Eating at a Sushi Conveyor Belt Restaurant QandA

speakers: {"UNKNOWN": "John Daub"}

Full Transcript

00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, greetings. Good morning. How are you? It is the next day after I published a video and I thought I would go over some of the questions and answers, some of the things that you might wonder about this, which is kaiten sushi in Japanese. It's called kudokudasushi to a lot of kids here in Japan, conveyor belt sushi in English. There's a lot of questions that we got in the comment section below of this video.

00:00:29 John Daub: If you want to see this main channel video, I put the link in the description probably after the live stream so you can see and watch this because there's a lot of information in there. It's not just about the menu of the sushi restaurants either. This is kind of about the concept a little bit because in Japan it's very hard to go to a kaiten sushi restaurant that is not a chain.

00:00:59 John Daub: All of them are like chains because it's the only way for them to make the price low enough and the quantity enough to satisfy the customers. So there are very few mom-and-pop conveyor belt sushi shops anymore. So it's very hard to support. It's like fast food — you have to be a big chain these days for the supply chain. So kudokudasushi was very gracious enough to let Jennifer and I and a cameraman and Hana film.

00:01:29 John Daub: We're at the restaurant and it's not always easy to get permission but they put us in the back of the restaurant in a booth away from all the other customers like they always do in Japan. Just separate the filming which makes it a little bit sad actually. They always do this — they invite us when you get permission to a time where there's less customers and put you in a completely different way. But there are advantages to that too. It's a little bit quieter there.

00:01:59 John Daub: You have ability to move around a lot more and you have access meaning I got a chance to interview the general manager of the chain to get an idea what happens behind the scene. So that was the basis of this episode. But I wanted to make it from another angle a little bit special. What makes this really unique is that Jennifer and I didn't focus on the sushi like the raw foods. We focused on the not raw food items.

00:02:29 John Daub: So it freaked me out a little bit — like what, they have sushi shops have have burgers? This sushi chain is serving a cheeseburger. It can't be good. Can it? But it kind of was. And what struck me was that how much effort that they put into the burger to make it good at a quality that they would be happy selling to their customers. They used rice flour that was similar to the rice that they use in the sushi as well as some of the rice vinegar.

00:03:00 John Daub: To give it a consistency. Make it consistent with the menu that it is sushi but it's not sushi. I thought that was interesting — that they went that far to make the bun a special thing like rice. Sushi has the rice nigiri sushi and this burger has bread wheat. And this was it — it was interesting the recipe that they that the manager told me about. I wouldn't have known unless I'd interviewed him. So I was very happy. This chain is called Kura Sushi. This video was not sponsored by Kura Sushi.

00:03:30 John Daub: The principles are pretty good. It's pretty much the same at all the kaiten sushi restaurants. But what made this place special was that they're everywhere. You can find it in the United States. They're like the almost like the McDonald's of kaiten sushi these days. And they allowed us to film. They said okay. So you win. And there was a couple of comments that it seems a little bit too commercial but it's almost impossible to separate McDonald's from their burgers. How do you say that? How do you separate McDonald's from their burgers? You almost cannot. I'm at a fast food chain's burger. You know exactly where you are.

00:04:00 John Daub: Japanese that are watching this know exactly where I am. So it's not really something that you can hide. Conveyor belt sushi. Some of the questions and answers that we're going to have some catch ball here. So you can ask me questions at any time. I'll try to catch as many of them as I can. At the end of this I'm going to go to my Discord server where our Patreon supporters have access to call in and talk to me on the samurai chat.

00:04:30 John Daub: During some of these live stream question and answers. So I'm looking forward to hearing some of their feedback as well. We're going to do that at the end of this episode probably about 30 minutes. So you might want to sit down, buckle in and relax a little bit as we talk about kaiten sushi. Yeah and UFO Bob there has just put in the link to the Discord server so you know how to get there and you can talk in the general chat as well. We have a general chat that's open to everybody.

00:05:00 John Daub: The sushi there. We did eat sushi. Sadaru's first question is did we eat sushi there. We did eat the sushi. I'm just going to play this in the background and then I'm going to break it down with some of the director's cuts. Director's talk here. We did eat sushi afterwards and we actually ate some before too. While we were setting up. I think Jennifer ordered a couple of things. So Jennifer was fed. She did not leave there hungry. That's for sure. Neither did Hana and neither did I. We both ate during the shoot.

00:05:30 John Daub: I believe Hana ate. But she was helping behind the scenes. So I thought it would be nice just to add her in there. So some of the comments were oh she's so alone. Don't worry. She was actually not really that alone because we were consistently in contact with her. It's not exactly as it seems. We were making a video. All right. Let's go to the beginning now. Great question Sadaru. Thank you. So we're going to run through this and I'm going to explain to you what you're seeing here.

00:06:01 John Daub: Let's go main screen. Boom.

00:06:15 John Daub: That's Sato Sushi near Roppongi Ichome that I went to with some friends of mine. Cost us I think it was like almost $400. But I'd never eaten high-end sushi before. That'll be the first and probably maybe the last time I go and eat there just because it's so darn expensive.

00:06:29 John Daub: Sushi discounted supermarkets. You can see it's 30% off. If you get the sushi at the supermarkets after like 9 or 10 p.m., they usually go up to up to 50% off of the sticker price. And it's usually still pretty good. It's questionable, but it's usually pretty good. They wouldn't sell it if it was bad. They usually throw it away if not.

00:06:50 John Daub: Market sushi. Even hard to see micro sushi, which I featured in a recent episode. You've seen the micro sushi before. How many do you think you could eat? Someone wrote 900. Sushi is one of the most popular foods in Japan. But believe it or not, we're here not to focus on the actual sushi. We're going to be going on all items. And they do have that. And there is a reason why.

00:07:08 John Daub: I filmed this actually in June and it was cold. You see I'm wearing like a vest and a long sleeve shirt. Impossible in July and August. So we filmed this in June. And the reason why this took so long to edit was that there was some technical problems with the audio. Also, there are a couple of scenes where the focus was missed. So it was hard to put this episode together. And I don't know. Jennifer made a lot of comments off off the cuff, which are interesting, but probably didn't fit the episode. So I was trying to cut some of the comments.

00:07:49 John Daub: We just have so much fun when we're working together. But to give the information for the video was it required a lot of cutting more than usual. But we ended up with a pretty good video, I think. And to help me explain all of it is my co-reporter, Jennifer Julian. How you doing?

00:07:55 John Daub: I'm very good. Thank you. Jennifer was last in the Tokyo cat episode we did. And this is like on the main channel. It's been a long time. Jennifer hasn't been on. That's like three years ago. So Jennifer hasn't — last time, if you want to see Jennifer on the main channel, it would be the cat cafe from 2015. But she's been on the Only in Japan Go channel, this channel, a lot. So everyone who's watching probably knows who she is.

00:08:25 John Daub: Feed Jennifer. She needs to be fed. I've been in sushi shops in years because with my work, I have the opportunity to go to high-end sushi restaurants. So I'm very excited to try this cool sushi place.

00:08:57 John Daub: I'm always so happy with our Instagram crew. If you guys aren't following on Instagram, I always do shout outs to them first. So we do a like unboxing, I guess, like a release party on Instagram live each time. And that always helps. Whenever you're a YouTube creator, it's important. And this goes with movies as well. After you make a video, it's so critical that you promote your video, that you take what you've put already online. And now you have to, in the first day, really push it hard, I think. That's how you get people, the algorithm on YouTube to make this suggested to other people.

