Shopping Streets

From food to clothing to daily necessities, you can find anything you need at a Japanese shopping street, a long road lined with all kinds of stores. There are 13,000 of them across Japan. Many shopping streets were destroyed during World War II, but afterwards they bounced back stronger than ever. Recently, however, shopping streets have been in decline. This decline has prompted various efforts at revival, from radical renovations to massive matchmaking events. On this edition of BEGIN Japanology, our theme is shopping streets. We'll explore their history, their role in Japanese life, and also the people working to ensure they have a future.
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows

Doc
Doc centers on the hard-charging, brilliant Dr. Amy Larsen, Chief of Internal and Family Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, Amy must navigate an unfamiliar world where she has no recollection of patients she's treated, colleagues she's crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a 9-year-old, and a handful of devoted friends, as she struggles to continue practicing medicine, despite having lost nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.

Dark Matter
Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series follows Jason Dessen, a physicist, professor, and family man who – one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago – is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the multiverse of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of mind-bending realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.


