"Easy Japanese" Video Series on the News

I am extremely honoured that scenes from our latest "Easy Japanese" video series were featured on this evening’s national news at 7PM on NHK 1.

Tonight’s news report coincided with this afternoon’s release of the 10-part educational series I directed about “Easy Japanese in Medical Settings” for the research team of 順天堂/Juntendo Univ's Dr. Yuko Takeda, Sacred Heart University’s Dr. Kazunari Iwata, Teikyo University Graduate School of Public Health's Dr. Hirono Ishikawa and NPO CINGA’s Midori Nii.

I am so grateful to our extremely talented production team:

Daniel Ndevu, production coordinator
Hitomi Nakatani, illustrator
Jeremy Yamamura, animator
Komiya Tetsuro, composer/ sound mixer
株式会社 栃木プロジェクトプロ narration/ animation
The Third Eye Corp’s Tanaka Sakae, production management
and Hemant Singh, director of photography/ editor who accomplished the neck-breaking and eyeball bursting task of editing nearly 75 minutes of blue screen compositing in lightning speed. He is a magician, miracle-worker and gentleman.

More about the video series in the official press release: https://www.juntendo.ac.jp/news/20200925-01.html

 

"Boys for Sale" screens at OAG House in Tokyo

I am extremely grateful to have been able to attend this evening’s screening of Boys For Sale, the first public in-person screening of a film I produced since the pandemic began. With social distancing in place, the screening was fully booked. The event was part of the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) interdisciplinary lecture series “Gender and Sexuality in East Asia: Cultural Studies and Social Science Perspectives”.

Prior to the screening, the composers of the film’s soundtrack Syamisenist Jack and Komiya Tetsuro played music from the film live. And Ko, one of the film’s protagonists, joined me for a post-screening discussion. My gratitude to all who attended and to the organizers for making the event possible.

Event info: https://oag.jp/events/boys-for-sale-von-ian-thomas-ash/