KOCHI--Two strangers who differed vastly in age but shared a love for the beauty of the clear waters of the Niyodogawa, a 124-kilometer-long river that flows through central Shikoku into the Pacific, struck up a partnership.

“Let’s work together,” photographer Nobuyuki Takahashi, a native of Kochi, told Yuki Saito, a program director for Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK).

Their work created the nickname "Niyodo Blue," which spread far and wide the charms of the Niyodogawa. 

The nickname suddenly gained broad currency 12 years ago. Today, the river is visited by flocks of enthralled tourists.

WHEN DIFFERING PATHS CROSSED

It all began when the men happened to cross paths.

Saito, a Tokyo native, who is now 41, had just graduated from a university in the United States.

Saito, who loves fishing and surfing, asked to be assigned to Kochi as a new NHK hire in 2006. His request was accepted, and he made the rounds of the coastline here on the first day he arrived in Kochi.

When he went for a walk along the mouth of the Niyodogawa, he marveled at how clear the water is in a river that is so big. The view made him buoyant with anticipation for a new stage of his life.

As it turned out, however, he didn’t fare well in his work. He always got a dressing-down when he shot or edited footage. He thought many times that he would quit.

Every time he felt low, he held on to a surfboard at the mouth of the Niyodogawa river and admired how its surface shone in gold under the setting sun.

The view would assuage his bitter feelings, and he would change his mind to decide that he would stick it out a little longer.

About three years into his job, Saito developed a desire to make a program on the river. He learned of a photographer who had been shooting pictures of the Niyodogawa.

And Saito was also told the photographer “may not be fond of appearing in a media outlet.”

Saito met the man at a cafe in this capital of Kochi Prefecture. He told his interlocutor that he likes surfing and loves the waves that form at the mouth of the Niyodogawa river.

The photographer he met was Takahashi.

Takahashi, now 76, was in his 20s when a photo that he had taken while he was studying in Spain was featured on the cover of a prestigious camera magazine. He returned to Kochi and continued taking pictures of the sea and the waves for nearly 20 years afterward.

Takahashi later shifted his focus to the Niyodogawa and published a collection of photos of the river in 1996.

Takahashi felt a close kinship to Saito, who also said he likes the sea and the waves.

Having visited nearly 30 rivers in Japan with an underwater camera, Takahashi was convinced that the Niyodogawa has a high level of transparency and suggested working together. 

The pair, as far apart in age as a father and his son, began going for a ride together in a car to visit the river.

They first visited the Yasui valley in Niyodogawa’s upper reaches, where the river water appears particularly blue, even though its color may change with rainfall levels and the time of year.

“You should aim at depicting the characteristic blue of the Niyodogawa,” Takahashi told Saito repeatedly, whereupon the TV program director replied, “You say blue, right?”

The pair mostly used the video-recording feature of Takahashi’s digital single-lens reflex camera, instead of a TV camera, to shoot footage.

Filming of natural scenes requires patience.

For example, the pair watched for a chance to capture on an underwater camera the moment when a diving brown dipper, a dark-colored bird, appears blue in the river water.

They spent several weeks in the winter, when little food is available, to tame a brown dipper with a daily feeding of nearly 100 riverbed worms they collected and put in a fixed spot every morning.

Takahashi and Saito took to the habit of using the word “Niyodo Blue” between themselves while they continued with their tenacious work.

PROGRAM A BIG HIT

The two men played a central role in making a TV program in the name of NHK’s Kochi Station. The work was initially aired in Shikoku in summer 2011.

The program created a sensation for its visual beauty. It was later aired as a documentary of the “NHK Special” series in spring 2012 after additional shooting and re-editing.

The programs were entered in the National Arts Festival of the Agency for Cultural Affairs. An English edition was also made, and the works received a number of awards both in Japan and abroad.

In recalling the time, Takahashi said that was when he finally got through to the public and had them appreciate the beauty of the river.

“I am worried the fame could bring more litter, or more water accidents, to the river,” said Saito, who is now in charge of the "NHK Special" series in Tokyo. “I hope people will have the desire to pass on this beautiful river with special care for posterity.”

The Niyodogawa won the top place in a national ranking of river water quality released by the central government in July 2012.

It has since been selected eight times in the annual government list of rivers that have the highest water quality in Japan.