>> pity the salary man.

tokyo's willing cog, in an enormous machine requiring long hours, low pay, total dedication. and sometimes, what's called karoshi, death by overwork. here in a society of tight spaces and many expectations, the pressure's on. to keep up appearances, to do what's expected. to not let the interior life become exterior. but at night, things are different. ♪

>> what do you need to know about tokyo? deep, deep waters. the first time i came here, it was like -- it was a

transformative, experience. it was a powerful and violent experience. it was as if -- it was just like taking acid for the first time. meaning, what do i do now? i see the whole world in a different way. i often compare the experience of going to japan for the first time, going to tokyo for the first time, to what eric clapton and pete townsend must've gone through, the reigning guitar gods of england, what they must've gone through the week that jimi hendrix came to town. you hear about it, you go see it, the whole -- a window opens up into a whole new thing. and you think, "what does this mean?

what do i have left to say? what do i do now?" >> welcome to tokyo. you are not invited. this is the other tokyo. 12-hour flight, and i'm baked, no sleep. might as well -- must -- go out. kabukicho district near my hotel has the advantage of being where the subterranean life, the repressed kids of the japanese male and some females too, comes out to play. joining me is japanese film producer and production manager masa kakubo.

always a good sign when protective chains separate entertainers from the soon to be entertained, right? prepare yourself for the greatest show in the history of entertainment. ♪

i'm confused. what does it all mean? ♪

>> no, no, it can't be over, not yet. no! but yet, yet it is, with a series of chased high fives with the hardworking performers. >> okay, i gotta tell you -- i've seen jimi hendrix. >> have you? >> i've seen janis joplin. i've seen david bowie. >> uh-huh. >> diamond dogs, i've seen colleen dewhurts and jason robards in moon for the misbegotten directed by jose quintero on broadway. >> oh. >> considered one of the greatest productions ever in the history -- this was the greatest show i've ever seen in my life. it had it all. it was the greatest show in the history of entertainment. i don't understand it. i'm completely confused. there's like 100 people working on that show, millions of dollars' worth of like, robots and technology. >> yeah. >> how do they make money?

>> well, one thing for sure about this area is that quite a lot of businesses are unspoken but governed by the yakuzas. >> the yakuza, that's the fraternal organization prominent in the entertainment and financial services sector, as they say, who is said to, um, supervise things here in shinjuku. principally, your arcades, you have gambling, pachinko, adult entertainments, your porn shops and sex clubs, along with other ancillary services. but how much actual boning is going on in the sex district? generally speaking, it's more a field of dreams than the actual act of sex. hostess cafes, for instance, where a lonely, overworked, salary man can find the attention of cute, seemingly adoring girls who find their every utterance fascinating. >> so now, a hostess bar is, i just want somebody to tell me

i'm fantastic, oh, you're so interesting, your job is interesting, you are a very sexy man? >> yeah. >> i don't care what your wife says. i think you're really interesting. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> penetration, maybe by a q-tip in the ear followed by a personal love spell, in this case, to make your tea taste better. >> okay what is this place? what's happening here? oh, this is a, um -- >> are these boys? >> young boys host clubs for -- not for men, but for middle aged ladies who are bored with the regular housewife's life. >> well, wait a minute, you got like, a million guys wandering around here looking to get -- and then, you've got a whole bunch of bored middle aged housewives coming in here. >> spending, spending quite a lot of money. >> why don't they go to the same club and somebody will actually

have sex? >> people don't like getting rejected, so they sort of like, pay for their pleasure. and then, it make you feel, welcome and maybe you can feel like, hmm, i'm not that bad after talking to those girls or boys. >> that's the saddest thing i've ever heard. >> well -- >> no, that's heartbreaking, dude. is the business of shinjuku dreams? >> it is more for the dream of doing so, which is never going to happen. >> really? all of this? i mean, it is a very enticing -- i mean, look at this. wait a minute. she looks like she really likes me. look. she's got her tongue tucked up in the corner of her mouth. >> who? which one? >> oh no. >> that's a boy, though. oh, hell. whatever. >> golden gai, long my favorite place to drink in tokyo, hundreds of micro sized bars,

each different from the other, with their own micro crowd. i love it here. >> god, i've actually never been here before. maybe i have, i don't know. >> this place is one of masa's favorites, bar albatross. a few seats, strong drinks, the definition of a hole in the wall. >> now, do people come here right from work, drink all night and then go back to work? >> oh, salary men. salary men? >> hmm. would a salary man bring his wife here? >> so look, in, in america, the bartender is like a priest. >> so you come and talk to them? >> i can tell them all of my problems. >> ah. >> and i could behave very badly and he will never talk. ever.

