Japan is a country rich in pop culture that has started to gain recognition and popularity throughout the world. As popular culture changes quickly and drastically, we focus this lesson on the most recent pop culture. Popular Music Japan boasts the second largest music industry in the world after the United States. Pop music is especially popular in Japan, although you can find all sorts of music in Japan done by Japanese artists-including rock, rap, hip-hop, reggae, and more. Popular Movies Recently, the popularity of domestic Japanese movies has been on the rise, with the annual box-office revenue for domestic movies hitting an all-time high in 2008. Of the top Japanese films of 2008, the highest-grossing... Show more

Metropolis, Japan's No. 1 English magazine, selected JapanesePod101.com as its first ever Website of the Week. Metropolis is a weekly English Magazine for foreigners with a focus on entertainment, events, and Japanese culture.

PC Magazine, the most important technology publication in the world, selected JapanesePod101.com as one of five podcasts worth downloading in their Favorite 100 Blogs 2007 Series. "Languages don't come much more difficult than Japanese. Thankfully, this Tokyo-produced podcast offers a painless—and free—way to bone up on the language and culture of the Land of the Rising Sun, offering the sort of relevant real-world preparation that you won't get in a classroom or on a CD-ROM." - PC Magazine

JapanesePod101.com was recently interviewed by Rob Walsch of Podcast411. Click on the button below to listen to the interview. Podcast411 is the leading Interview show focused on Podcasting. Past guests include Senator John Edwards, Adam Curry (co-inventor of Podcasting), Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal, Phil Gordon from the Bravo Channel, and many other big names in the Podcasting community.

PodFinder UK is an innovative mix of podcasts, video shows and new media programming produced by PodShow UK. Each week the video show Podfinder UK, hosted by the lovely Josephine Laurence, reviews six of the best podcasts and video shows on the web. This week's Episode 17 features JapanesePod101. The show can also be viewed directly here in mp4 format.

Mina-san, Do you listen to JapanesePod101.com and live in or near Sydney, Australia? If so, our friend Barrett Newkirk from the "Sydney Morning Herald" can use your help! Barrett is doing some research on foreign language podcasts for a possible newspaper article and would like to speak to Australian listeners. If you're interested and would like to participate please email contatcus@japanesepod101.com and we'll put you in touch with Barrett. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. JapanesePod101.com

JapanesePod101.com was featured in a Newsweek article by Technology Correspondent Brad Stone about learning languages through podcasts. Brad-san and his wife Jennifer Granick, Executive Director at the Center for Internet and Society, came to JapanesePod101.com "headquarters" earlier this month, and we walked - actually ran - them through a usual day at JapanesePod101.com. Meeting Brad-san and Jennifer-san, two extremely down to earth people for all they have accomplished, has been one of the highlights of the entire project. They made our day by sharing stories of using Japanese they learned from our podcasts and how the resulting experiences added to their trip. Brad-san and Jennifer-san, hontō ni arigatō gozaimasu! For anyone... Show more

Mina-san, Are you from Brazil? Do you listen to JapanesePod101.com? If so, we need your help. Our good friend Filipe-san from the Brazilian newspaper, "O Estado de S.Paulo" is writing a piece on learning languages with podcasts. He would like to interview some Brazilian listeners for his article. Please email us at contatcus@japanesepod101.com if you would like to participate. We’ll forward your information on to Filipe-san. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. JapanesePod101.com

Mina-san, We have some big news! We - JapanesePod101.com, our subscribers, our community, our listeners, everyone who makes what we do possible - have all been nominated for the 2006 Podcast Awards in the Education category! The 2006 Podcast Awards contest is a second annual event that recognizes the best podcasters in the world by allowing the people (listeners and podcasters) to nominate, and then vote for their favorite podcast. Thank you so much for everyone who nominated JapanesePod101.com and provided all of US with this opportunity! Voting opens at 00:01 HST on Friday, July 28th, 2006 and closes at 23:59 HST on Friday, August 11th, 2006. Each person can vote once a day in each category. Contest award winners will be... Show more

Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! Thank you everyone!!!! It was brought to my attention yesterday by Sergio-san that we are currently ranked in the US Apple Music Store's Top 100 Podcasts!!! At last glance we were #61!!! We want to thank everyone out there for making this possible. 本当に有り難うございます！