Posted by Dave Bull at 12:41 PM, April 9, 2009

Now it can be told! Back in the waning years of my 10-year project to make prints of all the Hyakunin Isshu poets (1989~1998) I was 'followed' around by a crew preparing a 'made-for-TV' one hour documentary program on the work. This aired in February 1999, just after the final exhibition of the series.

A few years later, when I began to put clips from various TV shows onto this website, in the Woodblock Shimbun press section, the producer asked me to hold off on this one - until 10 years had passed since the original broadcast. I have no idea if this was to comply with copyright regulations, or some other rules, but I of course respected her wishes.

That limitation has now passed, so I have uploaded video of the program to the site. Rather than one huge file, I have split it into five sections, following the commercial breaks in the original production.

Here's the first part, along with links to the rest ...

Aired on TV Tokyo in February 1999 ... a one hour made-for-TV documentary program. Although I feel that the producer focussed rather too much on the melodramatic aspects of our family life during that ten year period, the program does indeed give a pretty good overview of what the project was like ...

Part 1 : 6 1/2 minutes
Part 2 : 12 minutes
Part 3 : 7 minutes
Part 4 : 9 minutes
Part 5 : 9 1/2 minutes

It's all in Japanese of course (my 10-year-ago bad Japanese to boot), but a .pdf file with a rough guide to what is being said during the program is here.

Following comment posted by: tim on April 23, 2009 11:08 AM

melodramatic yes but very moving.
I think it stands up as part of a story.
The useful information that I hope viewers will share from the whole show is your dedication to research and taking on the task to preserve a tradition. It always leaves me dumbfounded and amazed
So given that, I look on with respect and love