>> ah, ah. this is the contract. >> hmm, okay. >> absolute confidentiality. >> mm-hmm. >> do i have that kind of arrangement here now? >> so i have his implied guarantee of total security? >> yeah. >> so if i came here with some dinosaur riding ho in a bikini. it would be -- i mean -- >> no, you don't have to ask him. it's okay. oh man. this is a great country. every chef i know wants to die here. >> is that about the food? >> because the food is awesome. >> yeah. >> and because we, i think, all of us understand that we don't understand anything about japan. and i totally don't understand the porn here. >> in what way? >> why is it okay -- you

>> why is it okay -- you can't somebody with a penis, but you can them with an octopus tentacle? >> hmm. have to do anything? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) hmm, that is really something. (burke) you get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. see ya. (kid) may i have a balloon, too? (burke) sure. your parents have maintained a farmers home policy for twelve consecutive months, right? ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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>> in japan, there is a very old, very deep and very rich tradition of martial arts. many styles, many schools. the yonekura gym and toshima ward focuses on boxing, and this man, kenji yonekura, is a legend -- having trained generations of fighters using a simple and effective philosophy that has some real application to our story. there it is, pasted on the wall behind the ring. one, speed. two, timing.

three, distance. this same idea applies to the convention shunning sushi techniques of new york city legend naomichi yasuda. until recently, the chef partner of one of the very best, if not the best sushi restaurant in new york, the eponymous sushi yasuda. a short while ago, under very mysterious and completely misreported circumstances, he left the manhattan restaurant which still bears his name, and at age 52, moved to tokyo to start all over again. i was determined to track him down and see what the hell he was doing. these days, this great man is running a 14-seat sushi bar in the minato district of tokyo.

his wife, naomi, is his only helper. >> welcome to new place. uh, thank you for coming. >> why did you do such a hard thing? >> this city, tokyo, this is kind of the mecca of the sushi. so i just want to be the sushi chef in tokyo. yasuda is a friend, and my master in the sense that he's taught me pretty much everything i know about sushi over the years. he's a very, very interesting and complex man, who constantly surprises. >> tony-san, this wasabi is one of the most expensive wasabi. so, i wait, wait, wait. finally, this one goes to the discount box. then, i bought this. >> that's very french of you. >> so many things separate yasuda-san from other japanese sushi masters.

the most noticeable is his hands. they're huge. look at the knuckles, enormous from years of pounding cement walls during repeated daily practice in kyokushin karate. he first trained and competed in tokyo. and when he came to new york, he continued to practice. often, in underground, bare knuckle matches, where you fight until someone gets beaten to the ground. this style yasuda practiced, was about beating your opponent as quickly and as aggressively as possible. speed. every second is important. rice is getting cold, seaweed is getting soggy, fish, less than perfect temperature. look at his posture -- a fighter's stance. distance, knowing the perfect spot to be. moving in and out as needed, never out of position. timing, reacting to his customers' pace of eating, their ever changing desires, always

ready for the next move. >> most people who don't understand sushi, who go to a sushi bar and say, "oh, i had the best sushi last night, the fish was so fresh. it was right out of the ocean." >> the freshest fish, there is no taste. it's just chewy, just hard. and, people think, "oh freshest should be good." but it wasn't. >> yasuda's menu changes constantly with what he finds in the market. and like thousands of other sushi chefs, he heads every day to tsukiji, tokyo's central fish market, where nearly 3,000 tons of the world's best seafood arrives every day. but unlike most others at his level, who arrive at 4:00 am to cream off what they perceive as the best and freshest, yasuda-san arrives later. he does not buy the ridiculously expensive otoro, the fatty belly meat of the blue fin tuna, that people have been known to pay hundreds of dollars a pound for.

