Japan’s Evaporated People

On July 4th, 1975, journalist and Sydney heiress Juanita Nielsen disappeared. Most assumed she was the victim of foul play. After all, for years she’d been fighting a land developer determined to turn her charming, low-income neighborhood into a bunch of high-rises. She was last ...  Show more

The chupacabra is considered the third most widely known cryptid in the world, behind Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster – kind of mind-blowing, considering the fact that this mythical creature’s origins are relatively recent. Reports of el chupacabras began in Puerto Rico in 1995 ...  Show more

Johatsu — which translates to “Evaporated People.” It is a disturbing and strange phenomenon in Japan. It is eerily similar to the North American missing 411 phenomena we have covered so in-depth on this show. Today I will introduce you to the unnerving world of the nameless peop ...  Show more

A Japanese Hostess Club - purchase a table by the hour - female hostesses will come and sit with you the entire time. They pour your drinks, light your cigarette, flirt with you, and stroke your ego. 

There’s an unspoken law that all the flirting - wa ...

Sometimes things - like dentures, airplanes or even people - go missing. And when they never turn up again they become enduring, and engrossing, mysteries.

In this episode…Post-bubble Japan.The history of socially-conscious Japanese literature.And Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, a powerful examination of Tokyo by one of the most invisible people imaginable—the ghost of a homeless day laborer.Transcript, notes and sources at the podcas ...  Show more