The TV Asahi variety show "Japan Exploration Academic Variety: Tuesday's Yoshizumi Kotaro" (Tuesdays at 7pm) is hosted by Yoshizumi Ishihara and Kotaro Koizumi, and teaches the wonders of various famous places in Japan, such as World Heritage sites and hidden places. In the February 10th broadcast, they will explore Jiyugaoka, Tokyo, which will soon be celebrating its 100th anniversary.
The group visits the home of the chairman of the Jiyugaoka Shopping District Promotion Association, who is knowledgeable about the town's history. Yoshizumi and guest Daisuke Miyagawa are astonished by the historic "Nagayamon" gate and 70-meter-long splendid wall that suddenly appeared in the upscale residential area.
The chairman comes from a family of village headmen that has been around for 400 years, and says that this area was once a farming village with many swamps that spread out at the bottom of a valley, not on a hill, and was called "Yabata" of "Fusuma Village." With the chairman's guidance, we visited Kumano Shrine, the local guardian deity that has been enshrined there since the Kamakura period. We also learned about another village headman who is known as the "founder of Jiyugaoka" because he donated the land in front of the station, and we were touched by the passion of his ancestors who transformed a village at the bottom of a deserted valley into a town where people want to live.
Furthermore, they pass by the site of Seiko Matsuda's shop "Flores Seiko," and the astonishing legend of a 500-meter queue forming at the store's opening is revealed. Yoshizumi recalls a time when he met Seiko Matsuda at a karaoke competition held at Yujiro Ishihara's house, and remarks, "Looking back on it now, I feel embarrassed...it's a very bitter memory."
