00:00:02 John Daub: All those innocent people and they have no idea. Well, maybe some of them do. Because there's a new Godzilla in town. This is Godzilla, the statue, and it's been recreated and put back on the square that it used to be at. Historically, there was a Godzilla statue at Hibiya Park near the cinema, near the Toho Cinema here near Yurakucho Station. And now they brought it back and it is bigger, more massive, and even scarier than before. The tail just wraps around like a shrimp. Look at that. It just comes out like a scorpion, rising up above the city. Well, actually, the city's sort of looking down on Godzilla.

00:01:01 John Daub: But this is a miniaturized versus version, but much better and more imposing than the original Godzilla statue that's been here for decades. This used to be the only Godzilla statue in the center city of Tokyo. And now we have this new one. And I'm going to take you around this Godzilla and show you Godzilla's child, love child. Maybe it's a statue that was just installed a couple of weeks ago. But the details in it are incredible. They've really done a great job. They've done an amazing job in making this Godzilla look very scary and imposing.

00:01:39 John Daub: I'm going to just pan along the tail here so you get a good idea of what it's like. I love this side of it because you can see the silhouette with the bright background. And his claw hand could just reach down and grab those innocent people down there. Some of them who probably are not that innocent. This is an impressive statue. And this is where I took the thumbnail for this. It's in the corner. From here, it's a pretty interesting view. It's pretty cool.

00:03:00 John Daub: Now this building, this area is brand new. It's been under construction for a couple of years, and they've just completed it. This is the new Tokyo Midtown Hibiya. Tokyo Midtown Hibiya is the new shopping mall that's here. And I believe there's also office buildings because this is an office building area. And it's a pretty big skyscraper. It should have been built bigger than the skyscraper to be perfectly honest with you. It overlooks Hibiya Park which is just across the street. And at the base of it is the statue of Godzilla.

00:03:36 John Daub: Now Japan had a Walk of Fame where the actors from Japan's Hollywood would have their hand prints down here. And the old Godzilla statue used to be situated right there. But they've redone this entire area, made it a little bit newer. There's some new businesses here around the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya which is in the center. But it's a lot cleaner than it was. This is the ticket office. This used to be a Starbucks that was here, and now it's turned into a ticket office. One of the few times that Starbucks lost its real estate. They probably moved the Starbucks inside there. But you can see on the top right, it's the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya now.

00:04:28 John Daub: And I've been walking past here to go to the Imperial Hotel for the last couple of years and would walk past the construction site. And I'm happy to see it done. I can see Godzilla from down here, from another angle, from the ground. This is probably what it looks like when Godzilla came to attack some people. You would look up and be just stricken in fear because of the sight of Godzilla coming at you. It's pretty cool from here. Check it out.

00:05:00 John Daub: It is pretty cool to see Godzilla's child. It's a smaller version of Godzilla. It's not as big as the one in Shinjuku, but this one is definitely more detailed. And it's brand new. And so a lot of people are out there taking pictures on the other side, snapping shots of the new Godzilla. So if you're in Tokyo, this is not going to be in any guidebooks yet. This has been just released about two weeks ago. It's brand new to the city. And you probably want to check it out. It's at Yurakucho Station. Yurakucho is on the Yamanote Line (loop line) from Tokyo Station. It's one stop. It's right in the center of the city, sort of the centerpiece of this new complex they've been building for years.

00:05:49 John Daub: I'm going to take a look into the Tokyo Midtown over here. So let's take a look at the Godzilla from the front. Oh my gosh, it's actually called Godzilla Square. That's awesome. They named the square after him. Now that's respect. You can see Godzilla from lots of different angles. It's a pretty interesting statue. And I often walk through this area. And it's completely different. This is part of the metamorphosis of the city. As the 2020 Olympics gets closer, we are seeing the city of Tokyo change at an incredibly fast pace.

00:07:24 John Daub: I made an episode on the main channel about the construction that's happening, about the Olympic Village and how the stadium is coming along. And as we get closer to the Olympics, we're getting to see sites like this, where there's a new Godzilla in town. This one a little bit more impressive than the one that used to be here. This is a new square in Tokyo called Godzilla Square. This is in Hibiya, which is across from Hibiya Park. The closest station is Yurakucho and Hibiya Station. This is Tokyo Midtown Hibiya. I think this is the same people who made Roppongi Midtown. Roppongi Midtown is another shopping mall that competes with Roppongi Hills. And it's just a really gorgeous building.

