるbewilderment: 不安accumulate: 蓄積

Fashion News 1.アバクロ前CEO性的人身売買疑い 2.ベネトン日本撤退 3.NIKEオワコン化？株価急落 Fashion「あいうえお」My Essential 「て」Tシャツの特別版としてNaokiさんをお迎えし, Tシャツの歴史から最近のトレンド、コレクションの一部までを紹介して頂きました。

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Under the Harvest Moon: Unveiling a Heroic Legacy Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/under-the-harvest-moon-unveiling-a-heroic-legacy Story Transcript:Ja: 秋の風が街を吹き抜け、木々の葉が赤や金に変わる頃、直樹は祖父の家にいました。En: As the autumn wind swept through the town and the leaves on the trees turned red and gold, Naoki was at his grandfather's house.Ja: 祖父が亡くなり、部屋を整理していると、古い木箱の中に一通の手紙を見つけました。En: While sorting through the rooms after his grandfather's passing, he discovered a letter inside an old wooden box.Ja: それは古い紙に、かすれた文字で書かれていました。En: It was written on aged paper with faded text.Ja: 手紙には、長い間家族が隠してきた秘密が記されていました。En: The letter revealed a family secret that had been hidden for a long time.Ja: 直樹はその内容に驚きました。En: Naoki was taken aback by its contents.Ja: 彼の祖父は、かつて地元で重要な役割を担い、しかし物議を醸す出来事に関わっていたというのです。En: It revealed that his grandfather once played an important role in the local community, being involved in a controversial event.Ja: このことが公になれば、祖父の名誉は傷つくかもしれません。En: If this became public, his grandfather's honor might be tarnished.Ja: 直樹は不安に襲われましたが、真実を知る必要があると感じました。En: Naoki was overwhelmed with anxiety, yet he felt the need to uncover the truth.Ja: 直樹は家を出て、幼なじみの愛子の家に向かいました。En: He left the house and headed to his childhood friend Aiko's home.Ja: 愛子は地元の芸術家で、明るく社交的な性格です。彼には信頼できる人でした。En: Aiko, a local artist with a bright and sociable personality, was someone he could trust.Ja: 愛子に手紙を見せ、彼の心配を打ち明けたところ、愛子は言いました。「直樹、一緒にその真実を探しに行こう。」En: After showing the letter to Aiko and confiding in her about his worries, Aiko said, "Naoki, let's discover this truth together."Ja: その晩は十五夜で、月見の準備が街中で進んでいました。En: That evening was the harvest moon, and preparations for moon-viewing were underway throughout the town.Ja: 色とりどりの紙のランタンが通りに飾られ、夜空に月が光っていました。En: Colorful paper lanterns decorated the streets, and the moon shone in the night sky.Ja: 愛子と直樹は近所に住む老人、山田さんの家を訪ねました。山田さんは昔話に詳しく、家族の秘密について詳しいかもしれません。En: Naoki and Aiko visited the home of Mr. Yamada, an elderly neighbor who was knowledgeable about old stories and might know about the family secret.Ja: 山田さんの話によれば、直樹の祖父は、地元の伝説的な出来事に関わっていたのです。En: According to Mr. Yamada, Naoki's grandfather was involved in a legendary local event.Ja: それは単なるスキャンダルではなく、誤解された英雄的な行為でした。En: It was not merely a scandal, but a misunderstood heroic act.Ja: 山田さんは、祖父が困難な選択をし、最善を尽くしたことを話しました。En: Mr. Yamada explained how his grandfather had made difficult choices and did his best.Ja: 「彼は、自分の信じる正義を守ったんだよ」と言いました。En: "He stood by the justice he believed in," he said.Ja: 直樹と愛子は、山田さんの話を聞いて安心しました。En: Listening to Mr. Yamada's account, Naoki and Aiko felt relieved.Ja: 直樹は、この家族の歴史を守るために、兄の弘と正直に話すことを決めました。En: Naoki decided to talk honestly with his brother Hiro to preserve this family history.Ja: 弘はいつも感情を表に出さないタイプでしたが、話を聞くと、表情がやわらかくなりました。En: Hiro, who typically didn't show his emotions, softened as he listened to the story.Ja: 「ありがとう、直樹。この話を聞いて安心したよ。」と弘は言いました。En: "Thank you, Naoki. Hearing this gives me peace," said Hiro.Ja: 街には、月見の夜を祝う人々の笑い声が響いていました。En: The laughter of people celebrating the moon-viewing night filled the streets.Ja: 直樹は、家族の過去を理解し、受け入れることができたことに感謝しました。En: Naoki felt grateful for understanding and embracing his family's past.Ja: 彼と弘は兄弟としての絆を深めることができました。En: He and Hiro were able to deepen their bond as brothers.Ja: そして、直樹は自分のルーツを誇らしく思ったのです。En: Naoki felt proud of his roots. Vocabulary Words:autumn: 秋swept: 吹き抜けsorting: 整理discovered: 見つけfaded: かすれたcontents: 内容controversial: 物議を醸すtarnished: 傷つくanxiety: 不安uncover: 探しに行こうharvest: 十五夜preparations: 準備lanterns: ランタンelderly: 老人knowledgeable: 詳しいlegendary: 伝説的なmisunderstood: 誤解されたheroic: 英雄的なchoices: 選択justice: 正義relieved: 安心honestly: 正直にemotions: 感情softened: やわらかくcelebrating: 祝うembracing: 受け入れるgrateful: 感謝bond: 絆roots: ルーツproud: 誇らしく

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: Leaf by Leaf: A Family's Emotional Reunion in Kyoto Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/leaf-by-leaf-a-familys-emotional-reunion-in-kyoto Story Transcript:Ja: 紅葉が美しい京都植物園。En: The Kyoto Botanical Garden, where the autumn leaves are stunning.Ja: 木々の赤や黄色が秋の香りを運んでいる。En: The red and yellow of the trees carry the scent of fall.Ja: 今日は秋分の日だ。En: Today is the autumnal equinox.Ja: 兄弟たちは久しぶりに再会するため、この場所に集まった。En: The siblings have gathered here for a long-awaited reunion.Ja: 三人の中で一番年上の直樹は少し緊張していた。En: Naoki, the eldest of the three, was a little nervous.Ja: 彼は過去の後悔を抱えていた。En: He carried regrets from the past.Ja: しかし、彼は兄弟との絆を取り戻したいと思っていた。En: However, he wanted to restore the bond with his siblings.Ja: 自由な精神を持つゆいは、直樹が彼女の選択を理解していないと思っていた。En: Yui, with her free spirit, thought Naoki didn't understand her choices.Ja: だが、彼女は和解を求めてここに来た。En: Yet, she came here seeking reconciliation.Ja: 一番下のはるとは、兄弟たちから疎外されていると感じていた。En: The youngest, Haruto, felt alienated from his siblings.Ja: 彼は受け入れられたいと願っていたが、信頼することに不安を抱えていた。En: He wanted to be accepted but felt uneasy about trusting others.Ja: その日、直樹は決心していた。En: That day, Naoki made up his mind.Ja: 過去の問題を率直に話し合おうと。En: He wanted to discuss past issues openly.Ja: 兄弟たちは園内のベンチに座り、それぞれが心の中で言葉を探していた。En: The siblings sat on a bench in the garden, each searching for words within their hearts.Ja: 「ごめん、みんな。いつも自分の意見ばかり押し付けていた」と直樹が口火を切った。En: "I'm sorry, everyone. I always forced my opinions on you," Naoki began.Ja: 「わたしたちのことをもっと知ってほしい」と、ゆいが応じた。En: "I want you to know more about us," Yui replied.Ja: 「あのとき、私の夢を聞いてくれなくて悲しかった」En: "I was sad when you didn't listen to my dreams back then."Ja: 「僕はただ、家族と一緒にいたかった」とはるとが静かに言った。En: "I just wanted to be with my family," Haruto said quietly.Ja: 話し合いは次第にヒートアップした。En: The conversation gradually heated up.Ja: それぞれの心の中に隠れていた傷が浮き彫りになった。En: The hidden wounds in their hearts came to the surface.Ja: 涙がこぼれ、声が震え始めた。En: Tears fell, and their voices began to tremble.Ja: しかし、それでも直樹はあきらめなかった。En: Yet, Naoki didn't give up.Ja: 「僕たちはもっとお互いを理解し合えるはずだ」En: "We should be able to understand each other better."Ja: 和解の瞬間が訪れた。En: The moment of reconciliation came.Ja: 気持ちを開くことで、三人は徐々に理解を深めていった。En: By opening up, the three gradually deepened their understanding.Ja: 深く抱き合い、再び心の絆が結ばれた。En: They embraced tightly, once again binding their hearts together.Ja: 「次はいつ会おうか？」とゆいが微笑んだ。En: "When shall we meet next?" Yui smiled.Ja: 「次の季節もここで会おう」とはるとも笑った。En: "Let's meet here in the next season," Haruto smiled as well.Ja: 直樹は安心した。En: Naoki felt relieved.Ja: 心が軽くなり、負担が少しずつ消えていくのを感じた。En: His heart felt lighter, and the burdens slowly began to fade.Ja: 家族とのコミュニケーションの重要性を理解した直樹は、新しい始まりを迎えたのだった。En: Having understood the importance of communication with family, Naoki embarked on a new beginning.Ja: 秋の美しい風景の中で、彼らは新しい一歩を踏み出した。En: Amid the beautiful autumn scenery, they took a new step forward. Vocabulary Words:botanical: 植物autumnal equinox: 秋分の日reunion: 再会restore: 取り戻すbond: 絆free spirit: 自由な精神reconciliation: 和解alienated: 疎外されているaccepted: 受け入れられたいuneasy: 不安trusting: 信頼するdiscuss: 話し合うissues: 問題forced: 押し付けていたopinions: 意見dreams: 夢heated: ヒートアップwounds: 傷surface: 浮き彫りになるtremble: 震えるgive up: あきらめるunderstanding: 理解embraced: 抱き合いbinding: 結ばれるburdens: 負担fade: 消えるimportance: 重要性communication: コミュニケーションembarked: 迎えるnew beginning: 新しい始まり