instead, he buys tuna from the heads, using his knife skills to go for qualities that most others miss, removing every bit of sinew from what would otherwise be a difficult piece of meat. in tow, it's well, perfect. and he cures the results, actually cures it, breaking down its molecular structure in a desirable way by freezing it quickly in a medical grade blast freezer, where it will stay for a week or longer at minus 82 degrees celsius. he pioneered this technique years ago in new york, where, if you bothered to ask, he would've proudly told you that the absolutely unbelievably sublime piece of perfect sushi you were eating was frozen. >> mmm. delicious. >> thank you very much. >> which is more important, the rice or the fish? >> rice. >> or what percentage? rice? more important? >> about 90 percent. >> wow. that's --

>> fish is a second ingredient. the main ingredient is rice. so, my sushi is rice. >> yasuda, he still trains, though his fighting days are over. he says he was tired of hurting people. he brings me to kameo dojo in asakusa to try and show me how his sushi technique and kyokushin karate are one in the same. ouhi kameo, the master .

>> nice. >> many other people ask me, "what's the point between the karate and the sushi?" but this movement is so much good for when i make my sushi. because of the stance, of the different type of karate, the stance is a little bit more upper. so this karate is a stance, is a little bit more deep, this. so standing in front of the, cutting board, a little bit of a deep stance and movement, deep stance and the body will do this and watch -- through the middle from left to the right, like focus. move this, move this. there, watch this and watch this. this is one of the keys. so, this karate is my sushi roots.

>> now, in an official tournament, a two minute-round? >> a two-minute round, yes. and the result you're looking for is points? >> points or a knock down. >> right. >> but the two minutes fight. one minute is a fight. that's the most hardest. >> if it's underground, you could just work on their legs for five, seven minutes to slow them down. >> yes. >> and then you go in. >> yes, and, no compromise, just do it. whatever happen, no excuse. see the result, good or not. if it's bad, try again. don't give up. >> right. this is my sushi. >> perfect .

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>> those who buy into the notion of japanese women as shy, giggling, subservient victims of convention would be confused by tomika. people, as everywhere, if you look deeper, can surprise you. her day job is doing this, and i gather from what she tells me, that she gets plenty of work .

the taito ward of tokyo, another complicated warren of businesses layer upon layer, where excellent izakayas are well represented, places where a hardworking salary man can have a beer or some sake or many beers and many sakes. and, salty, savory, pickly delicious snacks that go brilliantly with alcohol. >> this is beer. >> please, yes. >> tomika brings me to one of them, daitoro, to meet some friends. there's kusaya, grilled, fermented fish, followed up by some skewers of beef intestine and chicken.

this place is well known for motsunabe, or intestine stew with miso, so we order some of that as well. thi is naga, invited along to help translate. naga runs a custom service company but he also teachers pole dancing for men. then, there's this man, kinoko hajime, one of the best known and most respected practitioners, a master of shibari, the art of ropes, beautiful knots, of what, for lack of a better word, we call bondage. >> so how big is the, sadomasochistic, community? how many people are active participants? >> a hundred -- a hundred thousand people. >> a lot. >> a lot. >> this is shibari, translation, to bind.

and to make things more confusing for those looking for a concise takeaway, a comfortable reaction to what sure as hell looks pretty disturbing, tomika has spent most of her time ripping, burning, and generally abusing men, enthusiastically reverses roles in her longtime relationship with hajime. >> it looks like a very delicate procedure. does it hurt or does it feel good? >> of course, but this pain change through the ecstasy. >> what she said, you know, when she was tied up, no need to think, just leave it to -- she love that. >> performance art, craft, fetish or compulsion.

it's an old and shockingly omnipresent feature of japanese popular fantasy culture. magazines, movies, even comic books, the intricate restraint of a willing victim, well, it's there, not far from the surface. >> what percentage of japanese men are interested in either tying up women or subjugating women? >> all of them. >> all of them? well, then, the question is, how many japanese men like to be tied up? >> yeah, all of them.

>> so in your experience, all japanese men like to tie women up, but in your experience, all japanese men like to be tied up. >> who's more up sexually, americans or japanese? >> they're the same. >> so, maybe she suggests you to be tied up. >> a little late for me. >> in america, where i come which is a lot. so take care of that heart with lipton. because sippin' on unsweetened lipton can help support a healthy heart. lipton. stop chuggin'. start sippin'.