00:08:21 John Daub: Roppongi Midtown is so popular that you have to line up like Disneyland to get inside of a shopping mall. I've never seen this before. Ever. You don't need tickets or anything, but you actually need to line up. And it's not as bad as probably a lot worse this morning. But they have guys with signs telling you where to queue. This is crazy. And there it is over there where people are entering. It's pretty amazing. And overlooking it all is Godzilla. It's very, very cool.

00:09:16 John Daub: I was thinking about taking you inside of the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya. I keep saying Roppongi because I'm so used to that. When you come to Japan, this will be here for you. Definitely stop by and say hi to Godzilla. There's a lot of people that are coming to Japan to live. And I'm excited about that, seeing more and more people become residents of the city of Tokyo and Japan. So there's 34 floors on this new building. Mitsui is a big bank. It's the Sumitomo Mitsui Group. They have their offices. Of course, there is no observatory. They make a point here: don't come up here. That's pretty funny. That's sort of sad, too. They should have an observatory. But they do have a terrace. So there's some restaurants up here. Of course, there is a cinema. This is the Toho Cinema. It's the reason why Godzilla is here as well. This is one of the areas of the most famous cinemas in Tokyo, in Japan, here at Yurakucho.

00:10:25 John Daub: And that cinema has now been displaced and put inside of the big Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, which is the new one. And there's some terraces up here. The restaurants look incredible. So there seem to be about 40 restaurants in here, spanning from the basement all the way to the 7th floor. Lexus Meats? Is that like a Toyota restaurant? All I know is that the food looks so good. Good cheese. Good pizza. That's the perfect name for a restaurant. Bars and tapas. I can dig that. New York is represented here as well with the Brooklyn City Grill. Not bad at all. If you're from Boston, don't worry. We got you covered, too.

00:11:37 John Daub: And here's the map of where we are. You can see Hibiya Park is right here. That's Tokyo's real Central Park. A lot of people say it's Yoyogi, but I like to believe it's Hibiya. It's a little bit smaller than Central Park and Yoyogi Park, but it's still very central. Just across from it and the Imperial Palace, which is here. This is the Imperial Palace Outer Garden. And here is the Godzilla right here.

00:12:22 John Daub: They're very good with crowd control. If you want to go into the midtown, go this way. If you want to go to the second floor, this way. They have arrows to point you there. It's pretty obvious. And I'm going to guess that there's no filming allowed in here. And on a day like this, I wouldn't even want to press my luck. But you can see the crowd control is incredible in Japan. There's no other country that does it better than Japan when it comes to lining up and getting people to control the crowd. So everybody has a smooth transition. This is why the Olympics in 2020 is going to be an amazing success. It's going to be the fact that Japan and Tokyo have an amazing amount of skills and experience with crowd control. It's like going through Walt Disney World to get into the shopping mall. And because the shopping mall just opened last week, the entire city wants to go in and take a look. And you can see that they do that in an orderly fashion. People are exiting on the other side. So you go in on the right side and come out the left. Very, very organized. Very, very impressive to me.

00:13:44 John Daub: Hey! Look who we got here! Do you mind? I'm sorry to push you. Are you live? Yeah, we're live. I'm just introducing this place, showing the Godzilla attack over there in the distance. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you too. This is like the first time to see you in person. Nice to meet you. What are you guys doing here? Just walking. Just hanging out? Yeah. It's been a long time. I know. Congratulations on the channel. I've been watching it too, just like everybody else. Top Eats, everybody! Hey! I cannot believe that I... Oh my god, it's Frederick! Hey, Frederick! Launch abroad! Oh my god! Oh, you guys got us too? Yeah! Oh my goodness. This is crazy, right? I only know a lot of these people here. We got the same people watching, so... See, we got a community of people watching about Japan. Yeah. This is your first time coming here? Yes, very first time. This is amazing. But it's so crowded. And that's the amazing thing to me, the crowd control. Like, look at it. Everybody comes in the right, leaves on the left side. There's no chaos, even though there's Godzilla over there.

00:14:57 Frederick (Tabby Eats): I didn't even know there was Godzilla there.