Fluent Fiction - Japanese: From Silence to Celebration: The Art of Teamwork at School Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/from-silence-to-celebration-the-art-of-teamwork-at-school Story Transcript:Ja: 夏の暑い日、みんなが汗をかきながら、学校中が夏祭りの準備に忙しく動いていました。En: On a hot summer day, everyone was busy, sweating, as they prepared for the summer festival at school.Ja: 教室には色とりどりの飾りがあり、児童たちは自分のアイデアを形にしようとワクワクしていました。En: The classrooms were decorated colorfully, and the students were excited to bring their ideas to life.Ja: 直樹はいつもと同じ座席に座っていました。En: Naoki was sitting in his usual seat.Ja: 彼はとても控えめで、絵を描くことが大好きです。でも、人前で自分の考えを話すのが苦手です。En: He is very reserved and loves drawing, but he struggles to speak in front of others.Ja: 直樹は、今回の学校祭で自分の絵をみんなに見てもらいたいと思っています。En: For this school festival, Naoki wants everyone to see his drawings.Ja: リナは元気いっぱい。そして、いつもみんなを引っ張っていくタイプです。En: Rina is full of energy and always takes the lead.Ja: 彼女の性格が理由で、他の人の意見があまり聞かれないこともあります。En: Due to her personality, other people's opinions sometimes go unheard.Ja: でもリナは学校祭を成功させたいと心から思っています。En: However, she genuinely wants the school festival to be a success.Ja: そして、ハルト。En: Then there's Haruto.Ja: 彼は静かで思慮深く、直樹とリナの間に立って調整するのが得意です。En: He is quiet and thoughtful and is skilled at mediating between Naoki and Rina.Ja: 彼はみんなが協力し合えるようにしたいと考えています。En: He wants everyone to be able to cooperate.Ja: ある日、みんなが集まって学校祭の計画を話し合いました。En: One day, everyone gathered to discuss plans for the school festival.Ja: 教室の隅で、直樹は自分のアイデアについて考え込んでいました。En: In the corner of the classroom, Naoki was deep in thought about his ideas.Ja: その時、リナが大きな声でプランを発表し始めました。「こうして、こうするのがいいと思う！」En: Just then, Rina started loudly presenting her plan. "I think we should do it like this!"Ja: 直樹は心の中で葛藤していました。「どうしよう…自分のアイデアを言うべきかな。でも、リナが反対するかもしれない。」En: Naoki was conflicted inside. "What should I do... Should I share my idea? But Rina might oppose it."Ja: その時、ハルトが優しく直樹に声をかけました。「直樹、何か考えがある？みんなに教えてくれる？」En: At that moment, Haruto gently spoke to Naoki. "Naoki, do you have any ideas? Could you share them with everyone?"Ja: ハルトのおかげで、直樹は少し自信を持ちました。En: Thanks to Haruto, Naoki gained a little confidence.Ja: 「実は僕の絵で学校祭の入り口をもっと飾りたいんだ。こんな感じに。」直樹は自分のスケッチを見せました。En: "Actually, I'd like to decorate the entrance of the festival more with my drawings. Like this." Naoki showed his sketch.Ja: それは鮮やかで独特なデザインでした。En: It was a vivid and unique design.Ja: リナはしばらく黙って考えました。En: Rina was silent for a moment, pondering.Ja: そして微笑んで言いました。「それ、いいね！とても素敵なアイデアだね。」En: Then she smiled and said, "That's great! It's a wonderful idea."Ja: リナは直樹のアイデアを認めました。「みんなで協力して、それを実現しよう！」En: Rina acknowledged Naoki's idea. "Let's all work together to make it happen!"Ja: 直樹はとても嬉しくなりました。En: Naoki was very delighted.Ja: リナも、みんなの意見を聞くことの大切さを学びました。En: Rina also learned the importance of listening to everyone's opinions.Ja: 最終的に、学校祭は成功し、みんなで力を合わせた結果でした。En: In the end, the school festival was a success, a result of everyone's combined efforts.Ja: この経験を通して、直樹は自分の考えを自信を持って表現することができるようになり、リナは他の人の意見を聞くことの重要性を学びました。En: Through this experience, Naoki learned to express his ideas with confidence, and Rina learned the value of listening to others' opinions.Ja: そして、ハルトはみんなの架け橋として重要な役割を果たしました。En: Haruto played a crucial role as a bridge between everyone.Ja: 学校は笑顔と共に、新しい季節へと進んでいきました。En: The school moved forward into a new season, filled with smiles. Vocabulary Words:reserved: 控えめmediating: 調整するsweating: 汗をかくdelighted: 嬉しくなるpondering: 考え込むdecorate: 飾るentrance: 入り口conflicted: 葛藤しているacknowledged: 認めるunique: 独特vivid: 鮮やかcrucial: 重要なopposing: 反対するgained: 持つconfidence: 自信genuinely: 心からthoughtful: 思慮深いcorner: 隅sketch: スケッチseason: 季節success: 成功combined: 力を合わせたexperience: 経験cooperate: 協力し合うopposed: 反対するimportance: 重要性bridge: 架け橋energy: 元気filled: いっぱいopinions: 意見

durée : 01:25:58 - Blockbusters - Avec une carrière qui s'étale bientôt sur 4 décennies, le dessinateur Naoki Urasawa a vendu plus d'une centaine de millions d'exemplaires de ses mangas sur la surface du globe. Analyse d'un monument de l'animation japonaise. - invités : Naoki URASAWA, Alexis Orsini, Matthieu Pinon, Olivier Bénis - Naoki Urasawa : Dessinateur et scénariste japonais de manga, Alexis Orsini : Journaliste, Matthieu Pinon : Journaliste spécialisé en pop-culture japonaise, rédacteur en chef du magazine Otaku Manga, Olivier Bénis : Journaliste à la rédaction numérique de France Inter - réalisé par : Paul Laporte

durée : 01:25:58 - Blockbusters - Avec une carrière qui s'étale bientôt sur 4 décennies, le dessinateur Naoki Urasawa a vendu plus d'une centaine de millions d'exemplaires de ses mangas sur la surface du globe. Analyse d'un monument de l'animation japonaise. - invités : Naoki URASAWA, Alexis Orsini, Matthieu Pinon, Olivier Bénis - Naoki Urasawa : Dessinateur et scénariste japonais de manga, Alexis Orsini : Journaliste, Matthieu Pinon : Journaliste spécialisé en pop-culture japonaise, rédacteur en chef du magazine Otaku Manga, Olivier Bénis : Journaliste à la rédaction numérique de France Inter - réalisé par : Paul Laporte

Bright on Buddhism - Asian Religions Series - Shintō Part 2 Hello and welcome to the Asian religions series. In this series, we will be discussing religious traditions in Asia other than Buddhism. Buddhism never existed in a vacuum, and as it has spread all across East Asia, it has developed, localized, and syncretized with local traditions in fascinating and significant ways. As such, we cannot provide a complete picture of East Asian without discussing those local traditions such as they were and are. Disclaimer: this series is very basic and introductory, and does not and cannot paint a complete picture of these religious traditions as they are in the present or throughout history. Today, we will be discussing Shintō, a very historically and culturally significant religious tradition in Japan. We hope you enjoy Resources: Azegami, Naoki (2012). Translated by Mark Teeuwen. "Local Shrines and the Creation of 'State Shinto'". Religion. 42 (1): 63–85. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2012.641806. S2CID 219597745.; Bocking, Brian (1997). A Popular Dictionary of Shinto (revised ed.). Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 978-0-7007-1051-5.; Boyd, James W.; Williams, Ron G. (2005). "Japanese Shinto: An Interpretation of a Priestly Perspective". Philosophy East and West. 55 (1): 33–63. doi:10.1353/pew.2004.0039. S2CID 144550475.; Breen, John; Teeuwen, Mark (2010). A New History of Shinto. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5515-1.; Cali, Joseph; Dougill, John (2013). Shinto Shrines: A Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japan's Ancient Religion. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3713-6.; Earhart, H. Byron (2004). Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity (fourth ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-534-17694-5.; Hardacre, Helen (2017). Shinto: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-062171-1.; Kenney, Elizabeth (2000). "Shinto Funerals in the Edo Period". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 27 (3/4): 239–271. JSTOR 30233666.; Kitagawa, Joseph M. (1987). On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-10229-0. ;Kuroda, Toshio (1981). Translated by James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay. "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion". Journal of Japanese Studies. 7 (1): 1–21. doi:10.2307/132163. JSTOR 132163; Inoue, Nobutaka (2003). "Introduction: What is Shinto?". In Nobutaka Inoue (ed.). Shinto: A Short History. Translated by Mark Teeuwan and John Breen. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 1–10. ISBN 978-0-415-31913-3. Littleton, C. Scott (2002). Shinto: Origins, Rituals, Festivals, Spirits, Sacred Places. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-521886-2. OCLC 49664424.; Offner, Clark B. (1979). "Shinto". In Norman Anderson (ed.). The World's Religions (fourth ed.). Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press. pp. 191–218.; Picken, Stuart D. B. (1994). Essentials of Shinto: An Analytical Guide to Principal Teachings. Westport and London: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-26431-3.; Picken, Stuart D. B. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Shinto (second ed.). Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7172-4.; Williams, George; Bhar, Ann Marie B.; Marty, Martin E. (2004). Shinto (Religions of the World). Chelsea House. ISBN 978-0-7910-8097-9. Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by tweeting to us @BrightBuddhism, emailing us at Bright.On.Buddhism@gmail.com, or joining us on our discord server, Hidden Sangha ⁠⁠https://discord.gg/tEwcVpu⁠⁠! Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host

Yukio Mishima, cuyo verdadero nombre era Kimitake Hiraoka, nació en 1925 y es una de las figuras literarias más destacadas de Japón del siglo XX. Desde joven, Mishima desarrolló un profundo interés por la literatura y el teatro, influenciado por autores europeos como Jean Cocteau, Oscar Wilde y Friedrich Nietzsche, así como por los clásicos japoneses . Mishima se adentró en el mundo literario bajo su famoso pseudónimo para evadir la desaprobación paterna, publicando su primera obra en 1944. Su novela "Confesiones de una Máscara" de 1949, es un relato semi-autobiográfico que explora la vida de un joven homosexual en la posguerra japonesa, mostrando la lucha por encajar en una sociedad que no acepta su orientación sexual . Además de su prolífica carrera literaria, Mishima fue conocido por su fuerte nacionalismo y por sus esfuerzos por preservar el Japón tradicional frente a la occidentalización posbélica. Esto lo llevó a formar un ejército privado en 1968, conocido como Tate no Kai (Sociedad del Escudo), con el cual intentó un golpe de estado en 1970 para restaurar el poder imperial, culminando en su suicidio ritual siguiendo la tradición samurái del seppuku . A pesar de sus tendencias conservadoras y su matrimonio con Yoko Sugiyama, con quien tuvo dos hijos, Mishima tuvo relaciones homosexuales a lo largo de su vida. Esto es especialmente relevante dado que la homosexualidad en Japón durante su tiempo era un tema tabú, y el mantenimiento de la apariencia pública era crucial, como evidencian los esfuerzos de su esposa por censurar cualquier discusión pública sobre su orientación sexual tras su muerte . Ahora varias cositas, amigos. Primero, las biografías que no os debéis perder de Mishima: 1. Stokes, Henry Scott. "The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974. 2. Nathan, John. "Mishima: A Biography". Little, Brown and Company, 1974. 3. Inose, Naoki, and Hiroaki Sato. "Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima". Stone Bridge Press, 2012. 4. Yourcenar, Marguerite. "Mishima: A Vision of the Void". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981. Segundo, la playlist de esta semana: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2nu9PcQVYwC3Dpf4ZV9Xpy?si=72ce1c6cc8ce42cd Y, para terminar, el vínculo a la entrevista en Página|12: https://www.pagina12.com.ar/736006-entrevista-a-alvaro-j-sanjuan-creador-del-podcast-grandes-ma

In Season 3 Episode 15 of Teed Up, the hosts Matthew Gomez and Naoki Gima sit down to answer questions asked by their fellow Daily Forty-Niner staff members. The hosts Naoki and Matty take a step back to reflect on their time hosting Teed Up so far and go on to name their favorite moments and guests during a mailbag episode. The hosts polled questions from the Daily Forty-Niner editorial and multimedia staff to give the people the answers to life's most mind-bending questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" and "What's your favorite sports anime?" Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew GomezEditor: Aidan SwanepoelProducers: El Nicklin, Aidan SwanepoelLike, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

It's time to examine Naoki Urasawa's Manben! We'll be diving into the episode on Wataru Watanabe and discussing his signature series, Yowamushi Pedal! We also talk about Anime Boston, Rascal Does Not Dream, Ore Yori Yowai Yatsu ni Ai ni Iku, and more!!! Send us emails! mangamachinations@gmail.com  Follow us on Twitter! @mangamacpodcast Check out our website! https://mangamachinations.com Check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/mangamactv Support us by buying us a Kofi! https://ko-fi.com/mangamac Timestamps: Intro - 00:00:00 Listener Email - 00:04:59 Anime Boston - 00:12:39 Rascal Does Not Dream - 00:16:47 Ore Yori Yowai Yatsu ni Ai ni Iku - 00:29:06 Hard Mode Ritou: Aogashima Ittekita - 00:34:07 Next Episode Preview - 00:41:13 Manben Neo: Wataru Watanabe - 00:43:16 Outro - 01:34:16 Songs Credits: “Galaxy Groove” by Yarin Primak “Slappy” by Ido Maimon “Whipped Cream” by Steven Beddall “Psychedelic Funkadelic” by Evert Z