00:09:27 John Daub: I have a video that just, I don't really understand how the algorithm works. And I think a lot of people don't. And YouTube will only give suggestions. But if you push a video in the first day, you see people are watching it, and you can get people interested in it to share it, the videos can take off and the algorithm will pick it up and the videos will do well. It doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the video. So you can work for two, three months, have a million subscribers on one video, work for so long, and the video can bomb. Like, it's just something that didn't get picked up for one reason or another. I don't get upset about it anymore. But it's always something that's going to take place.

00:09:59 John Daub: Joshua writes in, "Did the burger come with mustard, um, and stuff?" It came as is and it didn't have any sauces. Click Vincent writes in, "Clickbaity titles and pictures work." I know. And it's — I just feel like that's a short-term game. If you're dis­ingenuous with your audience, I don't think people are going to subscribe. They might click and watch and discover video but a lot of the smarter people — and I don't know, I'd say about half of the YouTube viewers are no more than that — most people most people are pretty smart.

00:10:42 John Daub: On the Only in Japan Go, Hana said that we have a really good audience. So I mean, I think clickbaity stuff on YouTube works to a point, but it doesn't work to bring in subscribers. It gets people to click and watch and disappoint them. So it's a short-term win. And if you have a long-term goal, you don't want to do anything that's clickbaity. You want to be really honest and be compelling with your topics. Just have catchy titles, not clickbaity titles. Even books, novels have catchy covers and catchy titles, right? Fang ov — Fang off, like your discussions. I like your comment. Thank you so much for the super chat. We got a lot of stuff to discuss. All right. Let's get into it, especially I'm going to talk more about the burgers too in a second.

00:11:36 John Daub: Well, she was genuinely — when I when I told Jennifer about the topic, we're gonna go to sushi shop, I need no sushi. She was genuinely surprised. Like, what? Eat no sushi? And I said no. And this is oh, and like that would be fun. And so we went there and we had some fun. We were gonna be eating the other stuff. It still confused her a little bit. I confused her a little bit. Yeah, special sushi. She's really confused here. So we decided to give this a try to see if we could recommend a burger at a sushi shop.

00:12:16 John Daub: It's still freaking me out that that sushi shop is serving burgers. I remember when my brother didn't want to eat Chinese food, we went to a Chinese restaurant and he ordered the ham and cheese burger. And he ordered the hamburger and my dad was like shaking his head. He said, "Never order a burger at a Chinese restaurant." It was actually a pretty decent burger when it came. I was like, I want to eat that too. But, you know, if it's not — if it's not famous for burgers, probably not going to get a good burger. That's why I came. I wanted to see what kind of a burger they have here. Oh, check this out. This has English. She's like, they don't have French. No, French. Oh, wow, that's pretty good.

00:13:00 John Daub: They have meat and fish. They have two kinds. And I believe Kanai — Kanai and I went there about 10 days ago and no, but last week was it last week? Yeah, just recently.

00:13:15 John Daub: All right, we're back. Sorry, there's a little bit of a signal problem here. So in Japan, the conveyor belt sushi restaurants like this have digital menus. The menus are always changing and when something is sold out, like fish — a popular fish might be sold out — they will just black it out or dim it. And so you know that it's no longer available. They've just run out of ingredients, which is a good thing, I think, because then you know that it's pretty fresh. They have a really good supply chain. If the restaurants are busy, this is very important with sushi restaurants. If the sushi shop is busy, you know that the ingredients are always going to be fresh. They're always replenishing it.

00:13:56 John Daub: All right, even though — even though all of the fish is frozen, nothing comes out super fresh because flash freezing it gives it a better consistency and taste than eating it when it's just fished right out of the ocean. Although that sashimi is good, most almost all of the sushi, especially maguro, is flash frozen and it enhances the taste a little bit. It adds to it. So when it thaws out, um, it's almost like aged a little bit. There's some — there's a better taste to it. It really is. I talked about this in a maguro episode a couple of years ago, I believe.

00:14:28 John Daub: This restaurant actually was a very friendly restaurant, but the menu was very different. The menu got a lot more — different. But they had all the same rules. The menu is always changing. The menu has no more rules. So like if you go up in the menu, there's the menu — menu is always changing. But their English when you order is kind of funny. Yeah, I look at one of each. It's like one piece, one pisces. They have these little errors in it which are funny to me. The lack of capitalization. And then it translates, "Your the order was heard. Thank you." It's like they didn't have any native speakers like check the menu. It was just a default setting for Google Translate, which is so perfect. I'm telling you right now, if it was perfect English, it would not be as much fun as it is.

00:15:12 John Daub: The fact that there are these little mistakes that only a non-native speaker would make makes it such a charming experience. People complain about people in Japan not speaking English. I think that's one of the most endearing things about it because you're not — you know that you're no longer home. You'll always be able to communicate because people are very polite. Megan writes in English. Yeah, it's very — I love that part of it of Japan. I love the mistakes. I don't think why should they improve on it, right? It makes it their system. I like it. I like it when the English is wrong and I'm not critical at all. Absolutely not.

00:15:48 John Daub: Well, because I'm having everything electronic digital is that you can change so many things. You can change the menu based on what's fresh that day. Yeah, makes it really easy for everybody. Anyone. And it's a lot of fun. It is fun. It is fun.

00:16:05 John Daub: This is the coolest thing. Yeah, the express belt. And I saw the question about if I take breaks on Only in Japan, I'm gonna get back to that at the end of the episode. That's a really good question. This is such an ingenious thing. I noticed it about three four years ago at Kura Sushi. Didn't always have the style. They changed. Kura Sushi, I believe, was based down in Osaka. Kaiten sushi was didn't come from Tokyo. This idea came from — I believe it was Shikoku island.

00:16:38 John Daub: But it really evolved during the 1970s at the Osaka World Expo. I know, I know some of the history of the kaiten sushi. It's very, very interesting. And it's evolved and just in the last five years, as technology has evolved, what we can 3D print, what the materials have changed, it allows them to do more things and more with technology, including putting the second belt up here. This is like an express lane. So if you order something, it no longer goes slowly on the same belt as everything else. It goes on a special belt. So it's so smart too. It probably costs the restaurant a lot more to make this, but it's so smart too because I'll tell you something — when the food comes faster like that, I want to order more.

00:17:24 John Daub: It's so much fun when your food comes on like a shinkansen bullet train track above. Heck yeah. I'm pushing buttons, just ordering stuff just to watch it. And Jennifer's clapping like, oh look at the food. We become kids again. That's what I love about kaiten sushi — it's fun for adults and kids. Adults become kids again. And I've seen some really tough-looking dudes, you know, Japanese guys, big tough-looking dudes — they come in there and they're like kids eating. You go back to your childhood when you eat at kaiten sushi shops. And that's just what I love about them. It's a special place for here in Japan.

00:18:03 John Daub: And I know in the US we have it now. We had some comments from Texas, California, Las Vegas. This chain is in a lot of places. But no matter where you go in Japan, you become a kid. And I'm very, very curious to walk into one of the kaiten sushi restaurants in the United States. I'm definitely gonna be doing that when I go back home. I just didn't realize how much this chain has grown over the last couple years. The burgers came on the express. Burgers, all right. What's your meat? There's your meat. I was not gonna give her what she asked for. And she knew it.

00:18:49 John Daub: We — this is how we play. And some of the questions like, oh, you're so rude, not to give her the one that she asked for. I said, listen, I don't know. Just relax. It's a lot more fun. Meat here you go. Here's your meat. Who's gonna do that? I'm not normal. I'm gonna give her what she didn't ask for. But we already talked about this in advance. We're going to try both of the burgers, just not on camera, so she'll get to eat the meat but just — talk. It worked out okay. It worked out okay. It has to be fun. That's fun. I got her laugh. It's just — all the trolls in there, they always like, oh, why did you do that? I said, what's the option? Oh, here's your meat. It's not fun at all to have hamburgers at a kaiten sushi restaurant. It's just — it's not normal.

