any good documentaries on japan?

I want to know more about Japan in general, and I have seen programmes like Justin Lee Collins: Turning Japanese, and the episode of an idiot abroad where he visits Japan. I am mainly interested in Tokyo and big cities and only quite current documentaries, are there any documentaries like this?

Anthony Bourdain did about 3 episodes on Japan in his series "No Reservations"

There's always a few travel ones, like the one by Rudy Maxa on Tokyo and Kyoto.

My favorite is a rarely heard of or seen documentary about Japan by Karin Muller called Japanland. http://www.japanlandonline.com/

There is a television show called Begin Japanology by NHK
World. There are a lot of different episodes on a variety of subjects about Japanese culture. It's available in English. Google it!

Dale

an idiot abroad was just plan silly and uninformative.

I like anthony bourdain's stuff.

This might be of interest:

Japan - A Story of Love and Hate BBC

Suicide - Secret Life of Japan

Japan - A film by Momo Ushido (with English Subtitles)

Documentary HD Journeys in Japan

A Life in Japan (English subtitles)

The above, from memory can be obtained from youtube.

There is a very good documentary series called "turning japanese" presented by Justin Lee Collins in the UK.

I believe the JLC Turning Japanese was mentioned by the OP.

NHK did a few very good documentaries about Satoyama in the area of Lake Biwa. They were excellent.

Discovery Channel here in the US showed A Day In The Life OF Japan:Tokyo's Coolest Hideouts

There are a few episodes of Globetrekker of Japan and Tokyo.

We have a show in Canada called Departures which is EXCELLENT. They have two episodes of Japan; one focusing on the future/technology aspects of the urban areas and another episode focusing on the traditions and past of Japan.

They're very good, albeit a little silly and funny.

I'm heading to Japan for the first time this winter, I think I'll check some of these out myself. Though part of me doesn't want to take away too much of the 'surprise' of the things I'll be seeing/doing when I'm there. I'm the type of person that can't stand watching movie previews of movies I want to see though. Not sure if the same attitude applies to travel.

Thanks for the recomendations.