00:04:00 John Daub: Greetings and welcome to Makuhari Messe! How you doing everybody? I am at the YouTube FanFest Japan. Yes! Tell us about your channel!

00:16:00 Wakuyai: My name is Wakuyai, but my channel name is Wakuyai, and I post comedy content based on observational humor. It's all in Japanese, so if you're like an American viewer, you probably won't understand, but I'm just introducing myself anyways.

00:32:00 John Daub: So yeah, YouTube Japan. This is YouTube Japan, yeah. He's the most popular creator in Japan. Really? Oh, really? Sorry, I'm live streaming. I'm sorry. The king of YouTube Japan. It's a little bit more like Hajime Shacho. Oh yeah, about the same.

01:01:00 John Daub: Hi! Hi everybody! So I've been doing it for about 6-7 years, but how many subscribers? 8 million! 8 million! Yeah, 1 million, 8 million. That's alright, that's alright. Thank you. Good luck! Good luck! Can we interview him in English? A couple more questions. Oh sure! I'm just gonna take a video. Oh okay, alright. Alright. What do you want to introduce to foreign tourists? Oh, you're speaking Japanese so much! Oh, English! English! You said English, right? Yes. For foreign tourists, what do you want to show about Japan?

01:47:00 Hajime Shacho: Hmm... Anime! Akihabara!

01:57:00 John Daub: Anime, yeah. But you can see that in the world, right? I can speak Japanese. That's right. You can see that in America. I want them to visit Akihabara. Akihabara! Oh, do you like manga? Anime? Oh, do you like manga? Yeah, I know. I know that I like it. What's your favorite? Uh... too much. Too many? Too many, yeah. Too many! Awesome! Where are you from? I'm from... you know, Toyama. Oh, Toyama! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ishikawa... Oh, I know Toyama! Yeah, I know Toyama! Yeah, that's... they have the Kurobe Dam. Oh, yeah! Oh, you know Japan very well! Japan is pretty small. The channel name is Only in Japan. Oh, is that so? Only in Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it well. Awesome! It's a very important channel. Yeah, definitely subscribe to his channel. Thank you very much. Good luck! Sorry. He's a very busy man. He's a very busy man.

03:02:00 John Daub: And today is a special day for YouTube Japan because all of the people, all the creators here, they're the top of the top here in Japan. I sometimes don't know what I'm doing here. Here's Kanae.

03:13:00 Kanae Daub: Hi! You were watching! You were talking with Hajime Shacho. Then, oh, I want to take photo. Then I come here.

03:23:00 John Daub: Yeah, that's the Shacho. He's very, very popular in Japan. In Japan. Yes, Hajime Shacho. Well, he's the boss. He's the top. He's 8 million subscribers. That's a big deal in Japan. Yeah. He's the boss. I mean, the market is not as big as India, for example, but in Japan, the YouTubers here, they're doing quite well. I'm an unusual breed though. We have a bunch of us in Japan that, I guess they're called JVloggers and not a lot of them come to these Japan-based events, but I'm sort of in between the worlds in a weird way, because I also work in the entertainment industry with NHK. I'm on some of the news programs here in Japan, live, Hiromi. Yeah. Live video is pretty natural for me now, but it wasn't always like that. At 6:30 p.m., we're going to be doing a live stream on the YouTube channel. I put a link on Instagram if you want to go and click that. You can watch it live. And me and, you're not coming on stage with me, are you? Are you coming on the stage?

04:24:00 Kanae Daub: No, no, we had a rehearsal.

04:28:00 John Daub: Uh, do you have a picture? You want to show me the picture? Oh, you're not supposed to take it. Oh, yeah, you weren't supposed to take it. Okay, just show us the picture really quickly. You did something bad. Can I do something bad? Oh, look at this. This is what the stage looks like. Oh, we're not supposed to show you this. Oh, this is like top secret stuff. Oh, that's me. Oh, no, no, no, no. Okay, it's okay, okay. It's okay. You can just show one. Okay, we're not allowed to do that. Okay. It's all right. I don't want to break the rules. Oh, look, that's Sibling Japan. You're going to see this tonight. This is the rehearsals. That's me. I'm trying to appeal to the people. That's it. Oh, you're not going to show anybody? She's strict. She's really strict.