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>> in america, where i come from, we are told at a certain age to put aside childish things -- the action figures, dolls, the creatures of our imagination, to arm ourselves for the brutal realities of the real world, real combat, real sex. in japan, increasing numbers of people don't. they continue to live a life inside four walls, inside their mind, the life we call of the computer geek, the nerd, as avatars. there's a name for it, a whole subculture of what's called otaku. once a derisive term, now, a proud identifier of the geek, one who has turned his back on the real world to find satisfaction elsewhere. manga, or comic books, hold a

different place in the cultural landscape here, and address different needs. there's yaoi, for example, otherwise known as boys love manga, extremely popular with teenage girls. stories change, but the core themes are sexually ambiguous boys getting very friendly with each other. what legions of young girls and soccer moms find compelling in the thousands of these titles is something of a mystery to outsiders looking in, but there they are, whole sections of manga bookshops dedicated to basically one direction type boy band figures having sex with each other. yaoi isn't generally explicit, though it can be. some of the most popular manga are, however, lurid, over the top, illustrated stories of incredible violence, rape, murder, and sexual fetishism. toshi maeda is a manga creator like few others. the father of what could only be described as tentacle porn.

his 1986 manga, urotsukidoji was about half-human half-beastial space invaders in search of an evil supreme being. it contained unbelievably graphic, lurid, violent, and one would argue, offensive images of sex acts involving not sexual organs, but other protuberances. it became a huge hit and has been imitated widely over other manga and in live action films. a whole genre of lurid and extraordinarily well drawn madness. at mana ulmi restaurant, toshio tries to explain. >> you know, this, girl seems like, a high school girl. so basically, it's forbidden. >> notice, by the way, the distinguished owner and her complete lack of shock or offense at the graphic, frankly,

horrifying images of rape, violation, and murder spread casually across the table for all to see. japanese manga, ones that everyone reads on the subway home, even, well, they're different. >> the big breakthrough was you couldn't draw penises, you couldn't draw specifically orifices, you couldn't actually show humans penetrating each other. >> in japan? >> right. >> it was a big no-no at the time. so, i invented tentacles to be evasive about the law. >> right. >> also, demons. >> demons. >> that's fantastic. whether you meant to at the time, you absolutely changed the world of manga. you created an entire spectrum of pornography that didn't exist before. if you go to youtube now, there is tentacle manga. >> mm-hmm.

>> tentacle and demon manga. >> and demon. >> there is tentacle and demon anime. >> mm-hmm. >> a lot. >> ah, that looks good. >> for dinner there's katsuo tataki, fresh bonito seared quickly over a flame arranged in bite sized pieces garnished with daikon, fresh greens, sprouts, and ponzu. toshio comes here often for the tomato nabe, commonly a favorite of sumo wrestlers as part of a weight gain diet. basically it's a hot pot of meat and vegetables. chicken, pork, beef, fish balls keep getting fed into the pot, usually alongside much beer and rice. adding that much needed bulk up factor is so important to sumo wrestlers and cable tv hosts. >> thank you. >> so appealing to the hidden desires of a manga buying audience, men want filthier, dirtier, more violent? >> in japan, you can't be rude

in public. >> right. >> but you need to just say, you know, i can say that, letting off steam. >> right. >> so, probably the manga is the one way to do that. >> what do women want? generally speaking, what do women want in manga? >> yaoi. >> yaoi? >> yeah, boys love. you know? because they probably don't have enough experience to do that with real men. >> but nobody's going to the fish market and asking for live octopus? >> no. >> probably not. >> probably not. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless.

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call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. >> the pop music scene in tokyo is not that different from ours. with an accent though on pretty boy bands, pop idols, tween stars. generic, industry-created crap for the most part. like i said, not so different than us. picture an army of miley cyruses. or would that be miley cyrii? going against the grain are a few lone heroes like these guys. merging moon. two self-released albums and no hint of a record deal. what do they know?

lead singer, yu, sweet, shy, pop friendly, lilifare . >> yeah, so how big an audience is there in japan for a thrash metal, death metal hardcore? >> we had, ozzy osbourne's ozzfest this year. >> right. >> that was the first time in japan, and i feel like, people are watching the heavy metal scene as a new movement. >> and the audiences, good audiences here? >> they are kind of polite.

>> they're polite? really? >> they are really quiet and just watching us, and when we finish playing, they suddenly clap. >> really? >> you know, when i look at popular music, the stuff that's selling millions of records in america, it makes me angry, actually. >> do you mean that you sometimes get angry with someone, people? >> okay? so like, what's so funny? it's true. like, i mean, who do you hate? what band do you hate? a band that i would know. who's the worst band in the world? the worst popular band in the world. >> my chemical romance. >> who? >> my chemical romance. >> oh, my chemical romance. yes. hate them. right. that's a good one.

