Brian Kowalczyk, Operations Manager, Bright Wave Media, Inc.

Bright Wave Media is a multimedia company offering a variety of services across platforms, including the popular magazines Yokohama Seasider, The Japan Beer Times, and Sake Today.

Founded by Ry Beville in 2008, Bright Wave Media produces the city’s only bilingual magazine.

Despite our small size, we were able to grow quickly over the past 10 years. The “Yokohama Seasider” was our first publication and it was—and still is—the only bilingual (English and Japanese) magazine in Yokohama. It is a free monthly magazine that introduces the readers to upcoming events, fun bars, and good restaurants in the city. It is currently distributed to over 500 locations around the city and is also available online, in digital format, also for free.

We also produce the very popular “Japan Beer Times” which is a free bilingual quarterly magazine about craft-beer in Japan. It has grown very quickly and each seasonal edition gets 35,000 copies distributed at over 800 locations throughout Japan, including most of the craft beer bars in the country.

Our latest project is “Sake Today”, which is a high quality quarterly magazine available both in print and digital format, dealing in everything sake: educational columns and introduction to sake, guide to bars and breweries and travel specials. Our contributors include sake legends such as Haruo Matsuzaki and John Gauntner. It is currently available in over 20 countries, and we are hoping to increase its reach in the future.

Yokohama is one of the more progressive cities in Japan, and a great place to work.
The city has been very good for us. It is located in a convenient central location, only 30 minutes from the capital, and there is always something happening in the city, be it an artistic event, festival, or sports event. The city also has a large number of very good restaurants and great bars.

The central harbor area in the city center, between Minato Mirai and Yamashita, is particularly convenient and easy to navigate, and it is also very easy to travel to and from the city, and one can avoid the very crowded and difficult commutes common to Tokyo. From central Yokohama, I can be out of the city and in the countryside in under 30 minutes. In a nutshell, Yokohama is a very big city, but with a small city feel, and it is a great place to work!

Interviewed on October 10, 2018