Why Muslims in Japan Are Gowing | Dr. Naoki Yamamoto

They say the best businesses are built on the foundations of friendship, and that's exactly what Samuel Loo and Singchuen Chiam, childhood pals, prove with their journey from elementary school to dominating the matcha scene on Amazon. Their tale is not just about the green goodness of matcha but a story of two friends who took divergent paths—law and business—only to converge into a powerhouse duo. With Sam's sharp legal acumen and Sing's Alibaba experience finesse, they've brewed up Naoki Matcha, a brand that resonates with quality and customer delight, nurturing it from a side hustle to a multi-million dollar success. Our conversation steers through the meticulous craft of standing out in a saturated market, with Sam and Sing revealing their three-year grind to perfecting their matcha blend. They share the trials of juggling full-time jobs while planting the seeds for Naoki Matcha, a testament to their enduring patience and entrepreneurial spirit. Their business acumen shines as they discuss the potency of Amazon PPC in propelling their revenue growth, and the strategic decision to maintain a premium on their product—ensuring Naoki Matcha is not just another tea on the shelf, but a premium experience for the discerning consumer. As we wrap up, the future of Naoki Matcha gleams with potential, from its lean operational approach to its plans for product diversification and international expansion. Their story isn't just an inspiration for Amazon FBA sellers and matcha aficionados but to anyone with entrepreneurial dreams, demonstrating that with the right blend of passion and strategy, even the smallest idea can grow into a thriving E-commerce empire. Join us as we toast to the success of Sam and Sing, and keep an eye on your social media feeds—you might just catch the upcoming viral sensation of Bradley Sutton's matcha flan!   In episode 542 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Samuel, and Singchuen discuss: 00:00 - Childhood Friends Start Successful Matcha Business 08:35 - Exploring Opportunities With Macha Tea  11:33 - Journey to Success 14:50 - Product Growth From Gradual to Significant 20:46 - Brand Growth Through Market Analysis 21:26 - Strategic Growth of Naoki Matcha Brand 24:37 - Matcha Market Segmentation and Competition 28:56 - Success in their Amazon Business 30:15 - Amazon PPC Advertising Strategy Effectiveness 33:37 - Matcha Success Story and Plans For Future Growth ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we've got two childhood best friends from elementary school who linked up as adults and started a matcha Amazon business that now does millions of dollars a year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself, we have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we are going to the opposite side of the world today, to I believe they're in Singapore, and it's funny because the way they were introduced to me by Crystal and somebody else from Amazon she was like oh yeah, I want you to meet the Macha Bros, but I don't think that's their official name, so I'll let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves to our audience. This is the first time we'll be on the show   Sam: Sure. So my name is Sam and this is my business partner, Singchuen. We're not actually brothers, but we work together quite closely on a business that we started together. Our business is called Naoki matcha and, as the name suggests, we sell matcha green tea powder in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Singapore.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I've known you, of you or about you? I literally thought you guys were blood brothers entire time, not just because of that name, and so I've already learned something new. I literally thought, you guys were.   Sam: No, no. We get that a lot. We get that a lot.   Bradley Sutton: Brothers from other mothers.   Sam: Yes, I think we can go with that, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, hold on now. Let's you know like I already learned something new, so let's just take it. Take it way back, both of you born and raised in Singapore.   Sam and Singchuen: Yep.   Bradley Sutton: How did you guys meet? Did you meet like some story, like you met in university, or how did you guys meet each other?   Singchuen: Sam and I met oh, this is Singchuen, by the way, so I'm the business partner. Sam and I met in primary school, so we have known each other for quite a long time.   Bradley Sutton: So that is a good story, all right. And then you just went to that. You went to the same one, or? Or you just met in the neighborhood, or what?   Sam: We went to the same one and we actually were in the same school so like 10 years, and then our paths kind of diverged for a little while. But we reconnected in university because we were both interested in like business and entrepreneurship and I think that's how it kind of like reconnected and we started exploring different things and that's how we started working together again.   Bradley Sutton: What did both of you major in in university?   Singchuen: I studied business and Sam, he was actually a lawyer.   Sam: Yeah, I studied law at university.   Bradley Sutton: Upon graduation, did both of you guys go into that field that you had studied law and business?   Singchuen: I guess in a sense that because we started a business, business would be quite relevant. But in that in another, in another complete sense, it wasn't really that relevant because the things that you studied in school were geared to get you a role in a company, so it wasn't very practical. But the concepts, they were useful.   Sam: Yeah, so after graduation I did practice law for like a couple of years and then, while doing this business, and then at the end of the two years, I realized that, like you know there was I had two opportunities and like this one kind of showed itself to be a bit more, have more potential, so I left the law and I went into e-commerce.   Bradley Sutton: Who discovered e-commerce first? Was it you, Sam?   Sam: Yeah. So I think I really found out about this opportunity on Amazon and FBA the ability to like sell in another country that is not yours. I think back in like 2015-2016 this is like early days, right but at that point in time I was still like a university student at Seoul 6th year, so we really didn't have like the kind of resources that we needed to really tackle this, this, this opportunity, right. So we spent some time like learning about how to approach it and we only really launched it like late 2016 and from then we went on our careers. We kind of like grew it slowly along the way and then after a few years, we realized that okay, the time is right, this is a good time to go all in.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. So in 2016 you guys had reconnecting, like, hey, let's do something together while still having day jobs at that time.   Singchuen: Yeah, exactly, Sam was a lawyer. I actually worked in e-commerce as well. I worked in Alibaba for quite a number of years, so it helped that I could bring a certain kind of context to how the Amazon platform worked, and so we decided to start this sort of like to see where this would be going, because it was exciting, it was an opportunity and we always wanted to have our own business. So that was sort of like the paradigm in which we started off on.   Bradley Sutton: And so at the time in 2016, when you first just started dabbling in e-commerce, it sounds like you weren't all in. Was it matcha that you got into? Was that your first thing, or was it other things?   Sam: Yeah, so when we first started, we started, as most people do, with like a search query on Alibaba.com. The first products we actually sold were like these glass teapots, so we realized that they were not too bad to sell. Actually, we reached like five figures in multi-revenue by like within a year, but we met the same problems that I think a lot of people encounter, which is that after a while, people see that you're somewhat successful and then they'll try to launch a complicated product and therefore, when we found that happened to us and we found it very difficult to grow, so we really were like scratching our heads to think about like what other types of products or categories that we could do, and that's why we landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, so when you landed on matcha, were you still working your day jobs, or by that time you were all in on Amazon already?   Sam: No, we were still working out day jobs because for matcha category and the grocery category we found that, like you know, it's not so much of like a quick win kind of situation. You need to invest the time and energy and you need to have quite a lot of patience before your results actually bear fruit, and for us that took actually a number of years because you need to kind of like build your credibility and gain experience in what you're selling as well.   Bradley Sutton: Are we still talking 2016? Are we already now in 2017 in the timeline, or where are we at when you guys decided matcha?   Sam: Right. So in 2016, we dabbled in matcha and then we spent the next two years essentially trying to improve the product and better understand the category and the product market fit as it is in the US, and we took like a couple of years to do that properly, and I think it was only about 2020, you know, right after COVID hit, when we realized that, okay, the product is good, we have a good product that can stand up against the other competitors in the space, and you're going to go all in and grow this thing.   Singchuen: On the side of this, because our matcha green tea is from Japan and there was a requirement I want to say it's a hard requirement, but there is an understanding that in order to get the good product in Japan, especially from suppliers, you kind of need to cultivate the relationship a little bit and take some time for them to trust you. And so it's not as though, as we didn't want the best product right in 2016. Number one it's not. It's a learning process, right, especially when what the market is telling you of a certain kind of taste that they prefer. But it's also bringing back those requirements to the suppliers and the factories to let them know this is the taste that we want and, barring communication barriers, there's still that they need to feel, feel each other out to exactly ascertain what we're looking for. And that took quite a bit more time than what you would be doing on Alibaba.   Bradley Sutton: That's what has been curious. This is not something you would just like find on Alibaba. So where did the like, how did you guys land on matcha? Was it something you guys just liked? Was it because you were doing tea cups and you just like it was a side thing? Like how in the world? Or did you find it in Helium 10? Or how in the world did you say you know what? I think there's opportunity in matcha. Let's go ahead and examine this further.   Singchuen: In Singapore, generally we are exposed to Japanese culture quite a little bit already, but more closely, I guess it's also because I liked green tea. So at the point of time I didn't drink a lot of matcha, but I knew about it. So we explored that as a potential item to try to sell and in a sense it checked all the other boxes as well right. Whether it is for the economics, the logistics, the business, fit, branding, pricing. And that's how we started off on like taking the first step.   Sam: I think also at that point in time this is like 2015, 2016, right, I think matcha was just beginning to get popular in the US. So, yeah, that's when I think the craze started, right. So I think we were also at like the right time in the right place and we realized that, you know, we could marry like our interests and the market opportunity in front of us, and that's how we really landed on matcha.   Bradley Sutton: I don't have any matcha shirts or anything, but you mentioned like Japanese culture. So I got my Astro Boy jacket here. I got my old school Japanese Tokyo Giants hat here. You know, I used to live in Japan when I was younger and and that was why you know, like matcha is not exactly a natural thing for an American person to like, but I kind of liked it. Before it was cool and now, now, like you said, it's just like booming. Everybody's like, hey, matcha, you know you can go to Starbucks and get matcha, this and you can get matcha, and you know non Asian markets, which before it was different. So that was, you know, a little bit of foresight. Now, when you first started with the matcha, you know you had said, until then you were doing dabbling in other things, were you profitable on the Amazon side? Or, up to that point, you still hadn't made profit in the first year or so of your Amazon business.   Singchuen: We tended to search for products that were more profitable on the first sale. So in that sense, the first products that we went to more like glass cups, g-ports, things like that they were already profitable. So it's not as though, as we were dabbling in things that were really difficult to do, low priced or otherwise.   Bradley Sutton: Your first matcha product that you launched? Was that the one that was successful, or did it take a couple of tries before things really started taking off?   Sam: Well, I think it is still the first product that we launched, but what we had to do was tweak the formulation over the years several times and each time we're trying to improve it and fine tune it to better suit, like the feedback that we were getting. So it is the same product, it looks the same, but they're always like tweaks over the years and this kind of like helps build that, I guess, average review score. That goes up because, like you know, you're getting closer to what people like with each iteration.   Bradley Sutton: To find that like perfect blend and everything. You kind of mentioned it and I know this about your history. So can you talk a little bit about, like we just said, this wasn't something. Oh, let me find something in Alibaba, let me just put my sticker on it. How did you look for I don't even want to call it factories, but producers of matcha in Japan like we said, it's not on Alibaba and then talk about the long process of? Actually, I believe you would fly to Japan and meet different places and try things. Talk about that long process how long did it take and what were the steps involved in that.   Singchuen: At the start, we asked for samples from willing factories and once we tasted them and we realized that this was something that could be in a ball pack of what's considered as good tasting to the market, we would ask the supplier whether they are willing to sell us a certain volume of matcha. So there are several factories in Japan that do just green tea, and their idea was sort of branch out to selling matcha as well, because there was where the growing market was, and these were the factories that were more suitable for us to go into, and once we spoke to them their experience with matcha may not be the best at the point of time, mind you, but they were willing to work with us and over a period of time, once we let them know exactly what we're looking for and they were willing to tweak to our preferences, that's when we got a good fit and from then, as our volume started going up, more and more, various factories started.   Bradley Sutton: Until that part, though. How long was that? Were we talking a month? Were we talking multiple months?   Singchuen: No, that actually took quite a long time. I think about three years at least so around 2016 to 2019,. On the marketing side, Sam was trying to define a market fit, but on the supply side, we were just trying to make sure that factories produce what we needed and the trust and formulation. That takes a while.   Bradley Sutton: How can somebody have that kind of patience? That's very rare, not just in matcha industry, but just Amazon or business industry to have that kind of patience to you know to like, hey, I'm spending two or three years to get this right. Like, is that just in your nature or what's going on there?   Singchuen: To be fair, I think we were not so much in a hurry, just to share a little bit. Personally, it's a little bit more of we always wanted to get a business eventually, but the timeline wasn't so important. We weren't in a rush. Sam, as Sam has mentioned just now, both of us had decent careers, so we were optimizing on that front as well and we're happy to wait.   Bradley Sutton: Like you said, you still had your day jobs, you know, for a time. So it wasn't like you know, like you were about to go out of business and I think that's important. You know, like people sometimes just like, all right, I'm going to quit my job before they even have like a viable business and that's what you know. That's not going to allow somebody to have the patience. That's interesting. Now, at what point in this three years did you finally have like a product just start taking off? And was it just random, like it was just one day that it started going viral and never looked back? Or was this something where it was like, all right, you know, over a few months you were selling 10 units a day, then 15 units, then 20, was it a gradual thing? Or when did what? Was that moment where it's like, oh shoot, we got this right and this is going to take off.   Sam: Yeah, I think it was really like a gradual process. But that point for us, I think, when the old shoot moment, I think, was when we realized that, like the monthly sales for this Macha product alone was quite significant and this was enough to basically sustain ourselves, number one and number two provide a good base and recurring cash flow to kind of grow the business from there. Yeah, and this was really about, like you know, as I said, 2020, mid 2020, early to mid 2020, after COVID started, where we realized that, hey, this thing has snowballed into something quite significant. So it was really a gradual process.   Bradley Sutton: If you can recall either of you, what was your sales the year before, in 2019, when you were still just dabbling in Macha and maybe still had some of the other products?   Sam: I would say that it was like maybe like six figures a year, low six figures a year, and then, okay, yeah, we was at that point in time. We were, we were often optimistic about, about close to doubling each year. So that was, that was where we were at.   