Tobi (host)

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686 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 31 Jul

Tobi (host)’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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Unpacking Japan · Tattoo artist explains traditional Japanese apprenticeships · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

A lot of people might consider Europe or maybe you go to your northern neighbors of Canada or down south to Mexico or elsewhere.

What was your interest in coming to Japan specifically?

Like the one that we are working.

Like exactly the one we discussed earlier.

So in the end, you decided to go by yourself.

And you were like, well, if it's so hard to source, I might go explore Japan by myself and kind of try to find a way to live there.

Or first through a few visits and then on the JET program.

You said you were blown away.

What was it when you arrived on your first few trips that you were really like, oh, wow, this is really cool?

When your first impressions of Japan are these big cities, Tokyo, Osaka, and you kind of are blown away and you get attracted, you want to come here.

And then you apply for the JET program in Kagoshima, which is a lovely city, but I would say there's a very stark contrast with those two cities.

So somewhere in the countryside of Kagoshima.

Yeah.

On an Island.

With your experience here, living in Osaka, mostly now in Tokyo, but starting out on this island in Kagoshima, would you say that it's perhaps even better to get a good sense of the culture, of the people, and to adjust to life in Japan and really integrate yourself into the communities by starting out in the countryside as opposed to suddenly arriving in these big cities that are international, that have international communities?

where you may not need Japanese language as much.

So you arrive on this tiny island in Kagoshima.

You meet the drummers.

You kind of get into the community.

You said at the beginning when I first asked you about how you got to Japan that at the time when you were in Kagoshima, you kind of discovered the tattoo culture here and these tattoo artists.

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