Japan Top 10 Podcast

Hello, J-Canuck here! For the past 6 years, a number of collaborators and commenters and myself have been providing Japanese pop music and our own thoughts about it through "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and I think it's been a good time for all involved.

Well, a couple of days ago, I received a message from Jack Shi, general manager of a program called "Japan Top 10" which has been providing podcasts on the same sort of thing we have written and talked about here on the blog (70s/80s Japanese music, current hits and enka, etc.). And another wonderful thing is that Jack and the show are also based in my neck of the woods in the Greater Toronto Area.

Jack actually asked me for a favour, though, and I thought it best to have him make the plea himself:

YES we are CANADIAN and based in the Greater Toronto Area! We are a federally registered non-profit organization in Canada and all our team members are volunteers. However, our team members are actually quite varied in terms of where they are based from. Most of them are in the states, but we have a few in Asia including Japan. Since all the work is done online, we do not require our staff members to be based in the GTA; they can be literally be from anywhere in the world. The majority of our board of directors, are based in the GTA, thus we do try to keep somewhat of a Canadian presence.

Our mission statement is: To educate, entertain and enhance the public’s engagement with Japanese and Korean music culture. 
Our vision statement is: We envision a podcast that listeners can learn, enjoy and interact with, and in turn, lead to an enhancement of the Japanese and Korean music industry. 
Our core values are: We believe the power and future of digital radio broadcasting is in podcasting. We strive to be acclaimed at educating and entertaining listeners in Japanese and Korean music culture. We cater our podcast to the feedback and needs of listeners. We believe in the development of the Japanese and Korean music industry through digital media broadcasting.

Our podcast, Japan Top 10 is all about educational Japanese music discovery. Although we do have a focus on the top 10 songs in Japan (hence our title) and a general focus towards featuring J-Pop tracks, we also feature varied Japanese music themes, spanning from 80's city pop to Visual Kei. Our main product, which is the top 10 countdown, is released generally on a bi-weekly basis. We also have 3 other themes in our episodes, including artist of the month episode (released once a month, we feature an artist/band + their music), top 50 countdown (released twice a year, one with a special theme while the other is the top 50 songs of the year) and specially themed episodes (released once a month, ranging from a wide variety of Japanese music themes). While letting our listeners hear the tracks, we do have a strong educational & commentary based where our hosts provide a detailed information about each track featured on our show. On our website, we do monthly song reviews where our staff members provide their written comments about new J-Pop music releases.

Right now, we are in the need to look for new volunteers to assist with on-air hosting, audio editing, content production (scripting) and some other non-front line positions (though our aim right now is to get those front-line positions filled). To apply, they will need to go to this website: https://mymti.org/current-openings/. That link will also detail about what we expect from our volunteers and the process they will need to undergo in order to join our organization. 

To learn more about our podcast, visit https://jtop10.mymti.org/ and to learn about our organization, we can be found at https://mymti.org/. To listen to us,

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/japan-top-10-ri-bennotoppu10/id1065197068?l=en&mt=2 

TuneIn Radio: http://tunein.com/radio/Japan-Top-10-p613114/ 

Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/m/I6ey6crei36qwqgw55uodgkj2ou?t=Japan_Top_10_10_JPOP_HITS

iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-Japan-Top-10-JPOP-H-29238024

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4uC9BEyB44R8utpwa7rD5v?si=hyqiBWxrTZaPw58VPg7OhQ

Thanks very much, Jack! So for any readers, commenters and collaborators who would be interested in volunteering and perhaps even provide a literal voice about the music that we all love here, please feel free to contact Jack and the folks at "Japan Top 10" at the relevant links above. As he said, you don't have to be anywhere near the Toronto area to help out...something that I could certainly agree with, since we have had contributors chiming in from Brazil, Singapore, Portugal, Hawaii, etc.

Anyways, continued success to the folks at MTI!