05:09:00 John Daub: I want to take you a little bit behind the scenes here backstage. You got to see Hajime Shacho. I took a photo. You took a... I really don't know a lot of people here. I know you guys. I know Kanae. And Hikakin. And Hikakin. He's the one who gave me the award. Yeah. Yeah. He's one of the most famous YouTubers in Japan. He gave me the award, which is so cool. So I'm really happy to get this. And this award is because of all of you for subscribing for the channel. The Only in Japan main channel for six, seven years I've been doing this. So it's just such a good feeling for me. I take this award for all of you. And I'm trying to do my Abe Lincoln impersonation.

05:52:00 John Daub: The cafeteria here is pretty neat. And also, I have my own room. So I thought we would go back there and take a look at... See what it's like behind the scenes in this live stream. So let's go take a look around. But first, got to fix the gimbal. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Your mic. I didn't break it. It's just got a mind of its own sometimes. There we go. Right now, you can see the rehearsal. Sorry. Go get a gimbal. You can see the rehearsal right there. It's going on. It's pretty cool. We're here several hours early. So to be honest with you, there's not much more I can do except for wait and live stream. So we're going to do that. All right. Let's go take a look at some of the areas around here. Boom. Boom. And glorious, glorious wide angle. Thank you, iPhone 11 Pro for making this possible. The app is doing such a great job. Wow. Yay.

06:59:00 Japanese YouTuber: Please introduce your channel. I watch American people a lot. Wow. What's your channel? Yeah, I'm talking on a Japanese YouTuber. Okay. Yeah. Japanese famous YouTuber. Very famous YouTuber. This is a... A punishment game. A punishment game. Japanese. A punishment game. A punishment game. Oh, cool. It's a cool punishment game. Yeah. Yeah. And the語尾 has become a poo. Poo? The語尾 has become a poo. Poo? The語尾 has become a poo. With the punishment game. Oh, so he actually did some game then he failed. He have to put his follow things. Ah. How much? How much? How much? How much? Two months. Two months. Two months. Two months. And you have to. Two months. Yeah. Yeah. I'm follow. He have to also. Yeah. The poo. The end of the language each time. Ah. Ohayou-poo. I'm king. You're king of poo. King of poo. Thank you. Thank you. That was nice.

08:05:00 John Daub: We meet all kinds of people back here. So he got penalized. Japan YouTube is so unique. They do things differently here. His penalty was he has to. For two. For two years. Two months. He has to wear that for two months? Yes. He has no choice. He lost. And that's kind of harsh, man. All right. I'm just going to show the cafeteria really quickly. There is a place. YouTube really takes care of us at these kind of events here. This is the cafeteria. And you can see Japanese food is on display. This is genmai (brown rice) and what was this? White rice, right? This is genmai, white rice. And we have karaage (fried chicken) and salmon. This is our lunch today. It's really good. And then the shumai (steamed dumplings). And then the shumai as well. Yeah. Genmai means brown rice. There's some lettuce so you stay healthy. Yeah. And miso soup right there. And we have some fruits. Look at this. Some beautiful fruit stand there. And then all the junk food that we can eat all the junk food we can eat, including a crepe. Yes, please. And Tim Tams. Tim Tams. I didn't see that before. Tim Tam. Oh. And Lays. That's American. American! Oh, dangerous! And all the coffee you can drink. Thank you! I've already had two cups as you can tell. And a little freezer. Maybe? Oh yeah, can you bring a cup of coffee? Even the tables here say YouTube on it. How cool is that? I'm sure they came on a tractor trailer here. Check that out. A FanFest Japan table. Man, they spare no expense. Alright let's go out of here. Follow me back to the dressing room. That was pretty cool. I got to interview the boss. Japan 2019. Look at that. I can't believe I'm here. What am I doing here? Yay!

