James May: Our Man in...

- Season 1

(2020)

James begins his journey at Cape Soya, the northernmost tip of Japan on the remote island of Hokkaido. This snowy wilderness is the least densely populated area of the country, and James tries his hand at dog sledding across the stunning landscape with some deceptively docile-looking canine pals. A few bumps and bruises later and it's time to brush up his language and origami skills in one of the smallest restaurants he's ever seen. This is a 'Yatai', or a tiny eating and drinking shack, where you're encouraged to cram around a small communal table and break noodles ...

Honshu, Japan's main island, is a veritable cornucopia of different environments. While the main tourist draws - including Tokyo - lie further south, it's the beautiful Northern region of Tohoku where James finds himself. And he wastes no time in shattering that tranquil beauty by getting involved in a giant robot duel with his new guide, Maki. To atone for the fallout of this epic shootout with a woman he's only just met, James seeks wisdom on a pilgrimage through the snowy woods of a holy mountain with a very friendly monk. After the monk introduces James to the ...

In an attempt to say sensei, James accidentally misspeaks to his Japanese teacher and calls him deodorant. James visits a penis festival in Kawasaki and the gadget district in Akihabara.

This time James is travelling from the megacity of Tokyo, to the ancient capital of Kyoto. And what better way to do this than on a motorbike, one of Japan's greatest contributions to the modern world. James joins a Japanese biker gang for a quick spin around the iconic Mount Fuji. The importance of this mountain to the people of Japan is hard to overstate; it's often described as the heart and soul of the country - but how can a lump of rock mean so much to the inhabitants? To discover its true meaning, James receives a lesson in philosophy and painting from an ...

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 ...

James begins the final leg of his journey on the island of Shikoku, battling his fear of heights as he cycles 70km across the longest series of suspension bridges in the world. After demonstrating that even five episodes in he can't correctly identify the items in a Japanese hotel room, James is sent to try his hand at zen archery, a very formal process where actually firing the arrows seems a bit of an afterthought. Nonetheless, he works up enough of an appetite to make the region's famous Udon noodles, where his earlier haiku about them causing 'wind' turns out to ...