Rajan Datar visits Japan, eschewing the capital, Tokyo to explore the south and some of the islands beyond Honshu. On his journey, Rajan joins a 300-year-old festival where the participants dice with death, a form of stand-up comedy invented by Buddhist monks, a village on the verge of extinction whose new 'community' is drawing in tourists, and meets the people who live on the edge of the most active volcano in Japan.