10:28:00 Ayana: Hello! I'm in America. Can you introduce your channel? My name is Ayana. Channel name is Ayana. And my channel is Shibuya Channel. Shibuya. You're welcome! Good job! Thank you! Bye! Wakatta? Did you get it? Yes. Oh, Shibuya Channel? Do you know? Yes. Oh, she kind of knows.

10:55:00 John Daub: Alright, let's go back to the dressing room. Check it out. He's now doing an interview. You can see here. There's the Shacho doing an interview. Shacho Hajime. Shacho Hajime. You did the interview too? Yeah. I'm going to go back to the dressing room. I can, I'm always open for an interview. I'm always available. We checked in through here. Security is tight. Don't even try it. Don't try to be Hiro and Jack Bauer your way in. And here is one of the, I don't want to say dressing rooms, let's just say star rooms. And right there, right there, look at this, this is crazy. Say it with me. Only in Japan. Where's PVG? He should, he should so be here. Got my own little fan fest room. Entrez s'il vous plait. There's nobody in there. Look at this. Welcome to our humble abode. Yeah, it's good. I mean, for the two of us, we have four chairs, so that means we can kind of take a nap, put these together and make a little bed. And we're going straight to, straight to Czech Republic, right? We fly in just a couple of hours. Yeah. We're not going to be, we're not going to be here for very long. As soon as I get the award, I get it and we leave. I get it and we leave to the airport and we go over to Haneda airport and we're going to be flying to Vienna and then we arrive and we take a train straight to Prague pretty much. Oh, and if you're in Prague, we'll do meet up tomorrow. So look on the Facebook. I'll start an event page. Try to meet you. I'm not sure where we're going to meet though. Is there snow? I don't think there's snow yet. There's no snow yet. I don't think there's snow yet. We got a mirror. I adjusted my tie in this mirror so I used it. I don't, I don't really need any of this. Just kind of nice jacket. We got our own rack. I think that's pretty cool. And if I want anything, I just tell the people and they bring it to us. Usually we ask them, they go, oh sure, no problem. So no, no expense is too great for this.

13:33:00 John Daub: You can see everybody, almost everybody, their names are in Japanese. These are the names of the YouTube stars. So I think one of the tough things about Japanese YouTube is that it's very hard for non-Japanese to find the channels because they're in Japanese. Can I do know this channel? Kitano, how do you say it? Uchitachi. Kitano Uchitachi. That's, I mean, I know that's hard for American to this. Wakanim Shimiki. Kawanishi Miki. Okay. I don't know. Oh yeah. I think for, for Westerners, going to be really hard to understand the name. There's, what is it? Taniyan? Taniyan-san. So it's very hard to, well that's a, who's in there Kanae? Who's in there? Purito channel. Inside there is Purito channel. Open the door Kanae. Do it. Open the door, knock on the door and run away. Let's do it. Ready? Knock on the door and run away. Ding dong ditch. We're gonna film them hiding with the camera out so that everyone can see them peek. Ready? Can I? Ready? You're gonna run away. Okay, okay, okay, okay! I won't do it. Alright, I won't do it. I freaked her out. Don't be bad, be good. Don't be bad, be good.

15:08:00 John Daub: Whatever you do, when you're at these kind of events, you cannot stay inside of your room and do nothing. If you have a choice, do something. Anything. But don't do nothing. Actually, doing nothing would be a choice. Yes. But we choose not to. We choose to disrupt and behave poorly so we can be remembered. Chocolate Kakao. Cool. Chocolate Kakao is the name of this channel. Very cool. But I think for the international market, it's very hard to know. It's hard to find a lot of these channels. So you're gonna see a lot of YouTubers out here just kind of walking around. Yay! Yes! We're still live. We're still here. We're talking to everybody. Yay! They're doing otage (light dance). Oh, they're doing otage? Otage? Wow! Otage. Yeah, I can't do it. Kyokuma. Ah, Kyokuma?

