GUEST
Dogen— Content Creator
ZenGroup was delighted by the opportunity to sit down with Dogen, one of the most well-known and influential digital creators promoting Japan. Dogen’s YouTube channel features educational videos on Japanese pitch and pronunciation, comedic storytelling, and current events taking place in Japan.
Why did we reach out to Dogen?
It goes without saying, but Dogen has long been an influential figure for creating content about Japan. If you’re a person that has been fascinated by Japanese language, culture, and any topics related to Japan, you may have come across a few of his videos in the past. Like all creators, viewers are often limited to getting to real talk to the person behind the camera. We wanted the chance to have a deeper discussion about Dogen’s background, interests, and future goals.
What we talked about:
Journey to Japan
Dogen’s journey to Japan started with martial arts. He became a self-taught trickster, which introduced him to Asian culture, and later was introduced to J-Pop international stars like Utada Hikaru and Ayumi Hamasaki by his cousin.
From a young age, he studied Japanese, then later studied abroad at Keio University. After starting to feel confident in his ability to articulate himself in Japanese, he felt a deeper connection to and experience of Japanese culture, motivating him to stay; he returned to Japan through the JET program to teach English in Oita Prefecture.
Japanese language
Every Japanese learner would probably agree with the statement “Japanese is hard”. You have Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana, but these are only the writing systems. Throw in conversation, and you’ll have to wrap your head around complex structures like Keigo.
Dogen has been teaching Japanese to his audience and actually added an important, but often left out, aspect of Japanese language learning: pitch and pronunciation. For people who want to take the extra step to sound like native speakers, the insight Dogen provides is extremely beneficial!
Creative Writing
Dogen had always enjoyed writing—maintaining a personal blog and taking literature courses. He was even complimented by his teachers for his comedic style.
Meeting the main singer of a Japanese girl group he had been a fan of helped him realize the power of words and the messages they can deliver. Diving deeper into creative writing, he wrote short stories and eventually pivoted to today’s modern form of content consumption on YouTube.
The Future
In the coming years, Dogen has been involved in creative writing separate from his YouTube content. Working on two different projects simultaneously, he is focusing on bigger projects that go beyond his hilarious sketches.
We are excited to see what other amazing work Dogen will create in the year of 2026! If you haven’t subscribed, take a look at his channel—we guarantee he’ll get a few laughs out of you! Check out the video podcast with Dogen below or view our Unpacking Japan social media channels for our latest podcast discussions.
