00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, we have a rainstorm that's going to be coming in, hitting Tokyo in like any moment now. The rain is starting to come down, but before that happens, I got something special for you that I want to show you. About six months ago, when this new year started in 2018, we had a guest, Hana Victoria. She came and she sang and gave us some hope for the year, and now she's back. She's down there, she's warming up. Check it out. This is also where Kanae, my wife, did her dance. But Hana's rocking down there, she's kind of getting into the groove.

00:00:35 John Daub: So I'm going to give it a little bit of time before we get some more music. Here on the Sumida River, you can see right across the river is the Tokyo Skytree. There's a little bit of the tower up here. There's the Eitaibashi (Eitai Bridge) where I did an episode showing a craft beer bar a couple of months ago. And now we're going to be doing Hana Victoria Live. I'm kind of excited about this. Hana has traveled a little ways to get here, so I'm really appreciative. Without further ado, let's go and meet the lady herself.

00:01:17 John Daub: Hey, Hana!

00:01:18 Hana Victoria: Hi!

00:01:20 John Daub: Alright, how are you doing?

00:01:22 Hana Victoria: Good! About to rain, so...

00:01:24 John Daub: I can hear the thunder! I can literally hear the thunder! You can see the clouds behind me. This is going to be pretty cool. I apologize for the wind noise. I'm going to keep my back to the wind so we can get some clear audio as best we can. What is the name of the song that you're going to sing for us?

00:01:42 Hana Victoria: The name of the song is Soba ni iru yo (next to you/beside you).

00:01:47 John Daub: Next to you or beside you.

00:01:49 Hana Victoria: Beside you, yes.

00:01:50 John Daub: So Hana is always beside us? Yeah, it's another message of hope.

00:01:55 Hana Victoria: Hope! There's always hope because hope lives within the people who care about you and who love you. Even though you face challenges and there are so many hardships and so much hate and sadness in this world, there's always hope because there's someone who loves you.

00:02:13 John Daub: Somebody loves you! Her name is Hana Victoria! I put a link in the description. Go check out her channel. She only has like 350 subscribers. We got like 78,000 subscribers. This girl deserves like a bazillion. She deserves more than me. She actually has real talent, unlike me. I do apologize for the wind noise. Thank you for subscribing to Hana's channel. Hana Victoria, she's rocking it. She produces a song every couple of months. It takes a lot of work, but you put your heart and soul into it, right? Every word is honest and true and coming from the bottom of her heart.

00:03:16 John Daub: Alright, so let's start this. Hana Victoria, here's a plug.

00:03:24 Hana Victoria: Plug.

00:03:25 John Daub: Is that your first plug ever? Click here for the link. It's not Hana Victoria's Secret because if you search it, you get some lingerie. This is a beautiful place for a song. I'm going to turn this camera around to keep it out of the wind. So this song is called Soba ni iru yo. It's in Japanese, but it's a song about hope. We really are live, everybody.

00:04:45 John Daub: Are you ready, Hana?

00:04:46 Hana Victoria: I am.

00:04:48 John Daub: If the space boats come by, I'm not going to stop. Just do your thing and rock it.

00:04:56 Hana Victoria: Okay.

00:09:14 John Daub: I've actually got this camera going on backwards here. I'm trying my best to get the wind noise out, and we have this beautiful sound of the water lapping onto the rocky beach. But that's the best we can do with the audio. The wind has picked up a lot. But what a voice. That's the kind of hope that we all need more of in our lives, I think.

00:09:45 John Daub: Can you tell us a little bit about the lyrics? A lot of people can't speak Japanese.

00:09:53 Hana Victoria: Yeah. The lyrics are about a very emotional song for me because it's very honest. It's about a woman who's going through a hard time. Some time ago, I received a phone call from a friend who was going through a certain hardship. During that time on the phone, I really couldn't say anything or do anything for her. I felt like I wasn't able to be the friend she needed. But after we hung up and I put my emotion into song, I realized what I wanted to say: there is always hope, and because you are loved—that's the core of the song. Not enough people tell each other that you are loved. Hope lives within the people around you who care about you. I just wanted to put that into a song.