00:19:22 John Daub: There's a reason why. There's a reason why. There's a reason why there is. You know, the reason I knew why. Don't you even ask Jennifer? This is what our relationship is. You just have to know. We tease each other like crazy, just having fun. It's like — I know she doesn't know the answer. So do you know the reason? She's playing off — she's totally playing off a little bit. No, I don't know. Of course she doesn't know. So then now I can just say — we didn't rehearse this at all. This is just how we are. And then I knew I was going to interview the regional manager.

00:19:53 John Daub: So I put that in there because it's better if a third party tells you than just me. It gives it more validity as a journalistic piece. And I think that separates it from what other YouTubers are doing just a little bit. But the downside is with this kind of an episode, it makes these kinds of interviews look commercially. And that's not the case. Even in a news report, you're going to interview the manager of the restaurant to get their point of view because they're the ones who created it. And they're going to be a little bit commercial too. I was very careful not to make this like an ad for them. But also give them credit because they were nice enough to give me permission. You have to give a business a shout out for that for sure.

00:20:37 John Daub: Let's ask a professional. This is Tsuji-san, regional manager at Kurasushi. She's a professional hamburger maker. Yeah. Ladies first. Go ahead. So he said that, as you saw in the subtitles below, they wanted to make a unique burger. But in Japan, just like in the vending machines, you always have to — and you can watch the episode if you want to see what she's saying. She's just describing the burger. In Japan, you always have to innovate. So the vending machines are continuously having new drinks in them. You always have to do that to be fresh.

00:21:23 John Daub: This scene, I love this scene here. Jennifer actually got the beer before we started this. But I'm like, it's not fun just to do things in the order that you did it. So, of course, before Jennifer eats, she needs a drink. She's always drinking wine or something. I don't know. So we made this scene where she — I didn't want to drink the beer because I had to make the episode. I was doing a lot of things on this day. Not just this episode, actually. But Jennifer's like, I need a beer. I need a beer. All right. You can get a beer. Didn't have any wine. She can get a beer. So she got a beer.

00:22:00 John Daub: These pourers are awesome. You know what's coming because you probably have seen it. Self-service. This is nice. I like that. Self-service beer pourers. Only in Japan. Who came up with this idea? I see a bunch of beer-drinking guys in Japan. He's automated. Tinkering with machines. Make sure you get the perfect and consistent pour. And even thanks you when you're done. This is too awesome. Isn't it amazing? It's perfect. It is really perfect. These have been around for at least five years, probably longer. I started noticing it about five, six years ago. They're so cool. And again, once again, like when you make something fun, people buy more of it and they go back to it.

00:22:43 John Daub: People like this. You don't have to wait in line for your beer. You don't have to wait for the server to bring it. You can see it being made right in front of you. And I think that that's something that is really important to Japan. Now, Japan has a shortage of workers. It's the population is decreasing. Everybody knows that there's less less people to support the older people, which is why we're in the bind where we are in Japan with deficit. Government deficit is for social services. But to fill the gap of not having enough workers, robots are coming in more and more, not just robots like in the form of Asimo and Pepper from SoftBank, but in the form of these types of services where your beer is poured from the bottom of the bottle.

00:23:24 John Daub: And the more robots you have, the better for you. You go and do it and it's fun. You're going to see robots more next year in 2020 when they show the technology for the Olympics.

00:23:37 John Daub: Surprisingly, this is good to me. Do you know how big of — I've been in — with Jennifer, we went to a French restaurant and she completely ripped them apart? She is one of the toughest food critics in Japan. I think — I don't know. I don't know. But she's a tough critic. I can't say. I can't make that statement. I'm not qualified, but I'm qualified to say this — she's a tough critic and she's honest and she loves burgers. I remember we had a quarter pounder at Tokyo Tower the first time we made an NHK show together and she was critical of McDonald's because this is a quarter pounder. Like it was fun.

00:24:26 John Daub: But I was very curious to see if she would be honest and she reviewed this. This was not a sponsored video so that we were not held back in any way. I was critical because I thought — I thought the buns were too much bread. I thought the buns could be a little bit thinner. The volume of the bread was slightly disproportionate to the size of the meat.

00:24:40 John Daub: It's true. This is a good burger but a couple of things — a lot of things would be required to make it a great burger and to be an outstanding burger that's just on a completely another level. When you see it, you know pretty much. It's a sushi shop burger. Yeah. Yeah, it's like definitely, you know, with the bread and the lettuce. If you just add some tomato, that's really like — I love that tempura.

00:25:07 John Daub: Sushi shops are also famous for making tempura. This is a place where you go — sushi shops, you have good tempura because they use tempura in the sushi. They use tempura. They always have oil there. So you always find good tempura at sushi shops as well. So that's a suggestion. If you're looking for a tempura restaurant, go to a sushi shop. They always have good tempura.

00:25:28 John Daub: A burger without the meat, with fish. I see. But the fish taste is pretty strong, I think. So you have to like fish to have this. I think that was a mackerel fish, which has a little bit of a stronger fish taste to it. But it's not a fishy taste, like the fishy smell type of taste. It just has another kind of a flavor to it. And yeah, saba is a really interesting choice for them. But I think that they're always changing. The menu, they might use different fish for different burgers. I kind of like that idea. They're innovating all the time.

00:26:09 John Daub: The problem is when you do get something that you really like, they'll pull it away and then it's gone. Like these apple pie Kit Kats that I have right now, that I'm sending out to my Patreon supporters. The apple pie Kit Kats will be here for like a month, and then they're gone. So you have to stack up on them. But they still have an expiration date. So even though something's popular, maybe they'll make a comeback. But that's the bad thing. The good thing is it's always fresh. It's always fresh.

00:26:37 John Daub: I had trouble picking the music for this. I had trouble picking the music for this episode a little bit. I did my best. What's a sushi shop restaurant music? It's hard. Yeah. I love this piece of tempura. It looks so good. With some sesame in there, some garlic I see in there, some toasted garlic, some sauce on here. And the meat looks really good. It's really good.

00:27:01 John Daub: Akoto Akita 1. This is a great option. I love your channel and it makes my work days and evenings fun. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for the super chat. If you don't eat sushi, right? A burger that comes on the belt. Marbaro CEO finally catching a live stream. Welcome. Apple pie Kit Kats are a thing right now. Apple pie Kit Kats. Oh my god.

00:27:25 John Daub: I'm not — I haven't used a lot of slow motion in Only in Japan. So we tried it for this episode. But it's not good. It's so slow that I had to pick slow music. I don't know. I could have used heavy metal, but it's just like a moment where it's a dream come true for burger lovers — that you can give, that you don't have to eat raw fish in a sushi shop. It really is for everybody. One of the questions, one of the problems — I've had friends come in and I can't eat sushi. I'm like, don't worry. They got a lot more than sushi at kaiten sushi shops.

00:27:55 John Daub: Actually, it's so good. It's pretty good. All the flavors really do come together well. But the bread was good. It is a typical burger. That's what saved the burger. The bun was good. The tempura onion on top of it with the sauce, it just brings it all together. Maybe extra oil. That's my key word. Brings it all together. The flavors bring it all together. I say way too much. But it's true. It's true. It's true. I think you're looking good. They used the whole thing with glittering that mine doesn't have.

00:28:22 John Daub: I like that they put the lettuce here too because it kind of — all burgers should do that — the bread from getting too soggy. It's like an anti-soggy layer. I like the garlic. I'm a garlic lover. I do love garlic. And thankfully, Kanai does too. I like the garlic. You like the garlic? She loves garlic. There's a lot to like about the sushi shop burger. It can be handled in just a few big bites. That took more than three bites to say. Like five.

