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NHK WORLD PRIME
Season 4 • Episode 25 • Koza, Okinawa: Base Town Blues
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NHK WORLD PRIME Season 4, Episode 25: Koza, Okinawa: Base Town Blues
A historic music pub reopened in Koza, Okinawa Prefecture, near Kadena Air Base, in 2019. The owner, rock musician Miyanaga Eiichi, performed for American soldiers who were en route to the front lines during the Vietnam War. Now he tells audiences about how the music expressed soldiers' desires for peace, and recounts the history of the base town. Others whose paths crossed in Koza include a resident whose family home was seized for the air base, a former worker at bars catering to US soldiers, and a US veteran who joined the antiwar movement while in Okinawa. The complex history of a base town is explored. Watch NHK WORLD PRIME Season 4, Episode 25 Koza, Okinawa: Base Town Blues in HD free online. Enjoy high-quality streaming of NHK WORLD PRIME Season 4, Episode 25 and share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Episodes
26 episodes
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Castle design evolved in 17th century Japan with stone walls as a key feature. Sakamoto in Shiga Prefecture became famous for its mason's expert techniques for dry-stacking. They traveled across Japan to complete their commissions. But when feudalism ended 150 years ago, many castles were destroyed. While most of the masons lost their jobs, one family in Sakamoto survived by refurbishing old ruins. But the 15th-generation master Suminori Awata is worried about the future. One day he receives an unexpected request to build a castle-style wall in Texas. Awata's journey begins.
49 min
Repatriation: Resettling in North Korea
In Japan and South Korea, fact-finding research has begun to reveal the human costs and political backdrop of the North Korean repatriation program, which began in 1959. The program saw more than 90,000 Korean residents of Japan resettle in the North. Repatriates have previously described the difficult circumstances they faced there, but we now know that their lives were at the mercy of shifting policies and the flux of international affairs—the Cold War contention between the US and the Soviet Union, as well as the changing configuration of Japan's relationship to the 2 Koreas. This documentary features former repatriates who fled North Korea at the risk of their lives. The untold of 60 years of hardship is depicted through new testimony.
50 min
MIYAKO, The Last Dance
Miyako Yoshida's precise and delicate performances earned critical acclaim at the Royal Ballet of England. She remained true to her Japanese sensibilities in becoming the company's first Asian female principal dancer. A year before her retirement, however, she faced injury, emergency hospitalization and separation from a loved one. The program follows Yoshida for 300 days, culminating in her memorable final appearance.
50 min
8K Documentary: The Microscopic World of iPS Cells
Doctors at Osaka University performed the world's first transplant of heart muscle cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). It is a promising treatment for many patients with heart disease. NHK worked closely with Kyoto University which generates iPS cells and Osaka University where the transplant surgery was conducted on a long-term project to record on an 8K Ultra HD camera mounted onto a microscope. For the first time in the world, the images will reveal the entire transformation process of iPS cells which can turn into any type of cell in the body.
49 min
All That Remains
An American famous photographer, Richard Misrach, and a Mexican contemporary composer, Guillermo Galindo, have worked together to create pieces with the artifacts that have been sporadically left during the migration on the 2,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico. The border is also known as the edge of life and death where hundreds of human remains are discovered every year. Be ready to experience a unique collaboration, "Border Cantos," which expresses the harsh reality unknown.
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Refugee Heroes: The Road to Tokyo
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Dignity for All: The Legacy of Sadako Ogata
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49 min
Journalism of Hope
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The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy is still shrouded in mystery. With the help of top experts, NHK takes a new look at the incident through reenactments and fresh theories on the case. Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK, was once a US Marine stationed in Atsugi, Japan who later defected to the Soviet Union. While his own upbringing played a role in his decisions, there is also a possibility that a certain organization was manipulating him behind the scenes. The testimony of Oswald's wife, Marina, also reveals a failed assassination attempt by Oswald in the months leading up to Kennedy's death. We follow the little-known footprints left by this infamous assassin.
50 min
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Using the latest AI technology, can we defeat our "invisible enemy," the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19? In Part 2, we hear from researchers on the pandemic battlefield frontline who are fighting against the explosion of infections with the help of AI. They include the solo data scientist whose predictions of COVID-19 deaths are the most accurate, the researcher who can detect viral infections from voices and researchers making full use of Fugaku, the world's fastest supercomputer.
49 min
The Lost Textile of Ryukyu
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49 min
Koza, Okinawa: Base Town Blues
A historic music pub reopened in Koza, Okinawa Prefecture, near Kadena Air Base, in 2019. The owner, rock musician Miyanaga Eiichi, performed for American soldiers who were en route to the front lines during the Vietnam War. Now he tells audiences about how the music expressed soldiers' desires for peace, and recounts the history of the base town. Others whose paths crossed in Koza include a resident whose family home was seized for the air base, a former worker at bars catering to US soldiers, and a US veteran who joined the antiwar movement while in Okinawa. The complex history of a base town is explored.
49 min
UNTOLD STORIES OF THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA: Women and Teens on the Frontline
The final stages of World War II... The islands of Okinawa turned into a theater of war the United States military called "hell." The Battle of Okinawa claimed the lives of at least 120,000 islanders. Women and girls were forced in as army cooks or nurses, boys in their mid-teens molded into soldiers... and sent to the frontline. As most records were lost, families are still wondering how their loved ones were mobilized... and what became of them. But recently discovered documents reveal their unknown stories.
50 min