>> can you make a living? >> no. >> no? >> not at all. >> not at all? >> we all have part-time jobs. >> you all have jobs. what do your families think when they see that you're doing this kind of music? >> that we are at 22 to 25 years old. >> mm-hmm. >> it's the hunting job season in our lives. so there's pressure on you? >> yeah, yeah. and we all went to university and owe a lot of money. >> right. the expectation, the pressure is, okay, get a real job. >> yeah. >> put aside this rock and roll and get a real job. in a perfect world, would you like to play every night? would you like to play metal

every night? >> yeah. i could be cleaning toilets if i can keep doing this. >> and you? yeah, these guys look like lifers. my dad was a hard worker. he used to do side jobs installing windows, charging something like a hundred bucks a window when other guys were charging four to five-hundred bucks. he just didn't wanna do that. he was proud of the price he was charging. ♪ my dad instilled in me, always put the people before the money.

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>> tokyo may well be the most amazing food city in the world, with a nearly unimaginable variety of places stacked one on top of the other, tucked away on every level of densely packed city streets. at lawson's, you can dig into their unnaturally fluffy, insanely delicious, incongruously addictive egg salad sandwiches. i love them. >> oh yeah. >> layer after layer after layer

of awesome. crowded eateries serving who knows what? but, it all smells delicious, and looks enticing. in the tiny, almost micro neighborhood of nakameguro, tokyo, all is quiet. and amazingly, for right here in the middle of this eye goggling pinball machine of a city, greed. yasuda lives near here, and he loves this place, a low-key joint to enjoy family meals and meet friends. >> i so much appreciate seeing you and all of the people from the u.s. >> well, we miss you, you know? >> i miss new york city. >> i'll tell you something really terrible. every relationship i've ever had with a woman, at some point very early on i bring them to yasuda in new york. >> mm-hmm. >> and i would watch how they eat. >> mm-hmm. >> if they talked too much, if they didn't understand how to eat sushi, if they did not eat the uni, we will never have a

relationship. that's it. that's the end. >> they don't serve high end sushi here or elaborate hiseki-inspired fare. it's almost like hipster tempura. this style of food is known as kushiage -- skewers of delicious things dipped in batter and fried, perfectly. yasuda-san orders up shrimp and basil, lotus root, octopus and pickled quail eggs. you also have to have their take on okonomiyaki, a type of egg batter pancake that can be filled with many things. for us, it's squid and brushed with worcestershire sauce. >> wow, that's awesome.

>> i've been coming here for many times, but this is the first time to eat. >> oh, okonomiyaki, yeah. >> yeah. >> i love this dish. you lived in new york, what, 14 years, 18 years? >> 27 years, so since 1984 to 2011. >> 27 years in new york. >> yeah. >> that changes a person. >> yes, very much. >> you're a new yorker now. >> yes. >> what was the hardest thing to get used to when you first came here? >> culture. >> the culture. >> yes, the culture is so much different between the u. s. and here. and manhattan is so interesting always. i never ever get boring. that city -- >> look, i never get bored. >> yeah. >> and i always learn new things in manhattan. but, there's 15, 20 different manhattans in tokyo, to me. >> all right, okay. >> i mean, shinjuku, shibuya, roppongi, from my perspective, these are completely different cities. >> yes, yes. >> even building to building. a place down here, nightclub for men, nightclub for girls,

nightclub for rock and rollers. >> mm-hmm. >> a hair salon, but all up, 50 different businesses at one building, one building. >> yes. >> i can spend the next five years just doing shows on this one building. >> what is weird? what is strange? what do these things even mean anyway? sure a lot of what you've seen looks different from maybe the mainstream. it's certainly different from the way we like to portray ourselves, see ourselves. at least, our daytime selves. but roughly 50% of all movies rented in american hotel rooms are adult films. the american porn industry catering to exactly the kinds of dark urges we've been talking about, but even nastier is a $12 billion a year industry that

dwarfs the hollywood product. our own obsessions, arguably are at least as crazy, violent, and lurid as japan's. and we tend to actually carry out our violent fantasies more frequently. maybe with that fetishism, that attention to detail comes some kind of excellence in other fields. maybe there's a line from there to here.