16:14:00 John Daub: Hello! They're about to reach 4 million subscribers. Whoa! 400 million? No, 4 million. Oh, 4 million. Wow! 4 million. No, we need 5,000 more. Ah, 5,000 more. Ah! Please subscribe quickly! After 5,000 people, he's going to have 4 million. Do it! Channel, channel, channel, channel. Eh? Are you live streaming? Yes. Eh? Are you live streaming? Live. Live. I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's too late. It's too late? It's too late. I'll edit it later. No, you can't. It's live streaming. I can. I can. I can. I can. I'm surprised you're live streaming. Have you ever done this? Of course I have. You do? I'm live streaming now. Ah, then please introduce this channel.

17:01:00 Kyon-chan: Hello, I'm Kyon-chan of Kyon Kuma channel. Ah, when you search in romaji you'll find it in romaji. Kyon-Kuma. Kyon-Kuma? Kyon Kuma. K-Y-O-N-K-U-M-A. Kyon Kuma. K-Y-O-N-K-U-M-A. Kuma is bear! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Thank you! 5,000. He needs 5,000. Now now now now now. Now now now now. Quickly subscribe to his channel. We're making people into millionaires that's good. Million subscribers. I feel happy yeah.

17:43:00 John Daub: Alright let's go back to the dressing room because it's a lot of light. Join us for a minute as we relax in our own dressing room. You have to. Okay oh baby. Now it's just us. Alright it's just us. If you're gonna wanna watch the playback because we saw. Oh thank you madam. Thank you milady. John's got the coffee. It's full and I stole the chocolate crepe from the kitchen. I'm really putting the tripod on right now. I'm really looking forward to the main event my friend Dean. Do you remember Dean from the Ibaraki drive-thru sushi and um the wagyu beef and what else did he do with me. Oh the food challenge at the highway rest stop he's coming here um with his family to watch and to cheer me on and I'm so grateful for that um Greg from Life Where I'm From wanted to come but he's got another event today and I didn't want to force to pressure him to come to this event um I really wanted him to come on the stage as well he deserves a shout out to um a really good friend of mine Greg uh has probably a better channel maybe a better channel than me I love his content Greg uh Lam from Life Where I'm From so he should be on this stage too but I will accept this for all of us. Okay so for all of us um I will take some ques- Yeah and PVG needs to be here but look this is event is taking place during the week. It's now what day is it today? Thursday? Saturday? Thursday? I forget what day of the week it is. Wednesday? It's Wednesday so are you sure? It's Wednesday so basically everyone's working and it's very hard to get off of work to come to an event like this it starts at 6:30pm but if you're not here by 5, 5:30 you're not gonna have a very good seat people are gonna be lining up to watch their YouTube their favorite creator. Uh it's a big deal you know there's no there's no YouTube fan fest this is the pass that they give me I have to show this when I come in I told you security is tight so you can't come back here and get your gimbal card you can't do it but they don't have a YouTube fan fest in the United States for example this is really an Asian market thing I believe it's just in Japan Indonesia is really big Jakarta has a huge one and India has a big YouTube Fan Fest and I think it's a really good thing what do you guys think? Maybe you want to leave a comment down there should the US have a fan fest? My problem is that it's I think it's gonna be really hard to pick who gets to go cause you can't introduce everyone cause YouTube as a platform is so big but who gets to go not everyone is gonna be here the people that I'm going on the stage that you just met there's some people he's doing otage which is the dance with the lights for the event right not to collect the 1 million yeah otage is a dance I introduced this in an episode like 5 years ago on Only Japan main channel the anime DJ episode I can't otage you can I can't trust me you're the dancer if I do otage people just get confused it's like an air traffic controller who's had too much coffee it's not pretty but he's gonna be doing performances so the fan fest again everybody can watch it live I'll put a link in the description so you can watch it according to the schedule which is right here we don't actually get the award until 7:55pm so that means it's gonna be like 8pm US which is 6am New York 3am California so most of you are gonna be asleep but if you're in Singapore if you're in Australia you're gonna be able to watch live and you can see me they're gonna focus on me the event hall is huge it's like how many people like 5000 people more 10 there's already 100,000 people waiting to watch the live stream probably all from Japan so you're gonna throw the demographics off if you watch this right I did a live stream here introducing how to come here how do you get to Makuhari live stream it's huge event hall for concert yeah for playing games I'm here for the Tokyo Game Show so I always come here for the Tokyo Game Show 3 times 7:55 Japan time is when we go on stage I'm in the middle and what they do is they focus the camera on me for 10 seconds and they start introducing me like in the background to DJs talking about the channel and then hey guys thanks for the animated sticker this is Tonkatsu and Cheryl and Florence Johnny Connoy congrats on being awarded have been to Japan 4 times thank you for the help with videos Floor from Singapore much appreciated and I saw one more in there I like to give you guys little shout outs here Jonathan hey Jonathan keep making more good content much love Jonathan thank you so much really appreciate that very cool and then Ando1135 congrats imagine how much money you made for people interested in Japan and inspiring people to travel there I don't think yeah I might have helped a little bit I think a lot of the YouTubers in the JVlog community have helped a lot to bring interest and information and knowing about where to go the background behind it what do the things in Japan mean that's what I represent here I think I want to do the best job to introduce what we do as a community and I don't know how I got here or how I was chosen but all I know is that I'm here and probably more people more deserving than me but with this opportunity I'll try to make the most out of it to show the Japan community that the Japan JVlogging community also deserves some credit we deserve to be heard even though our communities are not in Japan we are telling people about Japan on a big scale and I have had the opportunity to meet so many other creators all of them really big channels here in Japan and they're so friendly so I'm giving them my business card I carry a bunch of Only in Japan business cards and hopefully I can collaborate with them because my goal in 2020 is to introduce not just the countryside of Japan and places outside of Tokyo but maybe other creators in Japan and kind of get an understanding on how they do their Youtube channels I think that's for me I can't wrap my head around some of these channels like to me it's a little strange Youtube Japan is a little weird do you watch Youtube Japan Kanae?