00:15:03 John Daub: They used to have it, a little statue here before the other one. And it got displaced, and I was really upset about it. And then I saw on the news a couple of days ago, they put a new one that's even scarier. Big one. Wow. It's a big one. This place is amazing. Weren't you guys in Hawaii or something? Not yet. Oh, not yet? Sorry, I didn't want to ruin anything. Not yet. We are going to, because my mother comes to visit every year. But I think she's not alone this year, so we have to go back this year. Okay. She's okay, everybody. Uh-oh, what's wrong? All right, sorry. You're live. Not at all. Anytime. You're doing live, right? Yeah. Oh my god. That's so funny. Oh my god. We're just kind of hanging out. They're playing hooky from today's livestream. I know. We're sick. We just recovered and, you know... Oh, sorry. Maybe you guys should just sit. They're not here. We're just moving away. So, we're just... Oh my god. I caught ya. I thought you were filming. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I'm actually taking a break from an episode I'm putting out. I've been editing all day. You know how it is. My eyes are just killing me. So, I came out. It's just too nice to be inside. What are you doing watching this? I hope you're outside watching this. Okay. Well, take care. Nice to see you. Thank you. For the first time under these situations. What are you guys doing here? But, yeah. Have a good day and I'll catch up with you some other time. Awesome. Yes, definitely. Bye. I'm not live streaming. Say goodbye, everybody. Great channel. So excited to meet him. So excited. Bye, guys. All right. Bye, guys. Awesome.

00:16:42 John Daub: That was pretty amazing. You could be live streaming. That's Tabby Eats. They're also on YouTube. And I watch their channel and I see them going all around Japan eating and doing recipes and doing stuff with food. And it's really exciting to see them for the first time. I've never met them before. I'm excited. But we've had a chance to converse by email and the YouTube community is pretty tight here in Japan. We kind of know each other. It's nice to meet them for the first time. Nice people. Very nice people.

00:17:15 John Daub: So, I don't really have any much more to say about this. I don't think I'm going to be able to go inside. But I do think that it's neat to see new places open up in Tokyo like this. And for me as an outsider looking into Japan, one of the things that I notice is just how good the crowd control is. There's just a lot of people. So, that's it from the Godzilla Square. I'm so kind of happy I bumped into the Tabby Eats guys. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he's Hawaiian. Yeah, they're here. And they bring... They do sort of the same thing that I do. They bring a part of Japan to you. Mostly food, but they bring a part of Japan to you. And I think that's a really great thing because the more YouTubers that make videos about Japan, the more this community that we have, we grow. And that's pretty exciting. So, if you're a YouTuber and you come to Japan, we're really, really happy to welcome you here.

00:18:21 John Daub: And here is one last time the Godzilla statue on Godzilla Square, which I'm kind of happy that they named it after him. A sign of the ultimate success. And there's a Shinkansen (bullet train) going by. See that? I got it. I got you, Shinkansen (bullet train). You thought you were getting away from me. You're not that fast. Yeah, that's the 700 coming back from Kyoto. And oh, and there's a Shinkansen (bullet train) going the other way towards Osaka. Ah, there it is. I really like this area. I really like Yurakucho, and I'm here quite often. Those are the tracks. The Yamanote Line (loop line) up there.

00:19:23 John Daub: Hey, Natsuki. Hey, Nosh. Thanks for sharing the link for their channel. I'm glad that they stopped and said hi. I noticed them right away. Like, wait. And they're like, wait. Pretty cool. Oh, so thanks, everybody, for joining me on this live stream. I was going to go look for some ramen, and I kept looking and looking, and then I saw and I remembered that this place was pretty cool. So I'm going to try to get a ramen place in to fulfill my promise to the professor. I like the professor out there, and we'll get a bowl of ramen. I think this is pretty cool because it's brand new, and I'm going to have a look inside of this building before I go back home. New episode on the main channel, and if you are in Tokyo on April 4th, I'm going to be doing a meet up, I believe, at Yoyogi Park. The event is already open on the Facebook page. I want to see you if you're in the city, and we'll hang out for a couple of hours. Yamanote Line (loop line). We'll hang out for a couple of hours, have some drinks, and see the remainder of what the cherry blossoms are. So that's it from the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya. I got to stop saying Roppongi. Hibiya. Bye from me and Godzilla. Thanks everybody for watching this live stream.