, literally "Ride together", or "Car pool" but can also be read as "love ride", is a popular television program that runs Monday evenings from 11 pm in Japan on Fuji TV. It debuted on October 11, 1999. The show originally ended on March 23, 2009 but returned under the name "Ainori 2" on December 25, 2010, running through April 30, 2011. Ainori was revived by Fuji TV and Netflix beginning with Asian Journey, which was first broadcast on the streaming platform in November 2017 and on Fuji TV in January 2018. Both media outlets also aired the second season of Asian Journey as well as the first season of African Journey, which was available on Netflix in late 2019 and on Fuji TV in early 2020. Description Ainori is a reality program where seven young men and women travel the world riding a pink bus. The program is reminiscent of a travelogue; as of December 2008, the show has followed the bus across 90 countries as participants explore both famous tourist attractions and more off-the-beaten-path places. The participants are led across each country by a native who serves as tour guide, bus driver, and friend. Upon reaching the border with another country, the bus stops and participants head out to their next destination country to meet their new tour guide and get into their new bus. The show's twist is that the participants are each young, single people whose goal is to find love with another participant and return to Japan as a couple. When a participant has decided they like someone else, they ask the driver for a ticket back to Japan. They then declare their love to the object of their affection, and ask that the two return to Japan together. After a night's consideration, the person who received the love declaration can either answer with a kiss, after which both participants leave the bus for Japan. Otherwise, the jilted participant is left to return to Japan alone. Besides the love declaration, participants are forbidden from talking openly about their love interests with other participants, but inform the TV audience of their feelings through diaries and confessions to the camera (shot when no other participants are present). After people leave the bus, new people are added to the program, to keep the total at 7 members. They are seen on the side of the road with a