Hikikomori

The last couple of episodes were pretty rough, right? Here's something with relatively few problematic elements, Hatsune Miku, the Vocaloid sensation! Today's guest is Mike! You can find him on Twitter at his handle @tokkan ! Check my new album, Ruined Numbers , for sale on Bandcamp! It's an album of acoustic arrangements of Final Fantasy music. You can also stream the album on Spotify or YouTube...

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Violence, Necrophilia, Cannibalism. We continue our exploration of Issei Sagawa's life after his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt. While you might think that Sagawa would never see the light of day again for his horrific crimes, he was set free, and he spent the rest of his life being a horrible little shit. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Inst...

Content Warning: Sex, Violence, Necrophilia, Cannibalism.   Issei Sagawa was a highly-educated, intelligent and repressed man. His sexual fetish, unfortunately, was cannibalism, and years of fantasizing and planning led to his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt in Paris. After his arrest, however, the story just gets weirder.  Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and...

In the north of Japan's central island there is a small, non-descript place called Shingo Village. The only thing about it that sets it apart from the hundreds of other tiny villages in the area is that it purports to be the true final resting place of Jesus Christ. Tug on this string and a whole bunch of ancient aliens stuff comes tumbling out. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via h...

Content Warning: Natural Disaster and Genocide. On the 1st September, 1923, a megathrust earthquake hit the Kanto Plain, resulting in a catastrophic loss of life. While one would think that tornados made of fire would offer the most horror from this event, the behaviour of the Kanto populace, police and government in the aftermath would be far more disturbing. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can...

Content Warning: Sex Trafficking and Exploitation.  Even before the end of WWII, the Japanese civilian government were preparing for the arrival of the occupying US troops. First and foremost, before any security of basic needs, they determined that they needed to preserve the purity of the Japanese race. To this end, they created a vast network of patriotic brothels... Today's guest is Hannah Lan...

When Daisuke was invited to a dinner anonymously, he had little idea that the meeting would result in the most joyous moments of his life... but would flat-out ruin the rest of it. After marrying into a multi-national vinegar-based corporation, he found himself at the center of a sinister plot to wrest control over his own son away from him. Today's guest is Jon Combey! You can find himon Twitter...

Content Warning: Child Murder, Necrophilia   We continue with the utterly heinous crimes of Tsutomu Miyazaki. After his first murder of a child, he entered a kind of prolonged berserker mode, increasing the depravity of his actions, harassing the families of his victims and even taunting the public, the press and the police. And, when he was finally caught, he would blame it all on an alternate pe...

Tsutomu Miyazaki was a serial murderer of children, active for about 10 months from August 1988. It's a story that has been heavily misrepresented in western media, particularly in regards to Miyazaki's disability, but the real story alone is enough to chill to the bone. Today's guest is Nika Howard! You can find her on Twitter @nika_howard , and all of her wonderful content can be found on her Li...

It's finally here. This is how and why Shinzo Abe was assassinated, and the unexpected failure to deify him after his death. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast . You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod , or you can listen to my other podcasts Final...

In this episode we look at the continuing rise of ultranationalist ideology in Japanese politics under Shinzo Abe, including his membership in the secretive and fascistic Nippon Kaigai organisation, his expansion of the JSDF and his fiddling around behind the scenes during the Tokyo Olympics, despite his supposed retirement. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , a...

We continue our journey through the life and death of Shinzo Abe. Today we look at his remarkable political comeback in 2011, along with his the incidents that never seemed to tarnish his popularity, particularly his horrific historical revisionism, and the Moritomo Gakuen scandal... Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror m...

We embark on a 4-part journey through the life and death of Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-running Prime Minister, who just so happened to get assassinated in May of 2022. As we shall discover, perhaps the damage had already been done by that point... Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do toget...

This is the tale of the rise of fascism in Japan, from its origins in Mussolini's Italy to the first bumbling attempts at coups by clandestine organisations. One of the most unlikely people who became embroiled in one such coup was the legendary comedic actor Charlie Chaplin. Today's guest is Cami! You can find her via her Twitter page ! You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod , or you can li...

We continue our exploration of Shinzo Abe's greatest influence on his life, the war criminal Nobusuke Kishi. This episode we cover his life after being released from prison, and his highly successful and Machiavellian return to politics. What a piece of shit. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that...

To begin a long series on the life and death of Shinzo Abe, we must first look at the most influential person in Abe's life - his maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. Beginning his career in 1930s Manchuria, Kishi would eventually be one of the central architects of post-war Japan. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror mo...

In 1961, a new Disneyland was due to open in the city of Nara. This would have been the second Disneyland in the world, a replica of the Anaheim original, and a monument of America's cultural dominance across the world. Nara Disneyland never happened, but what we got instead was something far more beautiful.  Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also t...

Tokyo Rose was an infamous radio host operating during WWII, helping to spread pernicious Japanese propaganda with the aim of breaking the spirits of Allied troops. Despite the fact that the US State Department would eventually claim that a Japanese American woman, Iva Toguri, was the culprit, the truth is that Tokyo Rose never even existed.  Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her...

We've made it. The final chapter in the fate of the legendary Shinsengumi. As the reign of the Tokugawa is in its death throes, Kondo Isami gets repeatedly promoted, seemingly unaware that he's being made the captain of a sinking ship. By the time he realises, it's far too late, and Isami might be denied his "beautiful death" of Seppuku. Today's guest is Carly Shields! You can find her via her Twi...

The final tale of the storied Shinsengumi... split up into 2 parts. Kondo, head of the Shinsengumi, begins to have a taste of the power he always sought, even as Japan falls into the turmoil of the Boshin war.  Today's guest is Carly Shields! You can find her via her Twitter page , or listen to the excellent Greetings Adventurers podcast for which she helps produce! For more content follow me on @...

Sumo Wrestling is the national sport of Japan, and has been practiced in some form for most likely around 2000 years. It prides itself on its integrity, honor and sportsmanship, and yet considering the innumerable scandals the sport has faced in the past 20 years alone, it could be argued that Sumo is not, in fact, a sport at all. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram pa...

Content Warning: Spree Killing by Firearms Despite the social phenomenon of the violent Incel being associated with the advent of the internet, the Tsuyama Massacre of 1938 feels unnervingly recognisable. This is the story of the sack of shit Mutsuo Toi. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do...

Content Warning: Claustrophobia and Toilet Humour A body. A Mystery. A Toilet. This is the story of Naoyuki Kanno, who went missing on 24th February 1989. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast . For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram...

The earthquake and tsunami that rocked Northern Honshu on the 11th March, 2011, had far-reaching consequences beyond the natural disaster. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant lost electric power, multiple cooling systems failed, and over the coming days multiple core meltdowns led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. And it was entirely preventable. Today's guest is Hannah...

Content Warning: Natural Disasters.  11th March, 2011. 2:46pm. A magnitude 9.1 undersea earthquake strikes 45 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. While the initial tremor was severe, the resulting tsunami that hit the shore was catastrophic. Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page , and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast th...