Documentary, Adventure, Comedy,

0:51:00 Hours    -    Rating: 8.2

Bill Bailey, Tom Whitter

James May, Yujiro Taniyama, Hacchan Hatanaka…

James arrives by speedboat in Osaka, Japan's de facto second city and a port with a reputation for great nightlife and delicious street food. With his manhole-obsessed local guide Hacchan, he has a go at Japan's national (and slightly shady) pastime, Pachinko, a sort of pinball fruit machine. In a land where gambling is frowned upon, James discovers the tricks the Japanese use to get their hands on their winnings- and then promptly blows all his money on Osaka's famous octopus balls and Japan's infamously expensive Kobe beef. Osaka is also the centre of Japanese stand-up comedy, a genre notorious for getting lost in translation. Since he started his journey, James seems to have provoked great mirth from the locals, so he calls on his trusty Tokyo guide, Yujiro, for a dangerous comedy experiment. To see if comedy can travel, they'll perform translated British jokes to a notoriously hard-bitten Osakan comedy audience. After that bruising encounter, James is in need of some light relief, but Yujiro takes James to a sumo wrestling stable... where Yujiro risks both his dignity and his nether regions by taking on the largest wrestler in the room. He leaves with neither intact. Time for something a bit more zen: meditation. In the Kōraku-en, arguably Japan's most famous ornamental garden, the duo seek guidance from a Buddhist sensei on how to achieve enlightenment. The concept is interesting, but James struggles to shake some harrowing memories from his mind. It does succeed, however, in putting him in a more reflective mood - something that seems pertinent as he arrives in the city of Hiroshima. This thriving, thoroughly modern metropolis will perhaps forever be known as the place where atomic warfare came of age. James visits the museum and meets a Japanese-American historian, to shed more light on this controversial legacy. Last but certainly not least, James visits the Itsukushima Shrine famous for its orange (or possibly red) Tori gate, and its ravenous deer.