Time Out Tokyo launches ‘BEING TOKYO’, a podcast asking the city’s key players how they use the city

ORIGINAL Inc. (based in Shibuya, Tokyo; President: Hiroyuki Fushitani) launched the podcast ‘BEING TOKYO’ on July 15, 2026.

In each episode, the editors of Time Out Tokyo – who walk the city to see it for themselves – sit down with one of Tokyo’s key players: the people who stand behind the counter and keep their neighbourhood moving day by day. The conversations draw out how they really use the city, and rediscover the coolness that comes into view through their eyes. The programme is in Japanese.

The first season features Shibuya across ten consecutive episodes, talking with people from the venues that appeared in the guide ‘47 best things to do in Shibuya’ about the ways of using the city that never fit within an article. New episodes are released once or twice a week, with six published as of July 30.

The background: generic answers are instant now – what has gained value is judgement formed on foot

Thanks to search and generative AI, generic answers to ‘where should I go?’ can be gathered faster and in greater volume than ever before. Yet as the volume of information grows, actually reaching a genuinely good experience has become harder. The judgement of someone who has gone to the place, eaten there and seen it for themselves is worth more in this landscape, not less.

Editors who walk the city, meeting the people who keep it moving

What Time Out has always covered is not simply things to do, but the experiences you can only have in that particular city. Deciding which experiences deserve to be featured – by walking the streets in person – is the job of our editors as local experts. Along the way, they meet the people who stand in the shops and keep the neighbourhood running: the city’s key players.

Articles introduce the experiences these people create. But how they see their city – at what hour it shows its best face, how their shop connects to the one next door – rarely fits within an article’s word count. This podcast delivers that part in audio, conveying each person’s relationship with their city through the nuance of their words and the way they speak.

Seventeen years of reporting in Tokyo, since 2009

Time Out’s editorial approach has been grounded in local experts walking the city to check everything in person since the magazine was founded in London in 1968. Time Out Tokyo began operating in 2009, covering Tokyo and the rest of Japan bilingually in Japanese and English. Seventeen years of practising this approach in Tokyo has given the editorial team an accumulated network of relationships with the key players standing in the city’s shops and venues.

Time Out’s readers are also people who go out and move through the city themselves. Among Time Out Tokyo’s Japanese-language readers, 66% have lived abroad, 87% go out every week, and they take an average of 2.6 domestic trips a year – roughly twice the national average. Our Japanese-language channels connect with a combined audience of more than 570,000 readers via LINE, Instagram, X and newsletters. ‘BEING TOKYO’ is built on this reporting network and reader network.

The programme: hosted by editors from the Time Out Tokyo editorial team

In ‘BEING TOKYO’, editors from the Time Out Tokyo editorial team interview the people who actually stand in Tokyo’s shops and venues. Each episode runs roughly 12 to 20 minutes, and is built not around introducing the venue, but around how its key player uses the city. The first ten episodes feature Shibuya, speaking in turn with key players from different fields: a bar, a cinema, a bookshop, a music bar, an art complex and a major speciality store.

Linking articles and podcast

The first season is linked to Time Out Tokyo’s guide ‘47 best things to do in Shibuya’ (published July 16, 2026, in Japanese). By interviewing the people behind the venues featured in the article, readers can choose an experience from the guide, then hear how the person who created it uses the city – and head out with both. The fact that the same editorial team produces both the articles and the audio from the same reporting network is what sets this programme apart.

Episodes available (as of July 30, 2026)

Where to feel the vibes of Shibuya [Kayoko Sugiyama, owner of Bar Golden Ball / Snack Mehyo] 12:14
Where to linger over a film in Shibuya [Kana Asakura, programming, Bunkamura Le Cinéma Shibuya Miyashita] 14:13
Where to read a book in Shibuya [Chiaki Sawa, communication director, Shibuya Publishing & Booksellers] 19:24
Where do Shibuya’s twentysomethings go dancing now? [Takahiro Matsuzuru, Hi-Fi Disco Bar Chaos] 12:26
How to enjoy Hands Shibuya before it closes in November [special episode: Manabu Shimizu, store manager, Hands Shibuya] 17:01
Where to enjoy art in Shibuya [Tsuyoshi Mochida, Nonlecture books/arts] 15:53

Comments from the team

Genya Aoki, Time Out Division Manager / Deputy Editor-in-Chief / Growth Chief:

‘When you walk the city, you naturally fall into conversation with the people in its shops. So many of them will point you to a neighbouring place, or tell you where to go at this hour. I think they share the same feeling: you have come all this way, so enjoy the whole neighbourhood, not just my shop. People who have stood in a city for a long time can speak about it with real, lived certainty. Kayoko Sugiyama of Bar Golden Ball, for example, talked about Shibuya’s jumbled, unselective way of connecting people. Kana Asakura of Bunkamura Le Cinéma sees Shibuya as a city of diversity, where many cinemas coexist. What we want to do with “BEING TOKYO” is preserve these fresh perspectives and ways of using the city in each person’s own voice, hesitations included.’

Kosuke Hori, Time Out Tokyo Editor / Japanese Lead:

‘People’s memories disappear unless they are put on record. And they surface in chains – one recollection pulling out the next as the conversation goes on. In the episodes I hosted, memories of Shibuya’s vanished venues came out that way: the club Cave, DJ Bar Inkstick, rave parties in abandoned buildings. Only audio can preserve the order in which things are remembered, the pauses, the heat in the telling. It reminded me that a city is an enormous accumulation of personal histories.’

Programme overview

Title: BEING TOKYO
Launched: July 15, 2026
Produced by: Time Out Tokyo (operated by ORIGINAL Inc.)
Hosts: editors of the Time Out Tokyo editorial team (Genya Aoki, Kosuke Hori)
Language: Japanese
Category: Leisure
Frequency: one or two episodes a week
Length: roughly 12 to 20 minutes per episode
First season: Shibuya (ten consecutive episodes planned)
Platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast, YouTube Music and other RSS-compatible apps

Programme pages and related articles

Enquiries:
Time Out Tokyo (operated by ORIGINAL Inc.)
Contact: Ando
TEL +81 (0)3-5792-5722
e-mail: info@originalinc.jp

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