Bradley Sutton: And then. So at that point, obviously still working full time jobs. And then it was at 2020, when it took off, and then you quit in 2020, your jobs or you still, even though it started taking off, you still were working your full time.   Sam: I wouldn't say it took off right. It was just at that point in time with, like, the good momentum that like we know that there's some something to stand on. So that was when we decided, okay, time to go all in. And then we know that the product was ready. And then we started doubling down on marketing in order to kind of know that, you know, this optimized product is available to everyone. And then that's how we kind of grew from there.   Bradley Sutton: What kind of marketing? I mean, obviously Amazon PPC is part of it. Was that it or other things as well?   Sam: So we did try a bunch of things at first, but by the late by late 2020, we realized that Amazon advertising PPC mainly is that engine that's going to give us the growth for the next few years, because we realized that, like on a cost acquisition basis, like you just can't beat it.   Bradley Sutton: You said 2019, low six figures. What about 2020, that your first really good year. What did you end approximately with?   Sam: I think we were just under seven.   Bradley Sutton: And then how about 2021?   Sam: Yes, somewhere, seven.   Bradley Sutton: All right. So now it's like you guys knew you had something. It wasn't just a fluke, you know. You had some consistency. Do you mind if I show your product on screen right now? For those watching this on YouTube?   Sam: Oh yeah, go ahead.   Bradley Sutton: So let me pull it up here. Was this variation family here of the superior ceremonial blend it says here, was this like your first product that you got into?   Sam: Yes, it was.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now I'm looking. Now it's like you know, according to Amazon, according to Helium 10, you are selling throughout this variation family here, thousands of units, multiple six figures per month, just with this, with this fam variation family. So this is the one that is your, your big seller. So I mean, if I'm looking at these numbers correctly, unless this is just a very nice month here, you're like what in the you know mid seven figures now, or higher?   Sam: I think that's fantastic yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay and explain this product. You know there's a lot I like matcha. I understand it, but there's a lot of people who might like think like what? Like? Do you just like dump this in tea or do you actually use it to cook something? Like what? Like? How in the world are you selling almost 10,000 units of this a month? Like, what are the people buying this to use?   Sam: Right, I think the way to look at this product is that it's a form of tea and in Japan it's enjoyed as a form of tea. Now in America it's usually enjoyed in a, in a form of a latte. So imagine you have a tea and then I think in some parts of the US, like milk tea is popular, right. So in the same way you can add milk to matcha and then you get a Matcha Latte. So because people find that coffee is not working for them for various reasons whether like they feel, like you know, nervous or anxiety after that they try to find something else, right. So matcha kind of ticks all the boxes because it's got a little bit of caffeine, so you don't feel that like that anxiety that you get with coffee sometimes, and also there are like amino acids inside that help you stay alert for a longer time. So that was kind of like the health food appeal of matcha. But that's, I think, why it got popular and that's why people drink it. So we also wanted to kind of share a bit of that Japanese heritage of matcha in our product, which is why it looks the way it does, because in Japan actually the traditional way of preparing it is to take like a teaspoon of the powder, add some water and then whisk it up with this bamboo whisk until it becomes like nice and froth.   Bradley Sutton: I see that here in your A plus, your premium A plus content, so I can see a little bit of that here. You're telling that story. Really great branding here, I like that.   Sam: So they whip it up into like this frothy little mixture and I guess if you could kind of relate it back to coffee culture, I would say like it's like a Matcha Americano. That's the way that they would drink it and that's the main way it's consumed in Japan.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now you've got just a beautiful listing here. You know, looks like premium A plus content. You're educating people here. You have a frequently asked questions, and then obviously you've got some great pictures here where you've got infographics. You've got, you know, like kind of like a history lesson of matcha. You have pictures of it. I mean what else? Like you even show the origin. I think I saw somewhere there's like different cities where this comes from. Where is that here, here? It is here Like you're like oh hey, this one is from Kyoto, this one's from Fukuoka. You have the city. So like I'm assuming that I mean, did you start this from like day one such in depth like information here, or is this just gradually how you were able to kind of hone your branding?   Sam: I think we didn't know that it would take this form at the very start. We knew that, like you know, instinctively this is the branding angle that we want to work with. But as we grew with time we know we were reacting to what's happening in the market right and how we need to kind of distinguish our brand and our product from other people and to make sure that, even though, like, they like the product but they need to have like some visual reference to kind of like make that association, to know that like, oh okay, this is now Kimatcha and I like now Kimatcha.   Bradley Sutton: You know what I'm going to check something. Hold on, let me see, I'm actually gonna run Cerebro on one of your products. I'm curious, you know you mentioned, hey, people are actually searching for Naoki Matcha. I'm just curious, like, what kind of brand recognition you have. So I'm just running Cerebro on here on our YouTube and podcast version. We'll speed this up. Let's see here, because I have a feeling, you know you've been selling for a while now and you're doing so well that there are literally people who just search for your brand name. So let's take a look at how many people are searching for your brand name here. Hold on, all right, here in Cerebro I'm gonna put phrases containing Naoki and let's apply that filter and wow, there's 45 different keywords that have Naoki in it and with thousands of search volume a month. So people like know your brand. You know just Naoki Matcha by itself has 1200 search volume and there's 45 other versions that people are actually searching for. So I mean that's kind of like what the goal is. When you're selling on Amazon, hey, sure you want people to buy you on the generic searches, like you know, Matcha Tea or Matcha Powder or something. But you know you've kind of made it when there's actually search volume for your brand.   Bradley Sutton: You guys are getting, you know, using expensive you know matcha directly from the source in Japan. You know I'm sure there maybe are some competitors going like a cheaper route. Or maybe you know, like I'm just looking here in the search for Matcha Tea and I even see you know listings that are like $9, you know $9.95. And you guys are at like $40, $39. I see some that are, well, that's a different product, but like $7, you know $15. How can you guys stay at around the top? Like I'm looking at the BSR, you're like one of the top three in the whole Matcha category. Like some people think, oh, I have to. You know, like if cheaper sources come on, I'm just going to have to try and price match and then you know race to the bottom and I like to tell people no, no, no, there's ways to still succeed even at a higher price point. What's your guys secret where you can stay at this $40 price point and still make a lot of sales despite these cheaper alternatives coming into the market?   Sam: Well, I think it's all about getting people to try it once. And once the person tries it once, right, and then they compare it to like the cheaper one that they bought before they realize, like you know, the difference is like night and day, right. So what we want to do is to make sure that they realize that they're getting like a good price for this level of quality, and once that kind of barrier is unlocked and then they realize that, hey, actually, if I pay $25 for one ounce, right, I'm getting a lot more value if I'm paying $40 for like 3.5 ounces, so the $40 one actually becomes like a good idea, even though, like it's like four times whatever is available on. You know the results when you search for matcha.   Singchuen: Just to add on to that, the cheaper matcha products are by nature of how it's grown and how it's produced. It tastes incredibly different from how matcha products of a certain price level are like because of how much more expensive it is to produce. So matcha is actually in quite a bit of a supply crunch and so there is actually not that much matcha supply to go around at the higher quality price range. In that sense, because it's so expensive, it's not possible to match the quality level if you're to go below the price. So the market kind of like segmented itself in a way. So we, as Sam has just mentioned just now, as long as we are sort of value for the price that we are offering, it's good enough for us and that's how we managed to stay above the competition. If you notice that there are other competitors that are also doing well with high BSR and they are similarly high priced. But once you do the math you realize that in addition to our better tasting product our price per gram, if you want to put it that way it's still much better than our competitors.   Sam: It's pretty competitive still.   Bradley Sutton: What's the future hold? Now you actually have Naoki Matcha in the brand name. So if you just stay with this brand, you're kind of I don't want to say limited, but it's not like you can start selling something completely off the wall under this brand, like do you have are there still enough new kinds of variations and blends that you can come up with to keep this brand going? Or have you considered, like maybe we should start something completely different, like I start a new brand? Or what's your goal for growing the business?   Sam: Right. I think for this brand there's still some room for growth, because actually so far we haven't touched the whole products that deal with, like matcha accessories. We're just starting that this year and also there are different grades of matcha right. So honestly, we are really at like that middle to high kind of grade, but we haven't really touched the other grade so far. So those are kind of like the growth opportunities that are available to us, yeah, but of course, once we hit there's a ceiling for category, once we hit that, yeah, I think you do have to choose another brand.   Bradley Sutton: Obviously, Amazon USA is your main market. Are you selling on other Amazon marketplaces? If so, which? And then also other marketplaces at all, like Walmart, Shopify or other websites?   Singchuen: We are in the UK. We're selling the exact same brand in the UK as well. It's sort of like an offshoot. We started it because some fans who have tasted it in America have gone back to the UK and so they are wondering why aren't you in the UK? So we decided to launch it over there as well, and so far the growth is okay, but not as high as in America, obviously, and in Singapore. We are on e-commerce platforms as well, and I'm not too sure we can confidently say this, but we are in the top few brands on those platforms selling decently well too.   Bradley Sutton: You know, talk about some specific strategies that you guys think have helped you get to where you are, because it's not just like I mean somebody could spend 10 years and develop like the most perfect, pure form of matcha known to mankind in history and it's meaningless, you know, without the strategy that is going to get it in front of people. So what are some of the things that set you apart from maybe the 10 other matcha people who maybe have started and gone out of business, you know, because they didn't have your strategy? What do you think set you apart from others?   Sam: Well, I think a handful of things. The first one is okay, so I think you can use. You can rely on Amazon PPC. You can look at your search term impression share reports. You can look at your keyword ranking and all that kind of stuff and that will help you in the short run. But honestly, the thing that really helped us the most was patience and making sure that your product is on a sensory level it's actually good and people like it. Once you have those two things covered, then you know you just need to get people to try to get them to tell their friends, and then, like people, their friends who are interested in matcha will buy, and then they are buying again and then this whole thing kind of grows by itself. Your PPC and all of these other tools that you have are really just like fuel that you add to this engine   Singchuen: And on the other side of things is obviously you kind of need to make sure that you treat your supplier well as well. Make sure that they understand what you're going through and make sure that you try to understand what they're going through. If language is a barrier, hire an interpreter, right, it's not too difficult. Decency goes both ways. So you may be pressed, but you got to recognize that the factories themselves, they, are pressed as well. So working together for compromise, understanding each other and not drawing too much, just to be a little bit more understanding towards each other, goes a long way. I think what tends to happen is that if you're not patient, as Sam has mentioned, you may cut off communications with factories that may help you in the future, and you don't want to do that.   Bradley Sutton: Now I'm looking, speaking of PPC, I'm looking at just what I see on Amazon and I see everything. I see sponsored product ASIN targeting campaigns right here on this one page I see you're targeting your own ASIN and sponsored display ad. I see sponsored brand ads in the search for Matcha tea. I saw sponsored brand video, regular sponsored products. So you guys are just like going all out with all the different kinds of PPC that Amazon provides. Any one of those, like you think, has performed better for you or gives you the best ROI, or is it kind of just kind of even across the board?   Sam: Well, I think at the start sponsored products perform very well, but as you get more and more ad types and different you know SV, SD, SP you mix that in. You have some DSP thrown in. The attribution for which ad actually did the sale for you gets a bit more tricky.   Bradley Sutton: That's true. That's true, yeah, because you know. But the good thing about that is you're just your top of mind because you're advertising everywhere you can. You know, like sure, maybe you don't know exactly what got the attribution, but the point is you have such a big share of voice you know, potentially, maybe compared to your competitors, that you're your top of mind for your, for your customers. Okay, so PPC is important for what's on Amazon. I'm sure you use Amazon data points as well. What about Helium 10? What's your favorite tool in Helium 10 and how has it helped you?   Sam: I think, honestly, the keyword coverage and Cerebro is still like my favorite tool. I've been using it since like 2017, when it first launched.   Singchuen: As you use, you search on Amazon and you search on other platforms take a look at how Helium 10's are like compared to others. You always use that. There's a certain sense that Helium 10's information is letting you after it. It's more of a sense. I can't really explain it, and then that really goes a long way, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Now for either of you. If there was something on your wish list for Helium 10, like, like something, maybe we don't do right now, you're like, wow, it would be so cool if Helium 10 could do this. Here's your chance to tell me what is on the matcha bros top wish list, for what Helium 10 can help now give matcha with?   Sam: Right. So I think my number one wish list would be cohort analytics. So if, for example, I can see in January how many new customers are acquired and how much, and how much of that repeat over the next 12, 24, 36 months, that would be awesome. I don't think there's none of the big analytics platforms do this. There are some specialized ones that do it that we subscribe to, but they're expensive and I'm pretty sure that you guys can do a better job.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now my last question is just, you know, you guys have reached this level of success, selling millions of dollars. Obviously you two are working together. How many people total does it take to run the Naoki Matcha machine? You know like, are you guys doing 100% of the work? Do you have virtual assistants? Do you have, you know, in Singapore staff? How many people does it take to run your business?   Singchuen: Right now we are actually quite an entity, Sam, as I'm sure you can tell from this conversation. Sam does most of the marketing and I do more of the supply side operations kind of activities. So in total we have about five people running the entire business.   Bradley Sutton: Well, this has been very enlightening. I've you know, despite knowing about you guys, almost 95% of this I think was completely new information to me and obviously new to our audience. It's great to see this success story. I love matcha, so I'm going to have to purchase your, your product, and make some. I'll be your influencer. Make some matcha, some kind of matcha. Let's see I'm going to. I wanted to make a matcha flan flan like a. I don't know if you guys know what that is. That's like a Mexican dish. So that's, I'm going to make something and then it's going to go viral on TikTok and make you guys another few million dollars just for me.   Singchuen: Thank you for your support.   Bradley Sutton: You could take me out to dinner   Sam: Yeah. Thank you and looking forward to that.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much for coming on, and let's have you guys back on the podcast in 2025 and let's see how you guys have grown at that time.  