00:28:52 John Daub: There's a lot more on the menu. A lot more. You can take what you want from the belt, but there's that touch screen menu above the table. This is fun. Yeah, I like that. I just like ordering stuff. I just want to — It makes you want to order a lot.

00:29:16 John Daub: One of the problems with this episode was that, as you can see, it's slightly out of focus. And I was trying really hard to try to save as much of this video footage. I always film myself, so it's hard. But I can understand the monitors on the GH5 is what I use. It's quite small. And if you're using manual focus, you're going to miss focus quite a bit on DSLRs unless you have a big monitor to check it. So we're using this lens, which is the 8-18 micro four-thirds Panasonic Lumix Leica lens. And it only goes down to 2.8. But if you're trying to get that blur, you can also miss the blur too and miss the focus. So you have to be really careful. That's why sometimes handheld camcorders are sometimes better than the DSLR.

00:30:07 John Daub: I'm starting to move away from trying to blur the background too much. I think you can blur it too much. And you miss focus, especially when you're in a hurry. We were in a hurry. Cakes. I think they had some fruit, didn't they? I love this shot. I love this shot. And I added it in maybe in five parts in this video. This is a GoPro. So the sushi shop manager and the shop owner, the regional manager and the shop manager, are all standing right here out of the picture.

00:30:46 John Daub: And I told them, I said, do you mind if I just attach a GoPro to your lamp? And they're like, okay. If you just ask, they didn't see anything wrong with it. And then we clipped it and we got this scene where you can see in the background the restaurant. And I really wanted to show how big the restaurant is. It's massive. How many people are here and we're in a low time and it's still like 75% full. We got this seat. These two seats were given to us for filming. This seat was left open because they didn't want us to bother any of the customers. So they didn't seat any customers at this seat. So I'm very thankful because they probably lost money letting us film.

00:31:22 John Daub: But I think maybe just maybe some viewers were going to go back here and visit the chain for because they let us film there. So it's a win-win, I guess. Here's some mango. Mango, ice cream, cake. This is all store goods. And this is the express line. You can just take whatever you want on the bottom. But when you order something, it comes on the express line. So you're going to see a big train of food coming in about a minute from now. I like this shot. And once again, it was slowed down. It takes a couple of minutes for your order to be processed. But why take orders at all?

00:32:02 John Daub: The name of this song is High School Hero, I think. The main purpose of this video was to show you how to order from the store. But now customers want to eat a lot of things. They want to eat something that's convenient. And we're trying to provide a lot of advanced technology to the requests of many customers. And we're trying to provide quality food as cheaply as possible. Kaiten sushi has evolved over time to cater the entire family.

00:32:39 John Daub: The thing I want to point out here — and I saw some of the comments here, where is the ingredient sourced and does it taste good? All of these sushi chains now are very, very competitive. And it's all about reputation. Meaning if you have a reputation of poorly sourced food that doesn't taste good, you will not make it in this business. This particular chain is right now booming because from the beginning, they've done very well of keeping the ingredients very well managed. And getting the better cuts somehow. I don't know. I guess it's just on volume. But they've done a very good job.

00:33:21 John Daub: My favorite sushi shop is always going to be — Sushi Zanmai. Because it's just the price point is perfect. And the quality is perfect. And they make it right in front of you. And you feel good. They've done a really good job with that chain. But it's a chain. And you know you're going to get really good stuff at these places. But Kura Sushi, for the price, and the fun, and the technology, and the experience, is really good, I thought. It really is a place for everyone.

00:33:50 John Daub: But this is important right here. So they make these sushi shops for families. They're no longer just for — I'm taking the non-sushi items that we ordered off the belt. It's not just for adults. It's for kids. It's for everybody. It's for people with no teeth. You could come in at age 90, take your teeth out, and you'll probably find something to eat here. That's what makes this an experience for everybody. Family restaurants are booming in Japan. And sushi restaurants are more than sushi for a reason. It's about inviting, allowing everybody. And not every Japanese can eat sushi. As I said, kids under the age of five are recommended not to eat sushi.

00:34:37 John Daub: Because they're building their immune systems. Especially for seafoods like shellfish. Shellfish should not be eaten by children. Raw. So they don't serve sushi in schools or sashimi in schools. There's a reason for that because kids don't have the same immune system. You need a kind — it's safe to eat. But all food has something in it where you need to have some sort of immunity to the stuff that's in it. But sushi is a little bit stronger. So the sushi shops — they have other options that are cooked mainly for kids. But also for pregnant women. Because their immune systems are a little bit less. That's the reason why.

00:35:18 John Daub: It's kind of a large list. That surprised me. Curry rice. Did you see that? Curry rice was on the menu. I just lost the — they have curry rice. Ramen egg sushi. They call it something else. But in English, I call it ramen egg sushi. Spicy ramen. Hamburger sushi. Beef steak sushi. Tamago. They had chicken. Cake. Pudding. The number one non-sushi item is chawanmushi. Which is an egg-like pudding with some stuff inside of it. Usually a little shrimp. I love chawanmushi. So there's a bunch of — there's something for everybody. You don't want to eat sushi? Oh, don't worry. We'll put an egg on some rice. You can eat that. Well, most people.

00:36:00 John Daub: Hana can eat that. She doesn't eat meat. But she'll eat eggs and dairy. Let's try some of these. These look the most interesting. And see if it is as good as sushi. I have a feeling it will be. Because I'm starving. Now, we didn't — there's some soup here. This is actually tantanmen. But we just didn't have time enough to feature them all. Because we had a very limited amount of time to work here. So we're trying our best to line up the shots. I have three cameras going on right now. We got some — before we ate, we had to take these shots. And then these really pretty shots. And then we had to take a couple more. And then we had to take a couple more shots of the food. It's not really easy to do all of this.

00:36:46 John Daub: It's probably better if I just do the vlogger style where I'm just quickly turning the camera around and doing it. And I'm done in like 45 minutes. But I've been doing it by shot, shot, shot, shot, shot since the beginning. That just takes a lot more time to do it right. And we blew through two hours so quickly here. We had two hours to film this.

00:37:05 John Daub: So we got about four minutes left of this video. We got 40 minutes on this video. One. Live shows have been going on for 37 minutes. This is the most unique gunkan sushi I think I've ever had. The ones rolled are called gunkan sushi. How was this? Gunkan. This is Fran Shiuma. She says it's awful. It's not good. She's pulling it away. It's actually really good. She just doesn't want to share. How dare Jennifer? Really? But it's only 100 yen. Each one of these sushis is only 100 yen. All right. This was 100 yen. Sorry. The soup is a little bit different. But anything on these plates here is 100 yen that came off of the belt. Amazing that they can hit that price point. It fills you up.

00:38:00 John Daub: It's more like a mayonnaise thing I think on top of it. It's like been blow torched or something on top of it. I think blow torch is good. I don't know why. It's more of mayonnaise than cheese I think. Blow torched food. Cream brulee. But it's super delicious and really the perfect marriage for my beer. See? Jennifer. That's right. The karaage chicken is a little different here. I think these are made for kids. They're bite-sized. They're different. It's — I don't know. This wasn't — this isn't like the record-breaking awesome tasting karaage. But it was good. But not outstanding. But in its defense, it cost a dollar. Less than a dollar. All right. And it was delivered to you on a super speed belt.

00:38:39 John Daub: Hey, David Kimura. Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to see you. Great for kids. You see me. I don't see you. All right. I'm surprised though. I know, right? This is really better than what I expected. That is a huge statement. Again, Jennifer's a food critic. This is even better than I expected. She probably expected like zero and it got up to five. But she's pleasantly surprised and that made me really happy. And I think that made the sushi chain pretty happy because if you can pass her inspection, you did pretty good. You did pretty good. Seriously.

