Summary: This was the age of the Tokugawa family, the era of Edo, a period of over two-and-a-half centuries during which Japan was hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world and only a few Dutch and Chinese-constantly watched and treated like pariahs-were allowed to live on Japanese soil and to trade with the Japanese. This program treats the history of Japan during this period: the established...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: This program savors the peaceful splendor of autumn in Kyoto. First, visits to Kozan-ji Temple, an example of early Kamakura architecture and repository of a painting by Toba Sojo; Sanzen-in Temple, immortalized by 18th-century poet Ueda Akinari; and many other temples offer views of the region's beautiful red-colored maples. Then, the video covers the autumn festival in Arashiyama, the Jidai...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This classic episode of the U.S. Army’s The Big Picture television series takes viewers on a pictorial journey to Japan as U.S. servicemen experienced it in 1957. This program from the National Archives and Records Administration endeavors to dispel myths about Japan and to showcase the country’s industrial, agricultural, and economic state after suffering heavy destruction in World War II....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: The history of Japan past and present is the story of the kami, the supernatural, not quite godlike spirits who underlie the Japanese-ness of Japan-who created the Japanese islands at the beginning of time and remain today the ones responsible for health and luck, for success in childbirth and business, for the proper functioning of silicon chips and the uniqueness and unity of the Japanese....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Born in Osaka some 300 years ago, Japanese puppet theater-Bunraku-is a stunning yet refined spectacle. This program presents the story of Bunraku through two of its greatest masters, puppeteer Tamao Yoshida and chanter Sumitayu Takemoto. Brought together for the last performance of the 20th century, these two "Living National Treasures" transform ancient tales of old Japan into vibrant human...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: While often dealing with pointedly Korean issues, South Korean movies and television shows have pushed beyond their domestic market and are now highly respected by audiences across Asia and the world. This program studies ways in which South Korean films have changed over the decades, profiling a new generation of Korean filmmakers and their industry's tightrope walk between a blockbuster...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In 1540, Portuguese navigators and Jesuit priests landed in a Japan of shoguns and samurai, where the arts of warfare had been refined to hitherto unknown heights of cruelty. Although Westernisms quickly became the rage in Japan, the Japanese soon recognized the long arm of colonialism. Christian priests and converts were persecuted and martyred and, in 1650, Japan shut tight its doors to the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Almost any industry has its Holy Grail. For cell phone makers, it is a smaller, slimmer, and lighter model that sports a bigger screen and more functions-easy to envision, very difficult to make. This program examines the struggle for dominance in the Japanese cell phone market-a viable litmus test for worldwide technology consumption-and the internal battles tech companies endure in order to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This program examines the Japanese matsuri or "summer festival," perhaps the best elucidation of that country's ancient polytheism. Ceremony footage from Tokyo and surrounding areas illustrates various festival activities and explores the Japanese cultural emphasis on community, cooperation, and folk worship. Commentary by Japanese cultural scholar Yoshi Morikatsu, interviews with festival...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Japan in the modern age: a people existing between the protection of the kami and the geological dangers of earthquake. This program covers the cataclysmic events of the 20th century-the devastating earthquake of 1923, the rise of militarism, the accession of Emperor Hirohito, the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, the Pacific War, Hiroshima, and the American occupation of Japan-but its...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Even today, the geisha epitomize the beauty of Japan's past. But theirs is a dying profession as the glare of Tokyo neon competes with the more mellow glow of Kyoto. Drawing on interviews with the world-renowned Mineko Iwasaki and other geisha and those who idolize them, this program places the geisha squarely in the context of contemporary Japan. In addition to background on the geisha...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Their world is ruled by a strict code of privacy and silence, and in Japan their title is a byword for exotic allure. Called "entertainers" by some and "prostitutes" by others, the geisha are a secretive sorority in high demand by members of Japan's wealthy elite. Filmed in collaboration with Arthur Golden, author of the best-selling Memoirs of a Geisha, this program captures the geisha...