Dans l'arrière-salle d'un hôtel parisien battu par la pluie de novembre nous attendent deux générations de développeurs japonais. En blazer et chemise rayée, le producteur Yoshinori Kitase, qui approche la soixantaine. Calme et posé, il est devenu une des légendes de Square Enix en réalisant un des plus éclatants succès de la firme à la fin des années 90, alors qu'il effectuait ses premiers pas en solo au poste de réalisateur sur Final Fantasy VII. C'est lui qui a confié l'un des remakes les plus attendus du jeu vidéo au volubile quadra qui se tient à ses côtés. En baskets et sweat-shirt pétants, Naoki Hamaguchi ne semble pas angoissé par le destin du paquebot à plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars dont il a la charge. Très bien accueilli, le premier volet conforte le duo dans leurs choix. Quand le jeune plaide pour la tradition, l'autre encourage la révolution.Un entretien réalisé par Patrick Hellio et Marius Chapuis.Pour commenter cette émission, donner votre avis ou simplement discuter avec notre communauté, connectez-vous au serveur Discord de Silence on joue!Soutenez Silence on joue en vous abonnant à Libération avec notre offre spéciale à 6€ par mois : https://offre.liberation.fr/soj/CRÉDITSCet entretien a été enregistrée le 6 novembre 2023 sur Discord. Réalisation : Erwan Cario. Générique : Marc Quatrociocchi Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

In Season 3 Episode 3 of Teed Up, the hosts Matthew Gomez and Naoki Gima bring in the hosts of 22 West Media's "Going for Two," Jerry Reynoso and Matthew Dickson, to talk some of the major headlines going into Super Bowl LVIII in the NFL. Naoki and Matty sit down with Jerry and Matthew to talk about the conference championships that happened in the National Football League. The boys talk about some of the narratives surrounding the Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers' win over the Detroit Lions as well as Taylor Swift's recent impact on the NFL. The boys also get into Ravens' quarterback Lamar Jackson's underwhelming performance, the Lions' chances to come back to the championship game and Taylor Swift being used as a mouthpiece for U.S. President Joe Biden. The group also discusses their predictions for the Super Bowl LVIII matchup between the Chiefs and the 49ers. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew GomezGuests: Jerry Reynoso, Matthew DicksonEditor: Aidan SwanepoelProducers: El Nicklin, Aidan SwanepoelLike, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

Bright on Buddhism - Asian Religions Series - Shintō Part 1 Hello and welcome to the Asian religions series. In this series, we will be discussing religious traditions in Asia other than Buddhism. Buddhism never existed in a vacuum, and as it has spread all across East Asia, it has developed, localized, and syncretized with local traditions in fascinating and significant ways. As such, we cannot provide a complete picture of East Asian without discussing those local traditions such as they were and are. Disclaimer: this series is very basic and introductory, and does not and cannot paint a complete picture of these religious traditions as they are in the present or throughout history. Today, we will be discussing Shintō, a very historically and culturally significant religious tradition in Japan. We hope you enjoy. Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by tweeting to us @BrightBuddhism, emailing us at Bright.On.Buddhism@gmail.com, or joining us on our discord server, Hidden Sangha ⁠https://discord.gg/tEwcVpu⁠! Resources: Azegami, Naoki (2012). Translated by Mark Teeuwen. "Local Shrines and the Creation of 'State Shinto'". Religion. 42 (1): 63–85. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2012.641806. S2CID 219597745.; Bocking, Brian (1997). A Popular Dictionary of Shinto (revised ed.). Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 978-0-7007-1051-5.; Boyd, James W.; Williams, Ron G. (2005). "Japanese Shinto: An Interpretation of a Priestly Perspective". Philosophy East and West. 55 (1): 33–63. doi:10.1353/pew.2004.0039. S2CID 144550475.; Breen, John; Teeuwen, Mark (2010). A New History of Shinto. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5515-1.; Cali, Joseph; Dougill, John (2013). Shinto Shrines: A Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japan's Ancient Religion. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3713-6.; Earhart, H. Byron (2004). Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity (fourth ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-534-17694-5.; Hardacre, Helen (2017). Shinto: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-062171-1.; Kenney, Elizabeth (2000). "Shinto Funerals in the Edo Period". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 27 (3/4): 239–271. JSTOR 30233666.; Kitagawa, Joseph M. (1987). On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-10229-0. ;Kuroda, Toshio (1981). Translated by James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay. "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion". Journal of Japanese Studies. 7 (1): 1–21. doi:10.2307/132163. JSTOR 132163; Inoue, Nobutaka (2003). "Introduction: What is Shinto?". In Nobutaka Inoue (ed.). Shinto: A Short History. Translated by Mark Teeuwan and John Breen. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 1–10. ISBN 978-0-415-31913-3. Littleton, C. Scott (2002). Shinto: Origins, Rituals, Festivals, Spirits, Sacred Places. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-521886-2. OCLC 49664424.; Offner, Clark B. (1979). "Shinto". In Norman Anderson (ed.). The World's Religions (fourth ed.). Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press. pp. 191–218.; Picken, Stuart D. B. (1994). Essentials of Shinto: An Analytical Guide to Principal Teachings. Westport and London: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-26431-3.; Picken, Stuart D. B. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Shinto (second ed.). Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7172-4.; Williams, George; Bhar, Ann Marie B.; Marty, Martin E. (2004). Shinto (Religions of the World). Chelsea House. ISBN 978-0-7910-8097-9. Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brightonbuddhism/message

 みんな！ ひさしぶり！ Long time no see!!!! Naoki, Kevins bestfriend/roommate is going back to Japan in 10 hours and it's the first of January in 2024!!!! あけおめ

0:16:26 Synopses 0:30:50 Chapter 29 discussion 1:32:02 Chapter 30 discussion 2:02:14 Chapter 31 discussion 2:22:02 Chapter 32 discussion 2:48:08: Naoki discussion 3:16:51 Plugs and outro 3:22:09 Post-ED chat OP: "Drive a car" by Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her ED: "Touch my lips" by The Girl. Write into our Question Bucket at ghostdiverspod@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter! The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost) Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost) Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost) Export Audio Network: exportaud.io Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule! Content Warnings for the Discussion Rape Dissociative trauma attack Abusive relationships Manipulation and violence Sex and sexuality Pedophilia/child sex work/grooming Pregnancy/abortion/unwanted children Sexism, slut-shaming Suicide

In Season 2 Episode 13 of Teed Up, the hosts Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez sit down with Long Beach State Athletics marketing interns, Matthew Coleman and Ivan Abril, to discuss what life is like as interns for the athletics department. Ivan Abril helps create social media content for the LBSU Athletics marketing team. He records videos during games, practices and media days to help promote the sports teams on campus. One of his accomplishments was going viral for the Lena Silano bicycle kick video that was featured by ESPN and SportsCenter. Matthew Coleman assists with the in-game promotional activities for the marketing department. Half-time and time-outs are the prime times that Coleman is involved. He assists with the dunk contests that feature some younger fans, trivia competitions with fans competing against the athletes and other fun in-game activities. The hosts Naoki and Matthew get some insight as to what life is like as Beach Athletics interns and what the future holds for the guests as members of the department. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew GomezGuests: Matthew Coleman, Ivan AbrilEditor: Steven MatthewsProducers: El Nicklin, Aidan SwanepoelLike, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

