General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

James May: Our Man in...

James May: Our Man in... is a British travel documentary series presented by James May and released on Amazon Prime Video, in which each season follows May as he travels across a single country from one end to the other, sampling regional customs, cuisine, and activities while accompanied by local guides.¹ Three seasons were made: Our Man in Japan (2020), Our Man in Italy (2022), and Our Man in India (2024).²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Unscripted travel documentary, one country per season, six episodes for Japan and Italy and three for India; average runtime about 51 minutes¹^•²
Commission	Announced by Amazon Studios on 11 March 2019 as a six-part unscripted UK Prime Original³
Production	Directed by BAFTA TV Award nominee Tom Whitter for Plum Pictures, executive produced by Will Daws³
Seasons	Japan (6 episodes, January 2020), Italy (6 episodes, July 2022), India (3 episodes, January 2024)²^•⁴^•⁵
Audience rating	8.2/10 on IMDb from about 9,900 votes⁶
Status	Ended in 2024, with no fourth season confirmed¹^•⁷

Spoilers

Seasons

Our Man in Japan (2020). Fifteen years after May first visited Japan as a baffled tourist, he set out on an epic journey across the country from north to south, exploring classical aesthetic principles such as Wabi, Sabi, and Yugen alongside modern phenomena like Godzilla, Hello Kitty, and cosplay.³ The six episodes progress from Hokkaido through Tohoku, Tokyo and Mount Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka, Okayama, and Hiroshima, to Shikoku and Kyushu.¹⁰ In the opening episode May begins on Hokkaido with dog sledding, snowball fighting, and the struggle of ordering noodles from a vending machine, and visits a scarecrow village, cycling, archery, noodle making, and motorbike manufacturing.¹¹ The premiere aired on Prime Video on 3 January 2020,¹² though its Japanese release was delayed until 6 March 2020.¹⁰ Activities shown along the route included a day with one of the few remaining samurai sword-makers in the country, octopus fishing in Sapporo, a cat cafe, cherry blossom viewing in Tokyo, and the phallic fertility festival in Kawasaki City.¹³

Our Man in Italy (2022). The second season was originally planned for the United States, but the pandemic scuppered that plan and the production team chose Italy instead.⁴ The six-part journey, filmed over three months, took May from Palermo in Sicily to the peaks of the Dolomites as he explored the country's history, culture, landscape, industry, and people.¹⁴ It aired on Prime Video on 15 July 2022.⁴

Our Man in India (2024). The third installment sent May on a 3,000-mile coast-to-coast journey across the Indian subcontinent, produced by Plum Pictures.¹⁵^•⁵ Its three episodes aired on 5 January 2024: "John", in which May starts in Mumbai and attends the Holi festival; "A Bit Like Glasgow", covering cricket, trains, the Taj Mahal, and Varanasi; and "Calamari", covering Buddhism, tea, heavy metal, and Kolkata.¹⁶^•⁵

Origin and production

Amazon Studios commissioned the series on 11 March 2019 as a six-part unscripted UK Prime Original, announced alongside a wider deal under which Amazon would develop individual shows with The Grand Tour presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, and executive producer Andy Wilman.³ The show was directed by Tom Whitter, whose credits include James May's Man Lab, Toy Stories, and Apollo 13: The Inside Story, and made by Plum Pictures with Will Daws as executive producer; Daws had previously overseen several of May's projects, including Toy Stories, Man Lab, and The Reassembler.³ Production partner New Entity's first official production was Our Man in Japan, made in partnership with Plum Pictures.⁸

May has said the series is only partly planned. He told RTÉ Entertainment that viewers often assume everything is scripted; in his shows some activities are arranged in advance, at his request or the producers', but the crew does not edit around mishaps such as getting lost in Venice, and he tries to show countries including their problems rather than presenting an uncritical travel brochure.⁹

Reception

On IMDb the series holds a weighted rating of 8.2/10 from about 9,900 user votes, with the Japan season's individual episodes rated between 7.7 and 8.5 and the shorter India season between 7.2 and 7.5.⁶ Critics reviewed the series favorably on balance. Joel Keller of Decider gave Our Man In Japan a score of 80, writing that despite its goofiness May's sincere desire to get a feel for Japanese life makes it worth watching, and also scored Our Man In India 80, calling May "curious, witty and humble".¹⁷ Lucy Mangan of The Guardian, reviewing the Japan season, called the travelogue itself charming while criticizing May's self-aware gags.¹³ Anita Singh of The Telegraph gave the India season 3 out of 5, judging May's own musings more interesting than the set-piece activities the producers required of him.¹⁷ Rotten Tomatoes lists one critic review for the Japan season, at 100 percent on the Tomatometer, and three reviews for the India season.¹⁸

The series streams on Amazon Prime Video, where it is available in 4K with audio in English, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Turkish; the UK listing carries a 15 age rating.²

End of the series

The India season ran to only three episodes, roughly half the length of the first two seasons. TVmaze lists the show's status as Ended,¹ and BritishTV's 2024 status tracker records that James May: Our Man In... is not returning for a fourth set of episodes.⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026