This is 5TimesFromZero

This is a true, first-person story, a documentary-style YouTube production and companion book series, following one man's life across five decades and two countries, Denmark and Japan.

Told across 15 series and 55 episodes, the series moves from a missionary childhood in 1970s Japan, through a return to Denmark that never fully fit. We follow him into work, self-employment, homelessness, and three separate returns to Japan, each one a fresh start after losing everything that came before.

Every episode asks the same question without ever answering it fully: what would you have done? Could you have done it without giving up?

This is a story about belief and doubt, about standing on your convictions when it costs you everything, about being cheated and choosing what to do next, about the line between two cultures and which side of it you belong to. In 5TimesFromZero, people are trusted, and people are betrayed. Some are right, some are wrong. We don't tell you which is which, that's yours to decide, episode by episode.

The series is being released as YouTube episodes, illustrated in an anime-style visual, alongside a companion book series covering the same material in prose.

Series 01
Becoming Japanese

Kim attending Japanese primary school, learning kanji, japanese clture, manners and does and donts.

After introduction episode, we get an introduction to Kim, his family and how he ended up in Japan.
How is it to grew up in Japan as a kid? How is the Japanese school system? We will look into the Japanese military style school system as it was in the 1970s.
Can a Westerner become Japanese in mind? What does a Japanese learn in school? What was a day in school in the rural part of Japan those days?

Series 02
A Stranger at Home
Culture Shock

Kim back in Denmark from 1981. Kim in t-shirt.

How is it to return to a country which you were born in but never really remember. We follow a man who is living in-between two cultures which are 180 degree different. Japan and Denmark. We dive into the culture shock which followed the return to Denmark.
What is he? A Dane or a Japanese? The struggle finding an identity which fits.
At the same time, he lives in christian fundamentalism, and see atheism in most of the rest of the society.

Series 03
Living Another's Persons Life

Kim playing drums in a gospel quire. The congregtion around him is worshipping.

We follow a person who live as a christian, 200% devoted to the believe. What is going on inside a "borne again" christian person. What is a fundamentalist? Why do they think as they do?
We follow a man, whos desision in life is based on another persons life and values but himself.

Series 04
Testing Faith
Leaving christianity for good

Kim watching believers fall when praid for by pastor. Kim watching in disbelieve.

Struggling understanding what is going on around him. Why are things not what they claim to be?
It follows a logical analysis of christianity, logical tests of it, the results and the day it all ended. You will look into a pentecostal church from inside, seeing things believers see, and seeing things they ignore.
You will be introduced to the reasons why I left christianity, and the desision process behind. You will see how it changed my life fundamentally.
My value changed completely after a period of about two years, evaluating and thinking which values were worth fighting for.

Series 05
Starting Over
What is My Real Values?
Who Am I?

Kim thinking over what his real valuse in life are.

What is it that you really want in life? Series 05 follows the time after christianity, trying to find a meaningful purpose with my life.
We follow a few years as taxi driver, entering the university to study Japanese, changing course to study export and marketing.

It follows the big shift to becoming a diplomat at the Danish Embassy in Tokyo.
How do you become a diplomat in the first place?

Series 06
The Second Coming
to Japan
Diplomatic Status

What does it mean to go back to a country you grew up in, this time as a diplomat? Series 06 follows the years at the Embassy in Tokyo, the years with diplomatic status. All the experiences, expensive apartment, special treatment from everybody. Experiences that only a few people are lucky enough to have.
How does it change a person? How does it change your values?