The Grand Tour

James May is Our Man In…Japan

Amazon Studios has greenlit a new series with The Grand Tour’s James May, called Our Man In…Japan. The series has gone into production and will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. The series follows May on a quest to understand Japan, the birthplace of Godzilla and the Haiku, and will see him embark on a thousand-mile journey across the Japanese islands.

The new UK Prime Original series will be directed by BAFTA TV Award nominee Tom Whitter (James Mays Man Lab, Toy Stories, Apollo 13: The Inside story) for Plum Pictures where it will be exec produced by Will Daws (who has overseen several James May projects including Toy Stories, Man Lab and the Reassembler). The team started filming this week and will launch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Fifteen years after James May first visited Japan as a baffled tourist, he’ll be embarking on a quest to understand the unique, extraordinary and complex country. The birthplace of the haiku and classical art forms driven by the principles of Wabi (stark beauty) and Sabi (natural inspiration) and Yugen (grace and subtlety).

Japan is also the place that’s given us Godzilla, Hello Kitty, Cosplay, and some of the strangest obsessions on the planet. James will embark on an epic journey across all of Japan from North to South, determined to understand why this unique land and its people are the way they are, what drives their whole culture and what their approach to life can teach the rest of us. James can’t speak the language, he is clueless about Japanese etiquette, but at least he knows there’s a small tree called a banzai.

“Japan is the most amazing place I’ve ever visited,” said James May. “Everything about it is a surprise: a boiled sweet, a bullet train, an unexpected ancient temple, and the challenge of eating a single edamame bean with chopsticks. It’s a class A stimulant for all the senses and an etiquette minefield for the unwary. I intend to immerse myself in it completely, in the pursuit of enlightenment and life balance. And I bet the noodles will be fantastic.”

“We’re incredibly excited to announce this new project with James, which will see him take on an epic thousand-mile journey across ancient Japanese islands, megacities, and all points in between,” said Georgia Brown, Director of Prime Original Series in Europe. “The Grand Tour fans around the world will be delighted to hear that they will have even more James May on their screens. We can’t wait to see what James and his talented team produce from this ambitious adventure.”

Amazon announced in December that they have entered into a deal with The Grand Tour hosts Jeremy, Richard, James, and Executive Producer Andy Wilman, to develop brand new TV shows with them individually, which will see more of the popular presenters on Prime Video in the coming years. Series three of The Grand Tour launched on 18 January 2019, with new episodes releasing every Friday exclusively on Prime Video worldwide.

Amazon also announced that the Prime Original worldwide hit TV series has been renewed; The Grand Tour series four will go into production in 2019 and will see Clarkson, Hammond & May ditch the tent and take on big adventure road trips that fans around the world love.

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1 comment

Andy Chen March 13, 2019 at 4:01 pm

Will this lead to single program with each presenter?Since they all did single program back in TG days

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