Shows / POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa
POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa
Post-Whatever with Ken Nishikawa is a weekly talk show about everything and nothing - and a little bit about Japan, the West (Britain, in particular), and the vast, baffling space in between — covering music, culture, food, history, politics, philosophy, and whatever else demands attention that particular week. Hosted by Ken Nishikawa — composer, broadcaster, DJ, film director, and occasional grumpy old man — who has worked for the BBC, MTV, TBS, J-WAVE, and several organisations that probably…
Episodes
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaWhere Did Half of Tokyo Go? - The Dark History of Modern Japan
The Meiji Restoration is usually taught as a tidy handover: the shogun’s side surrendered Edo Castle, the new government moved in, and everybody went home for…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaJapanoise: Hostile to Speakers, Kind to Animals
This week on Post-Whatever, a story about a country famous for tea ceremony, zen gardens and punctual trains, and the underground music scene it built to ruin…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe Poet Billionaire: Money for Art’s Sake
This week on Post-Whatever, a story about the only billionaire I know of who spent his money on poetry, performance art and putting Jackson Pollock next to the…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaTokyo Is a State of Mind: The Vanishing World of the Edokko
This week on Post-Whatever, I dedicate it to my late grannie, who once single-handedly talked down a gang of sword-and-gun-wielding yakuza at her own front…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaDual-Layered Languages: What English and Japanese Have in Common
This week on Post-Whatever, I do something I almost never allow myself: point out what English and Japanese have in common, rather than spending the usual…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaMusic Channel Honjo 7 Fushigi: Edo's Ghosts, Reimagined as a Walking Tour
This week on Post-Whatever, I finally talk about the project I've been not-so-subtly hinting at for weeks: the music I composed for Music Channel Honjo Seven…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaHow to Annoy a Simpleton in a Comfy Echo Chamber
What do you get when you tell someone in Japan you once lived in Britain for a few years? Hint: it is always, without fail, a question about the food. This…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaBusiness as Usual (Since 578 AD) - How Japan Builds Companies That Won't Take the Hint
What's the oldest company in the world? Hint: it's not a bank, and it's had a rather eventful 1,448 years. This week on Post-Whatever, we go looking for the…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaConfusion Cuisine, or How Japan Learned to Love Beef
For over a thousand years, eating beef in Japan was considered spiritually ruinous — the sort of thing that got you some very serious side-eye from the…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa80 years of karmic circle - Japanese history repeats itself
Every 80 years or so, Japan seems to hit "reset" — and then, with almost suspicious precision, proceeds to repeat itself. In this episode, I lay out a rather…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe Atomic Bomb - Crime Against Humanity That Saved Millions of Lives
CONTENT WARNING: This is, by some distance, the most divisive episode of Post-Whatever to date. If you've enjoyed the show so far because it's mostly kept you…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe First Blue-Eyed Comedian in Japan — the Tragicomical Story of the Original Kairakutei Black
Long before Pakkun, before Katsura Sunshine took rakugo to West End and Broadway, there was an Australian who beat them all to it by about 130 years — and did…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaJapan: The Promised Land? A (Very) Rough Guide
I'm in a handy position here: I can talk about Japan exactly AS IT IS, and nobody gets to call me racist for it. Some might call me unpatriotic instead — but…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaSo, What the Hell Is a Geisha, Anyway?
My mother is a geisha. She's spent a lifetime being magnificently misunderstood, and this week, so am I, as I attempt to explain her profession to an audience…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaIt Was 60 Years Ago Today — The Beatles Conquered Japan
Exactly sixty years ago today, four lads from Liverpool walked onto a stage and played their final two shows of the Japan tour at the Nippon Budokan. They only…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaHow to Enjoy Your Toxic Patriotism — A Field Guide to Your Inner Hitler
The World Cup is in full swing, which means the world's most polite people are currently screaming at television sets over a man falling over in the correct…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe voice of David Attenborough - Planet Trans
Sir David Attenborough just turned 100, which means two things: 1 - he remains a global treasure, and 2 - it’s finally time I confess that, in the 1990s, I was…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe Most Difficult Language in the World - Don't Panic!
The US government ranked every language in the world in five categories - by how much learning time it requires for an American diplomat to become fluent…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaSilken Tofu and Tamari Soy Sauce - two most misunderstood Japanese food items
Every week, somewhere in the world, a well-meaning Western chef reaches for silken tofu and tamari soy sauce and applies them to everything with the quiet…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaWould you Kamikaze? - Debunking the myth of patriotism
The Doomsday Clock stands at 85 seconds to midnight. We just moved it forward by 3 seconds. As a species, we are clearly committed.In Episode 8 of…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe Saddest (and Funniest) Hit Parade — A Brief History of J-Pop
Japan never really did “happy” love songs - traditionally, at least. Here's why — and why that's more interesting than it sounds. In this episode of…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaWhen London Was Cool and Tokyo Was Rich —Boom, Britpop and the Bubble of the '90s
A visit to YBA & Beyond — British Art in the '90s from the Tate Collection at the National Art Centre Tokyo recently stopped me in my tracks. It was all je ne…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaSake of the Song: The Wall Street Journal Correspondent Who Became Tokyo's First Pop Star
In 1925, a young elite American journalist named Burton Crane arrived in Yokohama as a financial correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and the New York…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaVegetarian Life in Tokyo (life can be cruel)
Being vegetarian in Japan is a bit like being a pacifist at a sword convention. Technically possible. Occasionally uncomfortable. And people keep offering you…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe Man Who Taught Mishima How to Swim (and the story of the second-oldest hamburger in Japan)
In this episode, Ken Nishikawa introduce to the world Café Bonnet — a tiny, resolutely unreconstructed junkissa tucked down a side alley in the seaside resort…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaThe John & Yoko Phenomenon
Why is it almost always western man, Japanese woman — and the other way round is comparatively few? And why has it been that way since at least 1600?In this…
POST-WHATEVER with Ken NishikawaTokyo will pay you ¥11,000, no catch! (well, almost...)
If you think your soul is worth no more than ¥11,000 (69USD) like I do, then press play.Free money. Well — almost. It’s complicated. It’s Japan.In this…