Small Businesses Thrive: Enlivening the Community with Personality
A growing number of Japanese people are pursuing their dream to start a small business. A shift in consumer preference toward small-scale, authentic goods over mass-produced products, and a surge in local government support packages, means the time has never been better. Low start-up and running costs ensure that these agile operations carry considerably less financial risk than their bigger counterparts. In some cases, they're even solving community problems, offering consumers choices they didn't have, or reviving once-dying shopping strips. NHK went to check out a number of ventures and interviewed an expert to see how small businesses can potentially point the way forward for Japan.
Guest:
Nagayama Munehiro (Professor, Komazawa University)
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
Outlander
Outlander follows the story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
The Outlander series, adapted from Diana Gabaldon's international best-selling books, spans the genres of romance, science fiction, history and adventure into one epic tale.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American comedy series about four friends in their late 20s with clear sociopathic tendencies who run an unsuccessful Irish bar, "Paddy's Pub," in South Philadelphia. The series deals with a variety of controversial topics, including abortion, gun control, physical disabilities, racism, sexism, religion, the Israeli/Palestinian situation, terrorism, transsexuality, slavery, incest, sexual harassment in education, the homeless, statutory rape, drug addiction, pedophilia, child abuse, mental illness, gay rights and dumpster babies.
Upload
Upload is a sci-fi sitcom that takes place in the near future, where people who are near death can be "uploaded" into a virtual afterlife of their choice. In 2033, secretly romantic Brooklyn-born Nora works customer service for a luxurious virtual reality environment. When handsome L.A. party boy Nathan's self-driving car crashes, his high-maintenance girlfriend uploads him permanently into Nora's VR world. Nora starts as Nathan's customer service "angel", but becomes so much more as she helps him find friendship, love and purpose.
The Night Agent
The Night Agent is a sophisticated, character-based, action-thriller centering on a low-level FBI Agent who works in the basement of the White House, manning a phone that never rings — until the night that it does, propelling him into a fast-moving and dangerous conspiracy that ultimately leads all the way to the Oval Office.