Starting Over - Season 1

The Hotel Okura Tokyo is one of Japan's leading hotels. In anticipation of demand for the Olympics, the hotel was reopened last September after 5 years of renovation. Due to COVID-19 situation, some of the hotel's facilities, including restaurants and bars, have been closed with weddings and banquets being canceled. It will likely take some time to regain its long-established status as a hotel. Meanwhile, the 17-story, 240-room Sequence Miyashita Park, built in Shibuya, was scheduled to open on June 11. A sense of urgency about the second wave has left it unable to set an opening date. We focus on these old and new hotels in Tokyo.

This spring, many schools were forced to close due to COVID-19. Jiyu Gakuen in Tokyo is one of them. Since its foundation in 1921, there's been a tradition at this school for students to cook their own lunches. Growing vegetables, cooking together and enjoying a meal with friends, this tradition has become as a place to develop as people through their school life. How will they be able to resume their lives in school? And how will they revive the traditional lunches? We follow the challenges of students and teachers.

Tokyo International Airport is commonly known as Haneda Airport. It's a crossroads for 49 domestic and 55 international routes. In 2019, travelers using the airport averaged around 240,000 daily - the highest number in Japan. In March 2020, a new international terminal opened to increase the number of international flights to and from Haneda. However, due to the pandemic, the new terminal remains closed and never used. How do they reopen the airport as a source of transportation for people? This episode follows the efforts of those who are trying to regain safe airport operations.

Ever since Jiyu Gakuen opened in 1921, students had been preparing school lunches themselves. Preparing and sharing meals together is a valuable opportunity for students to socialize and bond. It's a tradition the school has proudly preserved over the years. Since the campus has been closed, naturally, the dining hall too remains empty. Can the school keep this legacy going in spite of the pandemic? As the school reopens after a period of about 6 months, the first phase of lunch preparation begins. We follow the challenges of students and teachers.

With 87 million passengers per year, Haneda Airport is one of the world's busiest. But with COVID-19 wiping out most of its sales, it is now struggling to stay afloat. The opening of Haneda Airport Garden, an adjoining multi-use complex with lodging and a bus terminal, originally scheduled for April of 2020, has now been indefinitely put on hold. In this program we focus on some of the key people fighting the uphill battle of restoring the airport to its former glory.

6 months after the suspension of inbound tourism, a government domestic tourism campaign saw demand for Tokyo hotels both old and new begin to recover. Alongside banquet sales, particularly for weddings, sales of take-out Christmas dinners reflected demand for stay-at-home services. One new Shibuya hotel saw an upswing in reservations, with some rooms repurposed for use as workspace. But now coronavirus cases in Tokyo are rising rapidly, forcing the government to make a difficult decision.

The threat of COVID-19 infection is just around the corner. Anyone can be infected at any time. If someone was infected in the school, what should the students do? The students in Jiyu Gakuen, have begun to think about corona and discrimination for themselves.

Last December, the Hawaii state government decided to accept Japanese tourists, and flights to Hawaii were resumed. The airline industry in Japan was filled with hope for a bright future. However, in January 2021, the state of emergency was again declared in 11 prefectures, including Tokyo. As the spread of COVID-19 continued, the number of passengers at Haneda Airport decreased dramatically, and tenants of the airport's shopping areas have also kept their doors closed. But airport workers are perseveringly preparing to bring back air travel.

The fall 2020 campaign to boost domestic travel helped bring old and new hotels back to life. But late in the year, infection figures surged and Tokyo issued a second state of emergency. At one long-established hotel, a couple forced to postpone a large wedding once before faced having to do so again. A new hotel in Shibuya has taken measures such as reducing employee attendance to two-thirds, while finding a way to increase workspace by remodeling rooms and use the lobby as a gallery space.