00:39:13 John Daub: Pieces of cooked beef on rice? This one. This is the umadare gyu karubi. Slices of beef on top of rice. Is this really sushi? Is it? Would you consider this sushi? I'm asking you right now. Would you consider this sushi? I don't know. All right. The last one I want to try is this one. This is karubi or it's beef on rice. It's one of the most interesting. Traditionalists are going — no way. Can I? No way. It's one of the most interesting sushi I think. And I can only find this at kaiten sushi. No. We got people writing in no. And then here's Benji writes in, why not? Thank you. All right.

00:39:54 John Daub: The sushi chefs, the one who made the micro sushi, he's been making sushi for 30 years. He gives an opinion like why not? Let's just try something new. He makes California rolls, which is like super rare in Tokyo. And then the traditionalists who study for years and years are very regimented in their ways. Like, no way that that's sushi. Sushi is this, this, this and this. And there's like straight guidelines. It's like with Neapolitan pizza, right? If it's not made in Naples with the same kind of tomatoes, it's not Neapolitan pizza. But it could be, right? I don't know. Same thing with sushi. The debate rages on.

00:40:35 John Daub: Don't forget to hit the like button. I got to say, I'm seeing the moderator — I'm seeing the moderator say it. So I appreciate it. It's like yakiniku. It's like yakiniku and it's all put together for you. If you can eat meat, you love yakiniku. And it's just a thinly sliced piece, but it's the sauce and the beef and the rice. It's all put together for you in that bite. It's good. It was really good. Yeah. It's even better than the one. Even better. Even better. This one is even better. It's really good. But wait, there's more. A hamburg meatball sushi smothered in a kind of gravy sauce.

00:41:17 John Daub: This one I only find at kaiten sushi restaurants as well. It's a hamburg sushi. I love the way that they put that. I'm trying to be positive, but deep down inside — yeah. I ordered this once like 20 years ago. Like, this is weird. I'm going to order it. I ate it. It's like processed hamburger meat. Okay. It's the kind of stuff that kids like. It's made in maybe like cafeteria type quality. It's not bad, but you can tell that it's been processed and it's a meatball. Kids like it, right? And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's just weird.

00:41:54 John Daub: It looks like a hat, like a Moai hat, you know, Easter Island Moai hat type of thing, action going on there. I don't know. I'm always going to take the high road in these episodes. Traditional sushi eaters wouldn't put this on their list. No, they would not. But it's here at kaiten sushi. The final comment? Kids are going to love this one. That's the best I could do. Exactly. How could you compete with like ikura, salmon? Hamburger just doesn't do it. It doesn't have enough. It doesn't have the same flavor and consistency. And you can't taste the rice that much. It's basically just a fun. It's a fun item to try once.

00:42:34 John Daub: How fresh is that sushi going around the restaurant belt? I did a poor, poor job of answering this question. I actually rerecorded that narration bit last. And I didn't really think it out. He doesn't tell you in the interview the time. It's about 30 minutes. The sushi will last about 30, between 30 and 45 minutes, I believe, before it automatically, with the icchy chip, throws it out. The reason why is that if it's not fresh and there's problems with the quality, that hurts their reputation, which is more important than the money. All right? If somebody gets sick, that's more important than the money.

00:43:12 John Daub: But the good thing about this technology is that it's not going to be a problem. And I have to stress this. I have to stress this because this is so important. And Zen of Tony, thank you for bringing back fun memories from my time in Japan. Awesome. Everybody likes — everybody goes to kaiten sushi when they visit Japan. The great thing about the icchy chip is that it stops from wasting food because this system gives the data and analytics so that they make just enough that they need based on the time and how many people come to this location. It is so consistent. It is so consistent. And using this data, they save food. They also, by saving food, they save money. So there's a good thing with the technology.

00:44:03 John Daub: Like these icchy chips and the data that they bring in provides a better experience for not just the restaurant to make money but for the customer, meaning at 7 p.m., customers seem to really like salmon. So they start putting salmon on the menu, on this belt, to try to make money. And then they start to fill that need. It's the ultimate system. I would love to go to this sushi chain or any sushi chain and get more in-depth on how they decide the system. How does the analytics work? Because I'm super, super interested in the details of how this is running. This is more menu stuff, very top level. I'm really interested in the tech actually, how this has evolved.

00:44:53 John Daub: Actually, I love that strange part. Scotty from Strange Parts has come and do an episode on this high-tech sushi tech technology. That would be a lot of fun. That's just extraordinary. It's scanning. Did you see that? It just goes by like that. I just love it. The one thing I love about customer service is that it's very, very fast. It's something for everybody. This is a family restaurant. That's one of the reasons why there's such a wide variety of things on the menu.

00:45:20 John Daub: So if you're a woman who's pregnant, you can't eat raw fish. Jennifer's not pregnant. Fish, if you're a kid, you can't eat raw fish. I don't know. People are like, is she pregnant? No, she's not pregnant. We're breaking it down. And I think Jennifer didn't know the reasons why. And until I talked with them, I really didn't know the reasons why kids don't eat the sushi. And it's because of the immune system. So I learned a ton of stuff by making this episode. There's lots of other stuff. Oh, you just don't like raw fish. Yeah. The menu is huge. I don't like raw fish. You can go here. Well, it's a place where everybody can find something that they like and be really happy.

00:45:55 John Daub: I see. So yes. Happy means games on the table too. It kind of looks like gashapon. Gashapon. Capsule toys in a machine. It's nice. When you finish eating, you can put the plates here. And the game starts with five plates. And when you get a hit, you get a toy. I lost. I lost a few times. I got to be really honest with you guys if you're watching this. All right. I got a story to tell you. Click that like button and I'll tell you another. I got another background story. But we got to get to 300 likes. Community rules.

00:46:26 John Daub: It says here, hazure. Hazure means too bad. Like you didn't win. Like loser. Hazure. But you lose it only in this situation. So don't walk to people on the street that looks like a loser and go, hazure. It just means you lost. You lost out. All right. I believe it was like and then we didn't order that much sushi on the table, right? We didn't have a lot of plates. So we're putting the plates in. I put the five plates in and then I got this loss. I don't know why I'm smiling. I should have been crying. Besides the point. And then we needed more plates so that the manager goes, ah. He goes back in the kitchen and he brings his taco plates this high. And he's like, just keep them. Keep playing until you win. Like they can't control it.

00:47:14 John Daub: So they brought in plates and I'm just shoving. So Jennifer and I are just loving this. We're like one, two, three, four, five. And we're like waiting for it, waiting for it. Loser. Ah, one, two, three, four, five. And we went through the first stack and he came back and he brought it in and I was on the third. The third try we got it. So it took more than it took 15 plates before we can get in there. It was unlimited plates of nothing. It was really awesome. Now I was really — I should have filmed that. This is when the behind the scenes stuff becomes more valuable. So I might change the style of the show a little bit because I just, we just, this one was just really hard to make because of the style. It'd just be better to vlog it with one camera like this.

00:48:00 John Daub: You'd still get the same experience. And it would feel more real. These feel too much like older things. So I'm gonna have to change the Only in Japan format. But that was so much funny. It was so funny when the — the he brought out like a stack of plates on the floor. He's holding it like this and he puts it on the table. Usually it's the other way around. Just the irony of it. We did win, but after 15, we won the third try. Boom. Atari win, which means A-T-A-R-I. If you're wondering Atari is — is the same would be spelled the same way. Atari is the game system from the 1980s. Atari. Could it — could they have met when they made that company? Cause it was an American, American company that made that company. And it could have — could it be based in this winning? Mmm.

