Squalor in the Osaka Labour Exchange

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He reports from Kamagasaki, a concentrated ghetto of poverty in Japan's second city, Osaka. Kamagasaki is home to thousands of day labourers, who traditionally worked on construction sites and lived in flophouses.

Kaori Shoji - to be or not to be a Ko-Gal?

Now, the economic slowdown means there's no work, and the numbers of those living rough have rocketed. TB is rife, alcoholism common, starvation not unknown. Julian Pettifer hears the stories of the men who survive - barely - on rice gruel from a soup kitchen, only a stone's throw away from the glittering city centre. And he meets the campaigners trying to help the forgotten men of Kamagasaki.

Mara Nakagawa shows us her samba...

Also in the programme, Julian gets the inside info on the world of the "ko-gals" - the Japanese name for high-school age girls. The whole country is seemingly obsessed with these teens with means, both as style leaders and as objects of desire. They have plenty of disposable income and when they decide to use it en masse, the result can be dramatic. They created the

Kaori's view of girl power - Japanese style

Tamagotchi craze: what will they turn to next? Writer Kaori Shoji delves into their world, explaining the mysteries of transparent slip dresses, filofax fetishists and "sock glue."