Tokyo Vice Author Jake Adelstein Co-Hosts The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods Which Dives into The World of Mysterious Disappearances Across Japan  

First Two Episodes Are Available Now

New York, NY – December 12, 2022 – Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment today premiered their new anthology podcast, The Evaporated, which explores stories of mysterious disappearances. Season one of the series, Gone With the Gods is co-hosted by crime writer Jake Adelstein (Tokyo Vice, I Sold My Soul For Bitcoins), and the Japanese-American journalist Shoko Plambeck. Gone with the Gods is an investigative probe into the phenomenon of Japan’s johatsu, or evaporated people — random and unexplained disappearances. The first two episodes are available today and subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once.  

In this first season of The Evaporated, the Tokyo-based team of Adelstein and Plambeck begin with the sudden disappearance of Adelstein’s accountant, who vanished one tax season and opened the door to an unpredictable mystery. The resulting journey takes Adelstein into the mysterious realm of Japan’s “evaporated” people, the tens of thousands who go missing every year for reasons that are often unique to Japan. Some, they’ll find out, vanish on purpose. 

The nine-episode series explores the ripple effects of these vanishing people throughout Japanese society, from “night movers,” the underground industry devoted to helping people disappear, to the personal and societal incentives that encourage vanishing, to how and where the vanished survive in Japan. Gone With the Gods provides a fascinating look at the skills it takes to both disappear and find missing people with a sprawling, entertaining narrative led by Adelstein and Plambeck, a journalist with her own history of “vanishing.” 

“When I was a kid my dad got into some trouble so we ended up hiding out in rural Japan for a while. That’s one reason I feel drawn to johatsu, evaporating,” said Shoko Plambeck. “We had our own reasons for choosing to evaporate, but there’s such a fascinating array of circumstances that’s led others to do the same.” 

“I am excited to take listeners into a colorful, mysterious realm that’s yet to be explored in audio,” said Jake Adelstein. “I’ve been a reporter in Japan for 30 years, and I’m sadly used to seeing people here one day and gone the next. Including trusted sources. This series will take us into the underworld and beyond as we explore unique stories of Japanese society that have rarely been revealed before, including the worlds of police, private detectives, night movers and the vanished—as they pursue and hide from each other”  

The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods is executive produced by Campside Media co-founder Josh Dean, who also co-created and co-hosted the first season of Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen. 

Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once today. The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. For more information on The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods and all other Sony Podcast shows, follow @SonyPodcasts on Twitter and Instagram.