00:48:51 John Daub: If anyone's wondering what Atari means, that's what that means. Winner. Winner's inside. Only one way to find out. Interesting, right? Jennifer opens it up to find. Yeah, and it was — Nosh writes in, it was based on the Japanese word. A small plastic top you can spit on the table. It's just a little something — Because the video games — and we had somebody from Israel, I believe, believe chime in and say it's — it's technically a dreidel. So there you go. Say thank you. So we got a dreidel. And come again. And people do come again. Often. Kaiten sushi is. So this is a dreidel and we spun it for like five seconds in the plastic. Like, and I believe we gave it back to the owner and said, just give it to a kid.

00:49:29 John Daub: And I hope they put it back in there cause we weren't gonna use it. We didn't wanna waste it. And if you go into these sushi shops, you have the choice of either being — of playing the game or not playing the game. So they won't activate the game. And it's just another thing just not to be wasteful. Some people just don't want the plastic toys. It's usually for kids. But you have that choice. And I like that. They're really making an effort to reduce waste as much as possible because it's better for the environment. And it's also — it's good for — it's good for the bottom line. So it's like a win-win to reduce as much waste as possible. Sushi for all. A totally different experience to.

00:50:09 John Daub: And there's Hana. Hana. We love Hana. You feel Bob's right? That's Hana. And don't worry. We're just faking it. Okay. We're not — we're at the end of the shoot and I'm like, let's just do a scene and get Hana at the table next to us. It's just for fun people. Don't say poor Hana. You know what she did as soon as I said cut? And I say, I say cut. If you're directing, you gotta say cut, right? It's just a power word. Cut. She comes around. She sits next to me. She eats the cake. I think she ate the cake. Hana, did you eat the cake? Are you watching this? Hana is en route to Washington DC right now with a stopover in Montreal.

00:50:48 John Daub: I believe Hana ate something. If you're watching Hana, you can write it. I don't know. Depends if she has wifi. I think she's in Toronto airport right now in changing planes. But it was just a fun scene. We wanted to have Hana in the background. She helped set this up. It was invaluable. It is not easy working with a big company, making YouTube videos. They require a lot. Kurozushi was really cool. They were really cool in a good way. They were really helpful and easy to work with. And they didn't give us any money, but they didn't — but the manager said when we went to go pay for the bill, wouldn't let us pay.

00:51:24 John Daub: I thought that was — he did not have to do that. I was willing to pay because we were filming and he said it's on us and it's such a small gesture, but it's huge to me. So I'm happy to be able to do that. I'm really, really thankful for Kurozushi to let us film in there and then just waived the fee, even though it wasn't that much, it was like maybe 2,500 yen, like 24 bucks, but I really appreciated it. You know, I think it's just a little teeny things that people do. You don't have to do grand gestures, little teeny things. You can tell that kind of person if they really appreciate it too in return. And yeah, I for me it was huge. Like, whoa. You did something you didn't need to do. You did more than enough. And I was — we were — especially, and Hana too was so thankful. We were bowing really low and we laughed and appreciated it.

00:52:06 John Daub: And I wanted to do a really good job with this episode as a result. So there you go. These here on the top are tea. So if you don't — there's now often a drink bar, so you can just drink what you like, but tea is for free and you have matcha tea in this one here on the table. So you take a little bit of the matcha tea, put it into the cup and there's always a water spigot at the table where you can get unlimited hot water out of the water spigot. And usually I don't have to mix it. It's as is. And you can use the same tea, just keep adding water. It mixes automatically. Again, you don't want it too strong, just a little bit, boop, and then you have tea. You can put the plates and stack them up. That's the way they used to do it. And the old restaurants would count it, or you can put it in the little depository thing here where it'll activate the game.

00:53:15 John Daub: The touchscreen menus are incredible. They — the fact that they do English and other languages, probably they'll do French. Maybe they'll do it in the future if, but they're having problems with the English translation. So I got to feel like French might be a challenge, but it's just an amazing system. And this is so Japan when you add technology with food right now. I love it. I love it. Your channel is very helpful for me planning my trip to Japan. Every time I see something I add to my list of Google Maps. This is from Noah2x4. Thank you so much, Noah. I'm really happy to hear that. That's why I make the show.

00:53:54 John Daub: How should Hana create a sushi ballad? Totally should. And sing it at a sushi shop. Maybe Kura Sushi will let us come back after hours and she could sing with the sushi going by. And we can do CG where she's on a blue screen and we'll shrink her down and we can make her move on the line. That'd be so cool. I'm getting all — I'm already getting ideas like, I want to direct this, Hana. I want to direct it. Yeah. Hey, Vincent. Vincent's here. John, making my Japan bucket list never ending. Sorry. I got more to add to by the way. There's more episodes coming. I got more to add. There's never ending. Never ending.

00:54:31 John Daub: I'm going to go right now to our Discord server for about five minutes and take some questions. Because again, Discord is free and anybody can download in there. And I'm going to go to our Samurai chat, voice chat and activate this right now. And then I'm now online. I believe people can hear me. People can hear me if I push this button. Hi, Jim. Hello, slow John. Hello, slow BRZ. His mic is not on or her mic is not on. So it could be. Megan. Hello, Megan. Hello, UFO Bob. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. So now you're starting to see some of our moderators popping in. So you hear the voice behind the person in the chat right in front of you, which is pretty neat. So I'm going to ask some of our —

00:55:24 John Daub: Hey, John. Hey, Bob. Can you tell me, do you have any questions? You know, it's funny. I had a time where I was modding and now I'm totally blank on you. No problem. No problem. If you have any questions — If you have any questions, I'll jump in. Okay. Jim, I'll let you go first since you've always got a tough one for me. It's true. Okay, John. Here's a question for you. You have visited a lot of restaurants in Japan over many years, so I'm wondering what would you say is one of your most bizarre restaurant experiences in Japan?

00:56:15 John Daub: Wow. Maid cafes are pretty bizarre. And then the maid cafes with themes on top of them, like the vampire maid cafe and the ninja restaurant cafe. Like the theme restaurants in Japan are never ending, mostly for tourists. But like maid cafes have kind of gone out of style a little bit with Japanese otaku because they've become too commercialized and too competitive. And now many of them have gone out of business, the ones from 10 years ago. But when you go in there, you still have this bizarre experience of being served. Like you could go in there and be served by a maid in Victorian maid outfit who's a young Japanese girl doing cute things to your food like this. I'm gonna make your food so tasty by making it cute. Kyun! And she does a little heart mark. Kyun! And you're like — And for some reason somehow they make the food a little bit tastier. I don't know. I sometimes I think the quality is microwaved, but there's something special about maid cafes. Some of you have to try ones. They're really weird.

00:57:13 John Daub: But the kaiten sushi ones are always going to be kind of weird too because of the menu and there's the ambience, there's the food and then there's the service. So there's three things that are just sometimes really bizarre but these themed restaurants come and go out of business all the time. The Alcatraz restaurant — which is this — you get to eat dinner in a prison cell. It's pretty bizarre. I think there's a lot of videos on YouTube that other people have done it but it's kind of violent and almost sexual in nature unfortunately because I remember the staff chased down some guy that they pulled out of the cell and then they put the needle — they put this massive needle, it wasn't a real needle, and they like put it into his bottom and like, what the heck is going on with this thing? So I won't be going back to that restaurant and the beer was served in the drinks were served in like bedpans. It's really weird. It's kind of strange anyways. But that was a pretty bizarre experience in terms of food, I guess. Yeah, sorry Jim. I wasn't pushing the button so you maybe you couldn't hear me but I was talking about the Alcatraz prison restaurant and the maid cafes. Yeah, I heard you. I was able to listen in just through YouTube. But anyways thanks. The ambience, the service and the food from the maid cafes — yeah, that's it, could be. I'm sure it was strange stuff a lot of the times.