Darfox is reunited with ALMOST all the crew. dakazu is still gone but Morgana and Seamus help Dar record a fun tangent filled podcast. With a great conversation about Daisuke Igarashi's Witches: The Complete Collection in the main segment. Send us emails! mangamachinations@gmail.com  Follow us on Twitter! @mangamacpodcast Check out our website! https://mangamachinations.com Check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/mangamactv Timestamps: Intro Song: “Are You Ready For Me Baby” by Funk Giraffe, Opening, Introductions - 00:00:00 Talk about decorating empty rooms and Metal Gear Solid 2 - 00:07:19 Whatchu Been Reading: Transition Song: “Funkymania” by The Original Orchestra, Morgana has been watching the classic horror film Nosferatu with her daughter - 00:15:28 Alan Wake 2 talk and the whole Remedy-verse - 00:27:00 Disco Elysium talk and the ramification of role-playing unsavory choices - 00:34:38 Pluto Anime Talk. Dar watched episode two - 00:39:33 Next Episode Preview and Rundown: One Shot - Until I Love Myself by Poppy Pesuyama - 00:45:18 Main Segment One Shot: Witches: The Complete Collection by Daisuke Igaraishi, Transition Song: “It's Over” by Generation Lost, we talk about the art and the type of magic these Witches use - 00:46:47 We talk about the depiction of women bodies and thematically how it shows their strengths and growth - 00:54:53 Seamus talks about how some of the ideas seem familiar after reading various 80s-90s British comics - 01:04:48 We talk about some of the similarities to the Robert Eggers film The VVitch - 01:10:24 Next Week's Topic: Until I Love Myself, Social Media Rundown, Sign Off Song: “Crazy for Your Love” by Orkas - 01:25:36

In Season 2 Episode 9 of Teed Up, the hosts Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez talk about the latest news in Long Beach State sports as well as some of the big headlines in professional sports. Following the victory of the Long Beach State women's soccer team against Hawaii on Thursday, Oct. 26, the women's team will begin the first round of the Big West Conference tournament against the University of California Irvine on Sunday. The hosts recap the season with the season performances of players such as Cherrie Cox, Elisa Laramie and other key standouts. With the UEFA Champions League group stages wrapping up, the hosts bring on guests Maher Basharahil and Naoki's younger brother Mateo Tamashiro to talk about the recent results as well as some of the upcoming fixtures. Halloween is around the corner, and the hosts celebrate the occasion by dressing up in costume and playing a draft of the best Halloween-themed player nicknames in the world of sports. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew GomezGuests: Maher Basharahil, Mateo TamashiroEditor: Steven MatthewsProducers: El Nicklin, Aidan SwanepoelLike, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

In Season 2 Episode 7 of Teed Up, the hosts Matthew Gomez and Naoki Gima go over recent results in Beach sports and discuss some of the major headlines in professional sports. Following the recent results from women's soccer and volleyball, Naoki and Matthew discuss some of the big performances from both teams. They also get into some of the weird statistics that are kept in professional and collegiate sports. On the professional sports side, the hosts talk about the recent results of the Major League Baseball divisional rounds, the hype surrounding Connor Bedard and Victor Wembanyama and some of the storylines that have come out in the midst of the National Basketball Association's preseason. On the third installation of the Teed Up trivia game, the 0-2 hosts Naoki and Matthew go head-to-head to see who the weakest link is between the pair. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew GomezEditor: Steven MatthewsProducers: El Nicklin, Aidan SwanepoelLike, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

In Season 2 Episode 4 of Teed Up, the hosts Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez get an exclusive interview with Long Beach State's new Executive Director of Athletics Bobby Smitheran to talk about his career journey and his experience at the Beach so far. Beach sports saw some dominant showings from women's soccer and women's volleyball this past week. The hosts talk about the soccer team's 5-1 win over Northern Colorado and the great performance in the Wildcat Classic by women's volleyball. Bobby Smitheran gave his thoughts on the atmosphere of the pyramid and expressed that he looks forward to attending more sporting events in the future. Naoki and Matthew also get an in-depth look at how Bobby Smitheran has settled in at the Beach since coming over from San Diego State. The hosts also delve into Smitheran's entire career up until this point and discuss what he looks forward to in this new chapter at the Beach. Continuing their questioning, Naoki and Matthew presented Smitheran with quick-fire questions and had him blindly rank his favorite ballpark foods. Smitheran also challenged the Teed Up hosts to a doubles pickleball game with Smitheran choosing Matthew as his partner and leaving Naoki to find a partner to take them on. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez, Bobby Smitheran Editor: Steven Matthews Producers: El Nicklin, Aidan Swanepoel Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

In this episode, Naoki Yamamoto, assistant professor in Turkic Studies at Marmara University sits with Hizer Mir to discuss Sufism and manga with an eye towards the possible development of an Islamicate manga. Manga is a quintessentially Japanese style of comics and graphic novels. Naoki is working towards an Islamicate version of manga in order to contribute to a growing global Islamicate culture.

In Season 2 Episode 3 of Teed Up, the hosts Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez bring on spotlight guests Zach Durham and Anthony Orrico to talk about some of the big headlines at Long Beach State and beyond. As the Major League Baseball season hits its final weeks and games, the hosts discuss some of the biggest narratives and headlines going into the home stretch. Ohtani's free agency, postseason predictions and the race for the top of the American League between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles are some of the big talking points in this episode. This episode also introduces a new segment to the show, Teed Up vs. the Field. In this segment, Naoki and Matthew take on the inaugural challengers Zach and Anthony in a baseball-themed trivia game to start the series off. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez, Anthony Orrico, Zach Durham Editor: Aidan Swanepoel Producers: El Nicklin, Aidan Swanepoel Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

durée : 01:25:57 - Blockbusters - par : Frédérick Sigrist - Avec une carrière qui s'étale bientôt sur 4 décennies, le dessinateur Naoki Urasawa a vendu plus d'une centaine de millions d'exemplaires de ses mangas sur la surface du globe. Analyse d'un monument de l'animation japonaise.

In season 2, episode 2 of Teed Up, the hosts Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez, Maya-Claire Glenn and Maher Basharahil get together and talk about the headlines in the realm of sports both at Long Beach State and in the professional world. On the Beach side of sports, the hosts talk about Cherrie Cox's return from injury and the tough loss against UCLA. The hosts also talk about the first-place victory for men's golf in the Ram Masters Invitational and plead for former Beach golfer Ian Gilligan to come back to the Beach. As the NFL regular season begins, the hosts analyze the Detroit Lions's season-opening upset over the defending Super Bowl Champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. The hosts also look at the games happening on Sunday, Sept. 10 and pick their favorite matchups. Kyler Murray's playing status for the season, Chandler Jones's situation with the Raiders and Nick Bosa's record-breaking contract with the 49ers are also discussed by the hosts. This episode also features the first-ever Teed Up fantasy football draft! Naoki and Matty went head-to-head against Maya-Claire and Maher to pick the best players in a league in a fantasy draft format. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez, Maher Basharahil, Maya-Claire Glenn Editor: Aidan Swanepoel Producers: El Nicklin, Aidan Swanepoel Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-49er-podcasts/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcastshttps://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 ⁠Overcasthttps://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/daily-49er-podcasts

We're celebrating 9 years of Manga Machinations by revisiting Pluto! We're joined by manga letterer Aidan Clarke to talk about all things Naoki Urasawa! We discuss Monster, Yawara!, Master Keaton, 20th Century Boys, and especially Billy Bat!!! Follow Aidan Clarke and support him on Ko-fi! Send us emails! mangamachinations@gmail.com  Follow us on Twitter! @mangamacpodcast Check out our website! https://mangamachinations.com Check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/mangamactv Timestamps: Intro Song: “Are You Ready For Me Baby” by Funk Giraffe, Opening, Introductions - 00:00:00 Darfox and Amber's review of Netflix's One Piece - 00:02:53 Support us on the Manga Machinations Ko-fi - 00:04:01 Aidan's manga and anime origins - 00:05:52 Aidan shares his love of Naoki Urasawa manga - 00:10:41 We deep dive into Billy Bat along with Naoki Urasawa's strengths and weaknesses - 00:16:25 Aidan talks about working as a manga letterer - 00:38:23 Next Episode Preview and Rundown: One Shot on Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man, We will review the 2 volume collection of Tatsuki Fujimoto's one shot works - 00:42:11 Main Segment Retrospective Redux: Pluto, Transition Song: “It's Over” by Generation Lost, We revisit Naoki Urasawa's adaptation of the classic Astro Boy story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" - 00:43:14 Thanking Aidan Clarke - 02:03:25 Reflecting on 9 years of Manga Machinations - 02:06:48 Next Week's Topic: Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man, Social Media Rundown, Sign Off Song: “Crazy for Your Love” by Orkas - 02:14:03

Dive into NANA! The Show: @ghostdiverspod (twitter) or @ghostdivers (cohost) Niamh: @FoxmomNia (twitter) or @foxmomnia (cohost) Connor: @rabbleais (twitter) or @rabbleais (cohost) Export Audio Network: exportaud.io Ghost Divers: exportaud.io/ghostdivers Pondering Pootan: exportaud.io/pootan Ornate Stairwells: exportaud.io/ornatestairwells Around the Long Fire: abnormalmapping.com/longfire Check out our official schedule at exportaud.io/divingschedule! Release Schedule [S14E1] Intro to NANA: September 1, 2023 [S14E2] NANA, Nana K. and Nana O. (vol. 1): September 15, 2023 [S14E3] NANA, chs. 1–6 (vols. 2 & 3): September 29, 2023 [S14E4] NANA, chs. 7–12 (vols. 3 & 4): October 13, 2023 [S14E5] NANA, chs. 13–18 (vols. 5 & 6): October 27, 2023 [S14E6] NANA, chs. 19–24 (vols. 6 & 7): November 10, 2023 [S14E7] NANA, chs. 25–30 (vols. 8 & 9): November 24, 2023 [S14E8] NANA, chs. 31–36 + Naoki (vols. 9 & 10): December 8, 2023 [S14E9] NANA, chs. 37–42 (vols. 11 & 12): December 22, 2023 [S14E10] NANA, chs. 43–49 (vols. 12 & 13): January 5, 2024 [S14E11] NANA, chs. 50–56 (vols. 14 & 15): January 19, 2024 [S14E12] NANA, chs. 57–61 + Nobu (vols. 15 & 16): February 2, 2024 [S14E13] NANA, chs. 62–68 (vols. 17 & 18): February 16, 2024 [S14E14] NANA, chs. 68–73 + Takumi (vols. 18 & 19): March 1, 2024 [S14E15] NANA, chs. 74–80 (vols. 20 & 21): March 15, 2024 [S14E16] Question Bucket: March 29, 2024 Content Warnings for the Manga Sex and sexuality, including rape and sexual abuse Trauma Self-harm Mental illness Suicidal ideations and death Find out more at https://ghost-divers.pinecast.co

You can also watch this programme on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbOe1pDdHkA Newsletter: https://jalalayn.substack.com/ Japan is a country that is known for its deep connection with tradition. Much of its rich culture comes from its adherence to two religious beliefs, Shintoism and Buddhism but it has also been influenced by Confucianism. The Japanese value purity and cleanliness. Unlike western individualism, Japanese culture places a great deal of attention on the group and mutual respect with a strong emphasis on harmony and balance. Although globalisation has brought with it westernisation, there is still an emphasis on learning Japanese customs at an early age, such as practicing the tea ceremony, wearing kimono and studying arts and crafts. Our guest today, Dr Naoki Yamamoto converted to Islam 14 years ago. He is now an academic at Istanbul's Marmara University and helps a growing number of Japanese converts acclimatise to their Islamic commitments. Many of whom attend classes in this city. Dr Naoki argues that for Islam to be successful in Japan, it needs to work in harmony with Japanese culture. Indeed he is known in Istanbul for demonstrating the tea ceremony. We discuss Muslim converts in Japan and the themes he raises of cultural harmony and Islam. Can Islam adopt the cultural heritage of Japan? Please consider making a donation, however small, to The Thinking Muslim, to receive a share in the reward and to help us make a greater impact. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/Donate⁠⁠ Find us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinking_muslim Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Thinking-Muslim-Podcast-105790781361490 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingmuslimpodcast/ Telegram: https://t.me/thinkingmuslim Host: https://twitter.com/jalalayn Website Archive: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com#TheThinkingMuslimPodcast

