The Famous YouTube channel The Black Experience Japan emphasizes interviews with dozens of black residents of Japan.
Begun in 2017 by Ranzo, a Jamaican residing in Japan, The Black Experience Japan surveys people from a wide variety of environments, from a man who “found exactly what he required in Japan”. The website and YouTube channel got its start in 2017 following the launch of Ranzo’s documentary “The Truth About Being Black in Japan“, in which he answers common questions about the basic daily life on the streets of Japan.
The Black Experience Japan also involves live podcast shows, forums where members can share trip advice or commonly discuss life in Japan, and a link to a mobile app with a directory of Black-owned businesses across Asia.
In this video, Fukuoka residents Ruth, from Kenya, and Grace, from Tanzania, talk about how they arrived in Japan, what it is like to work at a traditional Japanese-style pub or izakaya, mastering the Japanese language at a high level, and how Japan shows “there’s life beyond a white-supremacy narrative.”
From that start, The Black Experience Japan continues on with a singular mission:
We still hold an intense urge to share a surplus of experiences (and all things black in Japan) in an effort to paint a more accurate picture of life in Japan for the black individual.
