In Japan, there's a commonly held romantic notion that people who really want to pursue certain kinds of ambitions have to go abroad to do so. Only by immersing oneself in an environment that offers no distractions from the goal can one truly master a discipline.
This concept is the basis for the new TBS variety series "John Manjiro" (Monday, 12:50 a.m.). The program's title is the name of the famous fisherman who brought new technologies back from the West at the start of the Meiji Era. However, as an eponymous hero, John Manjiro is something of a misnomer in terms of the aims of the show.
Manjiro did not go to America of his own free will. In the late Edo Period, his fishing boat was damaged and he drifted aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean until he was rescued by an American whaling ship. The crew took the 14-year-old boy to America, where he learned English and studied geographical surveying. Later, he returned to Japan with Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition of 1853.
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