Naoki, the tinder expert

The ronin were brought into the castle and taken to the training yard. After an hour, the castle taisa appeared. Reju Masaru welcomed the ronin into his ranks and explained the regimen at Closed Shell Castle. They would be brought in as new recruits, trained and mentored, and eventually given an assignment as a permanent member of the castle garrison. In exchange for their service, they would be given a place to sleep, three meals a day, and once they completed their training, they would be paid 1 koku a week. It would seem that Closed Shell Castle was serious about raising an army of well trained soldiers. The ronin convinced Masaru to let them begin their training the following day, so they could spend the rest of the day settling in and getting a feel for the castle.Kaizoku staged himself in the mess hall, playing games with the other hired ronin and getting to know them. He discovered that Masaru's promise of gainful employment was legit. The other ronin seemed quite content with life at Closed Shell Castle. For many, it felt good to wake up every morning with a purpose, and it was the only opportunity for reliable pay in the region.Meanwhile, Tsume and Boa spoke with the castle shugenja, an eccentric young man named Reju Tetsuya. Tsume told the priest about his affliction as well as the circumstances that lead to it. Tetsuya performed a Cleansing Rite, dispelling Tsume's affliction, but was sure to take careful note of the fight with Naoki. He didn't quite seem to believe that the merchant's death was in self defense. Tetsuya then recommended that Tsume bring the cursed wakizashi to Miya Shinkako, a guest of Lord Reju Jikai who had been staying at Closed Shell Castle for a couple weeks.Boa asked the priest about the wolves they encountered on the road the previous night. Tetsuya claimed he didn't know anything about it, but Boa felt like he was hiding something. He pressed the shugenja, commanding him that something needs to be done about the balance in the forest. Tetsuya seemed ashamed of himself, stating that he had done things which he could never be forgiven for. He then fled the room.Tsume trailed him to see where he was going. The priest fled the keep, traveled across the bailey to the exterior wall where a derelict tower stood. He climbed through a half-hidden hole in the tower, and traversed the dry moat surrounding the castle. He then rested at a rock outcropping, shaded by the only tree visible near the castle. It appeared the place was a common meeting place. Tetsuya sat there, clearly troubled by inner turmoil. As the sun set, the priest began to meditate.As Tsume trailed Tetsuya, Boa searched the priest's private quarters. Hidden away behind a pile of books and scrolls, Boa found a small leather pouch. It contained a series of cryptic messages on folded and crumpled pieces of paper. Each one had a date and time written on it. Boa was a thorough and methodical investigator, but he was not a sneaky one. As he was going through the hidden notes, he knocked over a glass case, alerting the servants outside. They ran to investigate the sound and immediately called for the guards.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Abolishing factory farming in Switzerland: Postmortem, published by naoki on June 5, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. The Initiative to abolish factory farming was a nationwide ballot in Switzerland, instigated by Sentience Politics. The contents of the postmortem below were written by Philipp Ryf, then co-president at Sentience Politics and co-lead of the campaign, for the 2022 annual report of Sentience Politics. The author of this post is Naoki Peter, co-president at Sentience Politics. The initiative at a glance The initiative demanded the abolition of factory farming in Switzerland, granting a maximum transitional period of 25 years. It aimed at anchoring stricter animal welfare guidelines as a new minimum standard in the Swiss constitution. These standards would have granted cows, pigs and chickens regular access to the outdoors and considerably more space. On behalf of Swiss farmers the initiative included import regulations that take account of the new Swiss standards. The initiative was rejected by a 62.9% majority of the voters on in September 2022. For more information see the initiative text (in German, French and Italian) and the ballot results. Postmortem The living conditions of animals in agriculture have never been discussed so widely and publicly. Hundreds of thousands of people have engaged with the initiative beyond their usual scope, asking themselves the question: "What does my consumption mean for animals, people, and the environment?" The voting result has proven that the vision of a dignified, location-appropriate agriculture mobilises and moves people far beyond the base of the supporting parties. For the first time a broad alliance of Swiss animal protection, agricultural, and environmental organisations joined forces and stood up to the agricultural lobby to advocate for an animal welfare cause. Considering the high cost and resources required to launch an initiative, we aimed at including as many demands as possible. However, we now question whether a shorter, more targeted package of demands would have garnered more support. We will consider this for any future initiatives. In 2018 Sentience Politics launched the Initiative to abolish factory farming single-handedly. We should have prioritised alliance-building earlier. This would have enabled us to tap into the resources of more organisations. The opposition commanded resources which significantly exceeded our own. In order to have a realistic chance at the ballot box, any future initiative would likely require a substantially larger budget and campaign team. In order to inspire the majority of the population for a cause, it is essential to highlight the urgency of the matter and exclude any room for doubt. We could have done this better. For future campaigns, we must ensure that the actual conditions in animal farming are made transparent sooner. Possibilities include a greater focus on highlighting scandals, publishing our own investigations, and doing more to attract media exposure. Regional volunteer networks are very challenging to build. Here, we could have involved organisations that already have structures in place to manage regional leafleting, stand campaigns and billboards more effectively and at an earlier stage. We built up a large network of influential personalities from society. However, we lacked credible ambassadors from agriculture who could more readily be trusted as experts in their field until a late stage in the campaign. The clearest take-home message from the follow-up surveys was that policy change in agriculture does not work without the producers. In the future, we need to involve stakeholders within agriculture in our campaigns at an earlier stage. Alliance against factory farming The initiative to abolish factory farming was not successful at the ballo...

In Season 1: Episode 11 hosts Sonny Tapia, Kristina Agresta, Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez break down the latest in Long Beach State Athletics and professional sports. Following new women's basketball head coach Amy Wright's introductory press conference the hosts go over talking points from the media portion and give their expectations for next season. They also take the time to preview two big upcoming games in Beach sports as the Dirtbags play USC at Angel Stadium and men's Volleyball looks to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA Championship against GCU. In professional sports the hosts roll through some talking points about the beginning of the MLB season and if early success for certain teams is sustainable. With the first round of the NFL Draft being held the day before the hosts give their takes on players who came off the big board and one key player who did not. Before concluding with a quick breakdown of the first round of the NBA playoffs. Hosts: Sonny Tapia, Kristina Agresta, Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez Editor: Aidan Swanepoel Producer: Leila Nunez and Isabel Silagy Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beach-weekly/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcasts https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/beach-weekly

In Season 1: Episode 9 hosts Naoki Gima and Matthew Gomez are once again joined by a duo of special guests Maher and Naoki's 9-year-old brother Mateo as they break down the latest in Long Beach State Athletics and professional sports. As news begins to break about the future of the Walter Pyramid the hosts discuss potential ideas for a new athletics venue, as well as the development of the hunt for a new women's basketball coach. The hosts also break down some stats from men's volleyball's impressive showing against CSUN. On the professional sports front, the NBA play-ins alongside playoff predictions were discussed. With the Champions League quarterfinals beginning the hosts discuss a variety of topics related to soccer with an emphasis on Real Madrid, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United. Hosts: Naoki Gima, Matthew Gomez Editor: Aidan Swanepoel Producer: Leila Nunez and Isabel Silagy Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beach-weekly/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcasts https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/beach-weekly

Naoki tells Kevinvin about his trip to Taiwan. He still can't get over how awesome the trips was even though he was all by himself.

The merchant scoffed at Tsume. “Very well,” he said. “If you want a duel, you can face my bodyguard, Boa. If you defeat him, I will consider your debt repaid.”But that wasn't what Tsume had in mind. This wasn't a test of honor. He didn't want his fate decided by the kami. He wanted Naoki dead. “No,” Tsume said, “I'll face you.” Naoki suddenly recognized the danger he was in, and turned to run, but Tsume was quicker. The rogue drew his sword and attacked Naoki. Trying desperately to defend himself, the merchant spotted a sword resting in the ashes of the waystation. He grabbed it and unsheathed it. It was an exquisite blade, carried in an ornately decorated scabbard. Naoki tried to fight, but Tsume easily outclassed him. Incapacitated, Naoki pleaded for his life. He promised that Tsume's debt would be forgiven if he simply let him live. Tsume considered the groveling man. He was a poor, down-on-his luck merchant, trying his best to get by and atone for a life of crime. But he was also dangerous and unpredictable. Tsume decided he couldn't allow this threat to go unchecked. He killed Naoki, and buried him with the rest of the corpses from the waystation.Tsume took the wakizashi Naoki found in the ashes. “Spoils,” he told himself. Looking at it more closely, he recognized the mon of the Miya family on the finely crafted blade. What was it doing here in Twin Blessings Village?Afterward, he told Kaizoku and Boa what happened. Boa was apprehensive at the news, feeling like he should have been there to defend Naoki. But after hearing more about the merchant's past life, he realized how little he actually knew about Naoki, and decided that maybe it was for the best that he was dead.The three ronin took Naoki's cart of wares and headed to the bandit encampment, where the raiders quickly pilfered through the items like locust through a field of wheat. Ichiro thanked the ronin for their generous contribution to his cause, but he seemed sad about something. He told them about his meeting with his father, Setsuo. His father was ashamed of his decision to run away from the village and turn to a life of banditry, despite the holy rhetoric that Ichiro used to describe his beliefs. It seemed that the two had irreconcilable differences, and would not be speaking to each other anymore.That night, Tsume was haunted by nightmares and unable to get any sleep. He had dreams of his family slipping away from him and turning to ash in his very hands. All the money he worked so hard to provide for them melted away into nothingness. It was as if all the hopes and dreams and motivations that kept him grounded were leaving him. He woke up feeling extremely unsettled.The next morning, the ronin took off from the bandit camp in search of the missing child, Kai. They followed the tracks through the woods until they made a surprising discovery. The tracks seemed to link up with another pair of tracks of roughly equal size. Continuing deeper into the forest, the two sets of tracks lead to a strange hut atop a treeless hill. A woman greeted the ronin as they approached. “I am Aguri,” she said. “Welcome to my home.”

