Tim Odagiri
Is Japan’s Mercari a Secret Government Entity?
The popular auction site Mercari is asking me lots of probing questions. Is it, perchance, a clandestine branch of the Japanese government?
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Tim Odagiri
Sep 164 min
Japan, Where the Impossible is Possible (and Vice Versa)
Japan, it turns out, has lots of paperwork. Citizens are somehow able to jet right past the formalities, be they printed forms in...
Tim Odagiri
Jul 22 min
Getting Past Japan’s Foreign Resident Banking Barrier
Japan imposes a six-month waiting period on foreign resident bank accounts. Nihon Plus You’s new white paper explains the reasons why...
Tim Odagiri
Feb 74 min
Why Foreign Residents in Japan Need a Name Stamp
If you have spent any length of time in Japan, you have encountered name stamps, those handheld seals used to mark documents. Embossing a...
Tim Odagiri
Dec 19, 20234 min
Two Sailing Ships that are Transforming Japan
Japan’s identity as a culture and a society is unique in this world, thanks in part to its remote island location. When combined with the...
Tim Odagiri
Dec 5, 20233 min
Toward a Cheese-in Japanese Immigration Policy
Cheese tastes great in a wide variety of foods. But did you know it also works with immigration policies? Well, it does, thanks to that m...
Tim Odagiri
Nov 19, 20231 min
Deep in Japan Interviews Nihon Plus You’s Tim Odagiri about Into Japan
On November 12, 2023, the Deep in Japan podcast released its two-hour interview with Tim Odagiri, Director of Nihon Plus You.
Tim Odagiri
Nov 14, 20233 min
Has Japan Forgotten About Hiroshima?
A few weeks ago, I had a chance to visit Hiroshima, my first trip to that sprawling port city in Western Japan. As I gazed at a cloudbank...
Tim Odagiri
Nov 1, 20231 min
Japan Expert Insights Interviews Nihon Plus You’s Tim Odagiri about His New Book
On October 25, 2023, Maya Matsuoka and Tim Sullivan from Japan Expert Insights interviewed Nihon Plus You’s director, Tim Odagiri, about...
Tim Odagiri
Oct 31, 20236 min
Three Ways to Improve Your Japanese Reading Ability
Someone asked me a few days ago what my secret is for learning Japanese. Obviously, this conversation took place in English. If we had be...
Tim Odagiri
Oct 17, 20234 min
The Trouble with English in Japan
This week, the entertainment behemoth Johnny and Associates will change its name to “Smile-Up.” If you haven’t been following the news, t...
Tim Odagiri
Sep 26, 20233 min
Into Japan Book Now Available!
When you move to Japan, one of the first things you realize is how woefully unprepared you are for the experience. Naturally, there’s the...
Tim Odagiri
Sep 12, 20233 min
Japan is the Adult in the Room
The nations of the world recently have been behaving like a bunch of cranky kids, refusing to play well together despite having ample toy...
Tim Odagiri
Aug 29, 20233 min
Does Japan Have Too Many People?
Anyone who cares about Japan and its people knows that it is going through some demographic turbulence right now. A large baby-boom popul...
Tim Odagiri
Aug 15, 20234 min
Do Foreign Residents in Japan Have an Obligation to Fit In?
I participate in a variety of online groups where foreigners living in Japan mingle to discuss their experiences. Recently, in one such g...
Tim Odagiri
Aug 1, 20233 min
Increasing Japan’s Birthrate Through Better English
There is a very amusing skit by the late Japanese comedian Shimura Ken where he plays a befuddled high school English teacher assigned to...
Tim Odagiri
Jul 19, 20233 min
Why Isn’t Japan Political?
I moved to Japan in part to get away from all the politics. America, in its modern incarnation, is politics on steroids. The old adage, “...
Tim Odagiri
Jul 6, 20234 min
Japan and the Gender Gap Information Gap
As I was browsing through some online news reports last week, I learned that Japan is an oppressive patriarchal hellscape. It’s just so s...
Tim Odagiri
Jun 27, 20234 min
The Burger Kingification of Japan
Japan is great at standardizing things. Whether it is Just-In-Time manufacturing processes in an automobile factory or the shuffling of p...
Tim Odagiri
Jun 6, 20233 min
That Time Some Guy Said, “You’re Not Japan’s Emperor, I Am!”
You history buffs out there might recall that the mid-1940s was a busy time for Japan. With the empire’s defeat at the end of World War I...
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