00:58:42 John Daub: Yes, and when you come to visit Japan we will go there together maybe. So we'll see. I would love to see Jim's reaction at the maid cafe. That would be — make an epic episode. I think just to have some fun with weird weird places of Japan. Well, I've reached the point where I should never say nothing surprises me because there's always one more surprise. There's always one more. There's never any surprises. Ufobob, did you have — and ATC Chronicles is here. We also have Sheryl, Rip and Haiko. If you have any questions, I'm going to take questions for the next maybe two more minutes. So shoot. Yeah, are there any common faux pas that first-time visitors to Japanese restaurants making? Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm going to keep this — I'm going to hold the touch to speak button.

00:59:45 John Daub: You know, there are and there aren't. Some of the things I think are chopstick to chopstick. If don't pass anything, like don't pick it up with your chopstick and pass it to someone and then they take it with their own chopsticks. This is a big, big no-no in Japanese culture because this is how you pass the bones of your dead relatives after they've been cremated. This is the final ritual where you pass the bones by chopstick to chopstick. So you don't want to do that with food. It's considered extremely rude and it's very sensitive to Japanese. If they see you, they're probably going to be a little bit not happy with that, but they're very polite. They probably won't say anything, but if someone speaks English, someone might politely ask you not to do that. That's considered very rude. Also putting chopsticks in rice is also how we put the incense for the dead. So you don't want to put the chopsticks and leave it inside the rice sticking out of it. Just put it down. That's why we have chopstick holders to put it down there.

01:00:47 John Daub: For sushi, I really don't think for kaiten sushi, people have told me that there are so many rules like don't make your wasabi in with the soy sauce. And I got to tell you something, people do it here in Japan. You eat your sushi the way you want to. The reason — if a high-end restaurant, the chef will tell you how to eat it. At a place like a kaiten sushi restaurant, you can mix your wasabi in the soy sauce any way you like. You can pick it up with your hands. You can eat it with your chopsticks. You can be loud. In sushi shops, you usually have to be a little bit quieter. At these places, you can talk in a normal voice. So I like that. It's more casual. So I think if you're eating sushi for the first time, a kaiten sushi place might be a good way to break into it.

01:01:32 John Daub: I really don't think of too many faux pas. Don't put anything back on to the conveyor belt is something that you should need. Don't put your GoPro camera like T-K-Y-O Sam did, but he did make a really good video and totally made an awesome video, but I can see why the shop was angry. I can see why the shop was like, don't put anything on the conveyor belt. And also respect the privacy of all the other people if you're taking video in there because I'm a YouTuber, I have to say that. I didn't — I tried to restrict putting other people in. people in there. Eating with the foods, I guess that's about it. Do you have any follow-ups? I would just like to encourage the other people in the chat to jump in. Go ahead and ask some questions. It's fun.

01:02:24 John Daub: Yeah. Go ahead. If you have any more questions, I've got about one more minute before I have to eat lunch. Hey, John. It's Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl. Hey, I keep asking you and Nosh all the same questions, but I'm going to be in Ginza. Which kaiten sushi place do you like in Ginza? Wow, in Ginza. Ginza is not really known for its kaiten sushi. I have to say any that you can find will be fine. If you want kaiten sushi, I think you have to go — This chain, Kura Sushi, is not in central Tokyo so much. The chain we went to was in Ikebukuro. They don't have anything. They don't have anything except in Shinagawa and Ikebukuro and nothing in the center. It's very hard to recommend it, but I think if you find one, they should be all pretty reputable.

01:03:14 John Daub: But the best one I think is in Shinbashi. There was one that NHK — I can't remember the name of it. As I said, I usually go to Sushi Zanmai. If you're in Ginza, I would go to Sushi Zanmai in Tsukiji. It's about a 10-minute walk from Ginza Station just towards Tsukiji Market. Go to the hon-ten. That's the best one because they sell — they sell sushi there. The Japanese go there because the chefs are a little bit better, they think, we believe. I think it's pretty consistent, but I would go to Sushi Zanmai Hon-ten, which is about a 5-10 minute walk from Ginza intersection. But to be honest with you, any kaiten sushi shop is going to be pretty good. They have these all-you-can-eat kaiten sushi restaurants for like ¥4,000, $40, and the quality of them is really, really high. And we featured this on NHK Tokyo Eye a couple of times. I believe that was in Shimbashi. If I do find it, I'll put it in the Samurai chat if anybody else is researching this. Good question. I'll look it up.

01:04:23 John Daub: Yeah, thank you. And the Genki sushi chain, I don't think is as good. And the Kappazushi used to be good, and I don't think they're as good. I think Kura-zushi is probably one of the top, and Sushiro. Sushiro is a chain that's doing pretty good too right now. They might have outlets all over the city as well.

01:04:50 John Daub: Oh, and I remember we got a question a while ago, do I take breaks from Only in Japan? And the answer is not really. Kanai and I went on a backpacking trip to Europe in 2015, 2016? It's only one. Three years ago, right? Yes. 2015. Four years ago, Kanai and I took like a six-week vacation in Europe. It wasn't even that long. I think it was like less than a month actually. And that was the longest that we've been away from the show. We took three weeks to go at Christmas, but I was still making Go episodes and I was still editing. So I haven't really had a hiatus of like a month. And I might do that in January. Just take a month and maybe edit a little bit, but try to relax. It's really hard actually.

01:05:44 John Daub: And the main channel episodes, there's a bunch that have been filmed and we're just editing it now over the summer. We're very, very busy. The thing is though, like the cuts and the edit and the music and the style really is not easy. And even if I try to speed it up and have other people editing it, I've learned though that I have to re-edit it and that even takes some time. So having somebody cut it up for me, I learned is really helpful. But then I have to clean it up and finish it and put it into my image and that still takes time. Because in this style, when I have three cameras running, everything is very, very difficult to edit. So I'm going to have to streamline the process and I think I will be able to do this in 2020.

01:06:28 John Daub: It's just going to — in order to be successful, we have to have more content and it has to be more consistent and it's very hard with this format. Right now, the videos are not getting suggested on YouTube because they're not going to be uploaded. Because there are other creators uploading more often. Again, YouTube is not about quality. It's about frequency. And I'm in this, in 2013 mode with this channel still. Maybe 2016. 2020 is about up, up, up, go, go, go, length, length, length, the best that you can do as fast as you can do it. And for better or for worse, that's the only way that you can make a living off of YouTube. The income and the revenue for OnlyJPG Pen's main channel has been going down because there's not a lot of content. But again, to get permission and to film the way we do is like a TV. You need a budget that's huge.

01:07:32 John Daub: NHK, I think they make like $100,000 on one episode of a studio shoot with and location shoot. That's a — I can't pay $100,000 per episode. All right. I got to pay like like $200 or $300 per episode to make this work. So it's very, very hard. And I think that's the only way to make money, make a show that is TV quality and still do it and make a profit off of it. Although NHK is pretty, pretty high. That's probably the top in terms of paying for the staff. Reporters don't get paid a lot, by the way. Have you made — met any of the guys from Men on a Mission? No, I have not. Your trip to see your parents was about seven or eight days. Yeah. In the United States, this past summer, it was about the same. I made a trip to Kanae and I, at Christmas time, we took a little bit longer, but I usually don't stay in the U.S. for more than seven or eight days.