In Season 1: Episode of 7 of Teed Up, hosts Kristina Agresta, Sonny Tapia, Matthew Gomez (Matty G) and Naoki Gima breakdown the latest in Long Beach State athletics, March Madness and other professional sports. Matty G. and Naoki recap the Dirtbags' rough weekend against UC San Diego and their bounce back against Fresno State. The hosts also highlight the success of the other sports on campus and make predictions for the March Madness tournament. In professional sports, the hosts provide an update on NFL free agency as well as celebrate and analyze Japan's win in the World Baseball Classic. Hosts: Kristina Agresta, Sonny Tapia, Matthew Gomez, Naoki Gima Editor: Aidan Swanepoel Producer: Leila Nunez, Isabel Silagy Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beach-weekly/id1488484518?uo=4 Google Podcasts https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kMzEwMjEwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJep02kHeIQy8op1n1 Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/beach-weekly

Tsume and Boa infiltrated the camp by pretending to be bandits. After speaking to a group of the thugs, they discovered that Setsuo's son, Ichiro, had not been kidnapped at all, but had willingly joined the bandits and is now their leader. They decided to speak with Ichiro-- but not before waking up Kaizoku and bringing him along.Ichiro was a charismatic and passionate young man who believed wholeheartedly in the teachings of Shinsei and the Perfect Land Sect. He took great pleasure in teaching Tsume, Boa, and Kaizoku about his beliefs. The Perfect Land Sect was a branch of Shinseism which taught that an individual could reach heaven through a strict interpretation of Shinsei's writings. This school of thought taught that there was no karma, no wheel of judgment, and no reincarnation. The people who subscribe to this philosophy do not recognize the authority of samurai or the emperor, as their divine rule over the lower classes is traditionally viewed as a result of their superior karma. The Perfect Land Sect is a heretical interpretation of Shinsei's teachings, and is outlawed in most of Rokugan.Ichiro explained that he and his “order” were plotting to attack Closed Shell Castle, and overthrow the oppressors ruling from there. With Reju Jikai and his warriors defeated, he plans to build a new society based on equality without the oppressive rule of samurai, and he wants to inspire neighboring regions to do the same.When the ronin pointed out the hypocrisy of stealing from the very people he was claiming to liberate, Ichiro justified his actions by stating that he was answering to higher calling, and that the people of the villages will join him once they see the light.While Ichiro was talking, Kaizoku noticed his father's fishing net and his lost Liquid Void sitting beside the bandit leader-- they must have washed up here when his ship crashed. Kaizoku pointed out that the items belonged to him, so Ichiro suggested a trade. He'd happily give Kaizoku his possessions back if the three ronin could retrieve a young boy who recently went missing from their ranks.The young boy was named Kai, a runaway from Nestled Village. He was a stubborn boy of 12 with a need for adventure, who claimed he would grow up one day to be a samurai. Ichiro wanted him back because he has reason to believe that he is the bastard child of Otomo Nobu, the steward of Closed Shell Castle. He wants to blackmail Reju Jikai, and force him to bend to his demands. Tsume, Boa, and Kaizoku agreed to retrieve the child, though they were apprehensive of Ichiro's plans and motives. They decided it was best to be in the bandit leader's favor for now. Before turning in for the night, Ichiro promised the ronin that he would pay a visit to his father to settle his concerns.The next day, the ronin returned to Twin Blessings Village. Kaizoku informed Setsuo that his son was alive and that he'll be paying a visit soon. Setsuo deduced that he was living with the bandits and was deeply ashamed. Upholding his side of the deal, Setsuo promised that members of his village would help repair Kaizoku's ship.Tsume traveled to the way station on the edge of town to bury the bodies as a favor to Shinichi. Appearing from the trees lining the way station was Naoki. “I remember you,” he said. He demanded Tsume pay him the money he was owed, 50 koku. He then threatened Tsume by reminding him that he still has some very powerful contacts in the area. Tsume refused. He remembered his family at home and thought about how 50 koku would change their lives forever. He remembered where his debts lie-- and they weren't with this bottom-feeding trinket salesman.“I challenge you to a duel,” Tsume declared.

Tsume, Kaizoku, and Boa were held as guests in Setsuo, the village elder's house. The townsfolk crowded into Setsuo's house to catch a glimpse of the ronin as they ate their evening meal. The party was introduced to the other community leaders. There was Natsumi, an outspoken and strong young woman, who seemed to act as Setsuo's second in command. Next was Shinichi, a wiry and lithe man, stablemaster and previous owner of the waystation which operated on the outskirts of town. After him was Daizo, the enlightened spiritual head of the village. Finally, there was Hiroto, the large and boisterous sake brewer-- his sake was the pride of the village.During their introductions to the village leaders, Naoki remembered where he knew Tsume from. And he remembered just how much he owed him. The shrewd man said nothing, but you could see the gears begin to work in his head.The village leaders began to explain the many problems which had befallen their village in recent months. Foremost was the new lord who took up residence in Closed Shell Castle, Reju Jikai. Aside from being a callous and cruel man, his rice tax had become astronomical, and the village was struggling to keep up with it. He went so far as to even forbid the villagers from brewing sake. To him, the sake was a waste of the rice which was rightfully his. To make matters worse, the new lord had started over hunting the forest, making food and resources even scarcer in the region. It had also become apparent that Jikai had begun hiring a small army of ronin to serve him in the castle, and now these thugs terrorize the local villages.Worst of all though-- the water kami seemed to be very upset with the village. Daizo had done all he could to subdue the river's unceasing anger, but to no avail. The river slows to a trickle so the crops may wither and die, and when it comes time to harvest what remains, the river bursts with energy, flooding the village and destroying what's salvageable. As a result of the villages being thrown into poverty and the forests becoming overhunted, bandits had started robbing people on the roads, and packs of wolves had started becoming more aggressive in their search for food. The bandits have become so bold, they've even kidnapped Setsuo's son, Ichiro. Never letting an opportunity go to waste, Kaizoku pledged to find and return Ichiro in exchange for the village's help in repairing his boat.The village asked another favor of the ronin. Just a few days ago, Jikai's thugs burned down the village way station, burning many alive, including Shinichi's late wife. Being too afraid to sully themselves with the flesh of those who died such grizzly deaths, they asked the ronin to help.Feeling he had heard enough, Kaizoku went for a walk by the river. Dying for a sip of his Liquid Void, the pirate began searching the banks of the river for his lost vial. Desperate, he waded into the river, searching every snag and stone for the precious substance. But the water kami had other plans for this intrepid fool. The storm surged and the river swelled. Kaizoku lost his footing and was swept away by a torrent of water.After some time, Tsume and Boa began to look for their new friend. Following his tracks in the fresh mud, they found where he walked into the river. Tracks went in, but none came out. Anxious, they followed the river downstream, onto the outskirts of town, the darkened forest looming ahead of them. Then they heard a deafening yell. The sound of a man teetering on the precipice and clinging onto dear life.Following the sound, Tsume and Boa found an imprint of where Kaizoku's body must have been, and tracks leading deeper into the forest, as if he had been dragged. Following the tracks, they began to see the orange flicker of fire, and the sound of raucous voices. Peering through the bushes, Tsume and Boa found an old, ruined monastery which had become an encampment for a large gang of bandits. Laying beside the fire was Kaizoku-- as his body and belongings were pilfered by thieves.CreditsArt by Dylon MunozMusic by Brandon Spain and Podcast of the Five Rings

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Jack Nicholson. Patrick takes a stand against a troubling trend in movies. Joe feels caught in the middle between his co-host and his cinematic love. Will Lev manage to bridge the gap between the two hosts? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in March 2023. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Reds' is available on Blu-ray, DVD, & HD-DVD (for you hipsters out there): https://www.amazon.com/Reds-Warren-Beatty/dp/B09G9GL2TH/ref=tmm_blu_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1677911451&sr=8-5 Music from 'Revolutionary Etude - 7th Style' by dj Taka w/ Naoki   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, jack, nicholson, syzygy, young, rock, xfl, football, battlehawks, watergate, nixon, reds, beatty, keaton, stephers

A terrible storm rolled in from the bay, wreaking havoc upon the land. Wind and rain battered the landscape while distant thunder warned wayward travelers. Upon some forgotten road in some distant valley walked two figures, each baring vestiges of a former life. There was Naoki, once a reputable merchant of decent wealth living in the capital city, now a peddler of mundane wares traveling from shrine to shrine. And there was his bodyguard, Boa, a castaway from the Crane clan. Once a student in the arts of sword and brush, now a master in the arts of plow and ox. The two followed the muddy bank of a raging river when suddenly a small boat lost control in the rapids and crashed into an outcrop of jagged rocks. The boat's two passengers were flung from the boat and into the rocks below. Steering the ship was the deckhand-turned-pirate, Kaizoku. A man whose ambitions are only outnumbered by his enemies. His passenger was the rogue, Shiroi Tsume. Born a hinin butcher, Tsume turned to a life grave robbing and treasure hunting in order to support his family after the death of his father.Seeing the incident unfold before them, Naoki and Boa jumped into action, helping to pull Kaizoku and Tsume to shore, as well salvaging as much of their equipment as possible. Assessing the damage, Kaizoku realized that his ship was in need of considerable repair. A couple of items had gone missing too: his father's fishing net, and a vial of Liquid Void-- a substance to which he had become fiercely addicted.Once on shore, Tsume got a closer look at his rescuers. His heart sank when he made a startling revelation. The peddler, Naoki, was a man to whom he owed a great deal of money, and who has blackmail on Tsume, knowing all about his criminal lifestyle. Luckily for him though, it had been years since they last saw each other, and Naoki did not seem to recognize him.Naoki recommended they all travel downriver to the nearby town of Twin Blessings Village. He and Boa were traveling there already, and he suspected that Kaizoku and Tsume could find their lost equipment there as well.Upon walking into town, they the noticed the crops of the village had all seemed to either wither and die, or become flooded by the rain and river. Then they heard shouting and the hoof beats of horses. It sounded like the village was under attack.They found two drunk samurai clad in teal and purple, wearing the mon of a family they did not recognize. These two samurai were demanding a tribute of sake from the villagers. When the villagers insisted that they did not have any more sake to give, the samurai grew belligerent and began assaulting the peasants. When Kaizoku tried to intervene, he was intimidated and told to step down. Once the samurai got tired of berating the villagers, they rode off.Afterward, the party was greeted by the head of the village, an elderly man named Setsuo. He thanked the party for trying to stand up for them, but insisted that confronting the samurai would only anger them, and make them come back in force. Setuso welcomed the party as guests in his home and showed them what meager hospitality he could afford: a fire and a warm bowl of rice.Setsuo explained that those samurai were in the service of a new lord who had recently taken power in the region. His name was Reju Jikai. He was cruel and abusive, and has been hiring large numbers of ronin to bolster his ranks—a resource which there was no short supply of these days after two consecutive wars and a huge shift in power.Setsuo asked the party to stay as long as they need. He felt they have much to talk about.CreditsArt by Dylon MunozMusic by Brandon Spain and Podcast of the Five Rings

Sparkling sake is on the rise. A style that was often served and enjoyed as an exciting and curious anomaly only a few years ago has become a staple in the lineup of sake breweries all across Japan. While more and more breweries enter new products into the increasingly crowded market every year, a handful of breweries have committed a massive amount of energy and resources to doubling down on their commitment to quality and their position as leaders in this ever-more popular style.The logistical and often cost-prohibitive challenges to delivering a quality, consistent – not to mention non-exploding – bottle of sparkling sake to market are very real, however. It's those challenges, and the resulting price on the shelf to the end consumer, that have kept many of the beautiful examples of sparkling sake out of the hands of the majority of sake lovers across the globe.One brewery in the U.K., however, has taken those challenges head on, committing to the level of craftsmanship, as well as the challenges, that go into making and delivering this exciting take on our beloved koji-fermented beverage.Aptly named, The Sparkling Sake Brewery is the largely one-man, handcrafted vision of founder and head brewer, Naoki Toyota, dedicated to producing solely sparkling sake. The result of a handful of drastic life changes, including a move to the UK from his home in Japan, along with the birth of his first child, Naoki's fascination with the concept of “impermanence” in nature and the beautiful depiction of that which he discovered in the world of fermentation led him to pursue sparkling sake as his means of exploration and expression.Now, with the support of a team helping him to realize his passion and vision out in the world, The Sparkling Sake Brewery is releasing fresh-brewed and seasonal small-batch sparkling sake on a regular basis. From their flagship “awa” to the (currently sold out) “berries”, the brewery has also contributed their sake kasu to a unique local craft beer product, and provides shio koji for those with culinary ambitions.    This week we're joined by head brewer Naoki Toyota, as well as brand advisor and sake educator Tracey Delaney. Together, the two walk us through the experiences the led to the birth of The Sparkling Sake Brewery, the path that brought them together on a mission to pursue sparking sake (and sake in-general) in the UK, and their excitement and ambitions for the future of category.Those curious to follow along with happenings at The Sparkling Sake Brewery can register for updates on product releases, as well as follow along on Instagram. As for us here @sakeonair you can always journey with us over on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You're welcome to share any other sake or shochu-related thoughts or questions with the hosts at questions@sakeonair.com.We'll be back very soon with plenty more Sake On Air.Until then, kampai! Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in Tokyo. The show is brought to you by Potts.K Productions with audio production by Frank Walter. Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.

  Kevinvin traveled to Kyoto with Naoki, Kobe and tried kimono for the first time in his life!     Are you still waiting to enter Japan? Come join us! We are either waiting in Sauna or Gym