00:10:52 John Daub: Yeah, I think we can feel that message. You had your eyes closed. You really feel the words, don't you?

00:10:58 Hana Victoria: Yeah. This song, because I wrote it right after feeling those emotions, when I sing it, it brings them back. It's really hard for me to share because it's very vulnerable.

00:11:18 John Daub: So you picked a tough one to sing. Spread the word, everybody. Hana Victoria is here to stay. You're going places.

00:11:36 Hana Victoria: Yeah.

00:11:37 John Daub: According to the chats, I need a professional mic. I actually ordered one, but iPhone is probably the worst with professional mics. When live streaming, you're left up to the elements. All the more reason to go to Hana Victoria's channel and hear it. You make your own music videos, right?

00:12:29 Hana Victoria: I do. That's something I'm really passionate about—video making and putting my song into something visual. I put a lot of effort into the colors, location, background, and my clothes. There are English subtitles on the music videos, so if you want to know the meaning of the lyrics, please check it out.

00:13:00 John Daub: Yeah, that's really awesome. She puts a lot of effort into even her clothes—something I don't do, because according to the comments, I wear the same shirt every day. When I find a good shirt that I like, I buy two because you never know if you'll find it again. I always have a backup shirt. It makes dressing so easy. For guys, we wear button-down shirts—nothing really changes. Anyways, this isn't about shirts. Hana's a friend of mine. You met her mom, Ruth, who was in the Enoshima spa video—that has an amazing view of Mount Fuji. You sit in the bath and look at Mount Fuji. That's the scene from the famous woodblock print of the waves and Mount Fuji in the background—from Enoshima. I like to plug Enoshima spa because it's a pretty neat place. I still got two tickets I haven't used.

00:15:04 John Daub: Hana, do you have any other messages for the people? A message of hope.

00:15:13 Hana Victoria: Tomorrow is so uncertain. We can never know what's going to happen tomorrow or in the future—that's a fact we cannot change. But what we can do is cherish the now with the people you love, because you never know what might happen in the next instant. I always remind myself to slow things down, breathe in, taste the air, feel your lungs fill with clean air, let all the senses come alive. It's something we forget, but so important. It helps you have that positive mindset.

00:16:21 John Daub: That's a good point. Sometimes we forget to just stop and smell the roses, slow it down, enjoy the moment. We get so trapped in all the other things that we miss what's most important, like the air we breathe. We just lost Anthony Bourdain, who took his own life. It's something we have to realize—whenever we feel cornered, we can get out through happiness and hope, just smelling the air. This is why I wanted to come out here on the docks—not too far from where I live. It's one of the most beautiful points where you have the river dividing and all of Tokyo going by. It's also a great spot to see the space boat.

00:17:58 John Daub: That was a great message. It's been six months since the last time you sang. This is a new one. Is there a video for it?

00:18:09 Hana Victoria: There is. It's a very simple video. I originally had so many ideas—recorded guitar parts, harmonies, shot footage. But narrowing it down to one shot of me in front of a blue curtain singing with just my voice and guitar was perfect. This song isn't about perfect pitch—it's the message and raw, pure emotion. I tried to represent that in the video: no extra parts or decoration. When it's just the artist and one instrument, playing it themselves with their voice and body language, especially in a slow song with meaning, you feel it more than with a band or orchestra.

00:19:28 John Daub: Do you have anything upbeat to end with? Something we can rock out to?

00:19:38 Hana Victoria: Well, yeah.

00:19:41 John Daub: She's strumming right now. She's going for it. Dancing with Hana Victoria on the docks in Tokyo. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Support Hana's channel—we want to get as many people supporting an artist as we can. Alright, Hana, jam for us, 20 seconds. Just rocking it. Bye, everybody.