01:08:21 John Daub: Although I think we should do a rent-a-car and drive up and down the U.S. It would be a pretty good experience for us. Lloyd, I would definitely try to keep up the quality as high as I can do it while evolving the show. While evolving the show. Where's your favorite spot in Japan? I've been to so many beautiful places. I love the seaside. I love the Sea of Japan, Nihonkai. I've seen so many beautiful points up there. There's some places in Aomori Prefecture that I would really like to see more of too. Up there on the top of Tohoku. And Hokkaido as well. I would love to see you driving again. Yeah, actually I do have after this a driving episode that's coming up. So rent-a-car versus a Japan Rail Pass. So you can get a chance to see, is renting a car really better? And I would say yes for most people. For some people, and no for some people. It just depends. But it should be an option. Miyajima, yeah. Hiroshima has Miyajima, which is huge. I love that island.

01:09:25 John Daub: NHK stands for Nippon Hosou — What does NHK stand for? Nippon Hosou Keiwa. NHK. Nippon Hosou Kyoku. Yeah. NHK. That's why we just say NHK. Kyokai. Kyokai. I don't think it's Kyokai. Is it Kyokai? Kyoku. Kanai said Kyoku. It could be Kyokai. We're getting Kyokai. Yeah, Kanai's like, really? She doesn't know. Nobody in NHK says that. So it's Kyokai. Yeah, it's Kyokai. Kyokai is more like an association, right? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, the midnight's not good. I'm going to do another one since it's autumn. It's nice outside. I find Japanese number plates puzzling. Very short numbers. Yeah, I think they use the — in the Hiragana and the Katakana alphabets, there's more than 26 characters. So there's a lot more combinations. So you can use less numbers. So they'll have a Hiragana like Ai Ue O, Kaki Ku Kei Ko, and then a number thing. But because they start with a number, they're not going to be able to use the numbers. So if you start with that, that means that there's even more possibilities with only four numbers. It's pretty cool.

01:10:49 John Daub: But with the number plates, what's super cool is that they illuminate the number plates, meaning the numbers are lit up with LEDs. So it's very clear to see that. They've had that for over 20 years. That's not a new thing where the light would shine through the number plate, so the license plate. So it's pretty cool. Any further midnight snack runs? Darth, very soon. Very, very soon. It's — it's today, Friday? Maybe this weekend? Maybe tomorrow? I don't know. There'll be one very soon. I can guarantee you that. Because the last one was so successful, it's time to go to another area. I'd love to do it with somebody else. I'd love to see if we can get some people and do another live stream. It's not as much fun when I'm by myself. I want to do it. Ganbare. This is from — Oh! Hey, Jordan Gumbs. G-U-M-B-S. Ganbare. I will be traveling Japan next month and will visit Niigata after seeing your sake vending machine episode. Keep up the good work. Yes! Definitely go to Echigo Yuzawa station and spend some time there. That's probably my favorite station. I go there and I feel like I'm not in Tokyo anymore for sure. It's just a very special area of Japan, that Echigo Yuzawa. Love it. Really love it.

01:12:08 John Daub: Guys, click the like button if you like these director's cuts. And if you like these questions and answers. Encourage me to do more of these. I think it's kind of neat to be able to answer and get the feedback. So click the like button and encourage me. I need encouragement on the episodes. That's how I know if it succeeds or not. Because I don't go by the views anymore. I go by the likes, actually. That's another thing. The views sometimes are because of the algorithm and how things are suggested. I'm not going to let YouTube be the one to say that a video is successful. The people who say a video is successful is you. So if you like a kind of video, you're going to click the like button. That's how I think a creator knows. That's decided by the viewers. The suggestions are decided, I think, by YouTube too much. And I can use both the views and the likes. But the likes for me is a very big thing. That means that you want the extra stuff.

01:13:19 John Daub: I think PVG is taking a break from YouTube. I really don't know. I haven't been — We've been in touch, but I haven't talked to him since he came back. I've just been really busy. Hana is going to still help me digitally by email. She's going to help me setting up the live stream, setting up the shoots by talking with the clients. That's kind of a big deal. So that's going to save me a lot of time. So Hana — But I'm going to miss her because — Man, it's just so much fun. And she's always smiling. And Hana always was such a positive person. And I think this has nothing to do with Kaiten Sushi in Japan. But in life, the people you hang out with or you surround yourself with are the kind of person that you yourself are going to become.

01:14:02 John Daub: If you have a lot of cancerous — like bad — I mean that not in having cancer, but cancerous people that are very bad, negative. Getting in fights, doing — just not good people. Then you yourself by contact, some of that will rub off. It's inevitable. And being around positive people is infectious. You also get positive. Hana was very positive. And sometimes where things didn't go right, usually I will go to the dark side for 10 seconds. And then I switch to the bright side, the right side, the light side. Because — There's — What are your alternatives? I always say to myself. So — But Hana was always really positive. And she gets frustrated. And I like the fact that she doesn't use bad words. She doesn't swear. That — And it makes me — I don't swear that much either. Maybe once a day. Probably — I want to say — Because I want to say once every two days. But I know it's at least once a day. Probably more. But yeah. It's good to see somebody who's not doing those types of things. And she's just positive, you know? It rubs off on me too. So she's worth her weight in gold. Anyone who hires her is like — If you don't hire her, I'm going to take her back. And I'm going to try to find a way to pay her more. All right? And I'm not going to talk about — People always ask me how much I make. You never talk about your money because it changes the perception of people.

01:16:02 John Daub: But yeah. This is her first job after graduating university. And the goal was — to also — not just give her a job. But to help train her in YouTube and creators. And how to make content. And we did a lot of stuff together. And that was invaluable. So invaluable. For me and for her at the time. Together was great. The help. It's huge. Hana also came across as a generally very nice soul. I'm glad. Because she is. The thing with YouTube is that you can't — You have to be yourself in order to be successful. And if you're a nasty person — You're going to come off as nasty. These live streams you cannot hide yourself for 76 minutes. It's impossible. So I am who I am.

01:16:59 John Daub: There are other YouTubers who swear more. I just — I guess it's — I came — I think if you grew up in the 80s — I grew up with Eddie Murphy. And he was the one who started to — he was one of the people who would swear a little bit more as a comedian. But I also grew up with Bill Cosby. Who's not a good guy. I don't know. It's like we thought — I really don't want to get into that too much. But at the time, he was a good guy we thought on TV. And he had values to his comedy. And we grew up then. And I think in the 80s, the values are different. And you can see it with the comedians in the age. I don't know. I don't want to start — This is like me saying, I'm old. I'm old. That's not the point. I think it's just a generational thing. I don't swear as much as someone who's in their 30s. And I think it's the same. Although, that's not consistent. I know some old people who swear a lot back in the States. It just depends. It just depends.

01:17:41 John Daub: Cool. All right. This is the longest one minute ever. Longest one minute ever. Thanks so much for the support, everybody. I really appreciate it. The Diamond Packages, by the way, for the Diamond supporters are going out today. Kanai and I added Japanese potato chips made by the same maker from Hokkaido that puts in unique flavoring. This one has a citrus. What flavor is it? Kombu, which is a kind of seaweed. And is it yuzu? Yeah. Yeah, yuzu and kombu. It's just such a Japanese taste. And I also have three bags for the new daimyo. We had three new daimyo sign up. We have the matcha shio potato chips, which I sent out to supporters. It came back. It was discontinued and they brought it back this month. And I'm going to give those out to the new supporters because the matcha shio ones are pretty cool too. The daimyo package is a good way to try some stuff. Unique stuff from Japan, not the ordinary snacks.

01:18:28 John Daub: All right, cool. Thanks, everybody. There's the postcard for this month. Hakodate. Danny received his. I'm glad to hear that, Danny. And have a great day, everybody. Have a great night. Thank you so much for watching these episodes and for supporting the channel, for sharing it, for liking it. It means a lot to me and Kanai. We're going to be going to Wajima next week. So we have a lot of content coming on the Go channel and on the main channel too. Stay tuned. Have a good day.