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: More than three centuries ago, the seminal haiku poet Matsuo Basho traveled Japan in a spiritual quest for enlightenment. In this down-to-earth program, haiku enthusiasts from around the world including award-winning haiku poet and English teacher Visnja McMaster and haiku translator Judit Vihar, professor of Japanese studies at Eotvos Lorand University, follow in the master's footsteps as they...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In Japan, where even kindergarten has an entrance exam, education begins in the womb. In this program, social psychologist Dr. Masao Miyamoto, author of Straitjacket Society; Dr. Makoto Shichida, founder of Shichida Children's Academy; the president of Keio University; and others address the true price of making the grade in a society in which only the most intelligent can thrive-or in some...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: This Wide Angle report gets in step with military cadets at Japan's National Defense Academy preparing for possible overseas deployment and a group of peace demonstrators-including atomic bomb survivors-marching to preserve Japan's post-World War II policy of pacifism. In addition, unprecedented access to joint maneuvers with the U.S. Marine Corps, to surveillance flights over the Sea of Japan,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: With a gracefulness equal to its subject, this intriguing program goes behind the scenes to film for the first time the private world of kyomai, Kyoto-style dance. The efforts of the 95-year-old reigning master, Inoue Yachiyo IV, to prepare her 43-year-old granddaughter to become her successor are deftly captured amidst footage of training sessions and performances; rare film clips of Yachiyo...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This documentary explores sobering developments linked to Japan's emphasis on intense academic pressure and conformity: 2,000 teen suicides per year, a 60 percent increase in crime since 1994, and the phenomenon of hikikomori children-those who have collapsed emotionally and withdrawn from society. Gritty footage shot in chaotic classrooms and dysfunctional homes, combined with commentary from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: The tea ceremony originated in China but was transformed in Japan into an art of infinite resonance with precise rules and formulations. This program is devoted to the Omote Sen-ke school. It shows the uniquely Japanese way in which its traditions are handed down from generation to generation, and demonstrates that suspension in time by which Japanese paying obeisance to a 400-year-old...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature, Kawabata Yasunari wrote novels that expressed the transitory nature of love and beauty. This program traces Kawabata's life and career, focusing on his importance in Japan's Neosensualist movement and the development of his finely tuned, elegiac sensibility. Personal and historical events that shaped the author's creative journey-including the loss...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Elegant, flowing, and steeped in mythology, the kimono has survived for fifteen hundred years as a symbol of Japanese tradition and a mirror of Japan's evolving culture. From medieval courtesans adorned in sensual finery to samurai warriors whose clothing signified their military allegiance, anyone donning a kimono accepted and perpetuated its meanings. Today, knowledge of its traditions and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: In the shadow of continuing turmoil in North Korea, the South continues to prosper under its current president, Kim Young Sam. This program looks at the combination of centuries-old tradition and modern technology that has turned a small, war-torn agrarian country into a major industrial power. It shows the effects of modernization on traditional values, covers the roles of education and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This program provides a brief overview of the partitioning of Korea; the battles for Seoul, Inchon, and Pusan; the entry of Chinese troops into the war as United States marines approached the Manchurian border; General MacArthur's famous speech to Congress; and the armistice at Panmunjom and the establishment of the demilitarized buffer zone. The program also shows the war's aftermath in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Amid the clamor of business and technological advances, a reverence for age, custom, and craftsmanship endures in Japan. There, the title of "Living National Treasure" is bestowed on some seventy master artisans and performers who are charged with passing on the country's cultural heritage to future generations. This program takes viewers into the studios, workshops, and homes of the remarkable...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Filmed in Japan, this program pushes beyond the stereotypes to objectively examine the history of manga, how manga are drawn, and manga's influence on Japanese life as illustrated by cosplay bars, where people dress up as their favorite characters; manga kissa, 24/7 manga cafes; and Comicket, the twice-annual comics market that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. The program also...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008