Hiro was our closest friend in Oakhouse, almost every memory worth having from our home in Japan involved him in some way.  His life story was crazy enough that I asked for clarification a couple times.  He started as a financial trader, with a major company.  After amassing a small fortune, he left to start trading on his own.  That didn’t go so well, so he decided to become a sushi chef.  While touring Tsukiji, he told us stories of 5am tuna runs he used to make for his restaurant.  The days of a sushi chef are impossibly long, and after enduring some 14-hour days while working in Australia, he quit for a life with a little more relaxation and focus on friendships.  He took up fire dancing, traveling, carefree summers, and savings-heavy winters.  And so our lives intersected….

He made us sushi and showed us how to make it ourselves – basically all-you-can-eat for 500 Yen/person.  He joined us in our late-night drinking, sharing Franzia boxed wine and Chu-hi’s.  He showed us that there was more to 120Yen meals than French Toast and Eggs.  He showed us mesmerizing fire dances and taught us how light ourselves aflame.  He brought us to Tsukiji Fish Market and wandered around the Tea Gardens with us.  He made us yaki soba noodles, fried rice, and teriyaki chicken.  All in all, he made sure that returning to the guesthouse after a long day wasn’t entirely an exercise in defeat and demoralization. 

Hiro, you were aptly named (I know I know, an obvious pun, get over it and watch our trailer).  We miss you man. 

Poverty seems antithetical to Japanese culture, but after more than two months in country the crew is beginning to find their niche just in time to leave it…

Making this episode sucked.  As you’ll notice, Episode 205 is airing almost a week late.  I think there are 4 separate and almost complete versions of this episode featuring radically different content sitting on my storage array.  The draft I had planned out with the crew a month ago disappeared somewhere around the second revision never to be seen again.  Almost none of the original footage made the episode.

Editing this show alone and on a real-time lag is a very strange experience.   After working on Jet Set Zero for almost 8 months I had thought things would be getting easier instead of harder.  And sometimes they are.  Sometimes.  Part of the trouble is that our bar has simply risen.  Watch the first episode and compare it to the current episodes.  Whether the content appeals to you more or less is up for grabs, but the show has simply changed, in part because I really had no idea what I was doing when we started.

The stress of escalating production values and a fixed number of man-hours to devote to editing is taking its tole on our punctuality.  There are theoretically enough hours in the week to get it all done, but part of the benefit of working in a team is that when things come up for the lead editor — be they personal crises, travel, multitasking lag, binge drinking, inclement weather, or even creative blocks — he or she can at least bounce things off other team members to kick start the engine of production.

I’ve had the flu to varying degrees of severity for the past month, but except for at my worst I’ve been working at about 90% efficiency.  Still, the increasing complexity of our story and the rising expectations of our viewership have pushed us to a gap between air time and real time of almost six weeks.  That gap will close over the coming two episodes, but the content of Episode 205 took place between three and seven weeks ago.  How I keep track of any of this is a mystery to me.