25:22:00 Kanae Daub: Yeah Japanese Youtubers? Who's your favorite? My favorite Youtuber is Bilingirl Chika. Bilingirl she's a kind of international I was also watching Chiaki ah yeah Chiaki she's a Korean attendant in England I like her channel I also watch Hikakin and Hajime Shacho ah the people we were interviewing yes yes they're very fun.

25:57:00 John Daub: By the way right now on NHK World Tokyo Eye is playing live so maybe like there's people watching Tokyo Eye so we can watch that you can watch it on demand a report I did for NHK World is playing on NHK right now too so it's like all these things that I've done are colliding into one big tsunami and then we're leaving to go to Europe so we don't even get the chance to enjoy it we're gonna be sleeping on a plane we're gonna be sleeping on a plane do you have any questions about the Youtube Fan Fest about Youtube Japan about Only in Japan about anything I'm really happy to answer that because to be honest there's nothing much that I can do right now until the event starts you know there's nothing I can do until the event starts I'm really happy to answer that but other than that you know we'll see I guess I think that after the event it'll be before the event from Tokyo a few times and he's super nice guy. We still want to meet his wife. Paolo, we want to meet your wife. All right. Introduce us. Family first, brother. Bring her on. We want to meet. I got a chance to meet Chris once at another Halloween party with Simon and Martina. He was really nice. And I think, what was her name? Taylor. She was there with Sharla. Sharla is very, very, very sweet. All the Japan, it's a community of people and I think it's growing all the time. I've just been really fortunate to have a channel that's grown by leaps and bounds over the last six years. There have been spurts, but I've been at this game for a while. So it takes a little bit of time. However, everyone's been asking me here, like how long I've been doing my YouTube channel. And I tell them six years and I said, how long have you been doing it? And I asked because how long did it take you to get to one million? The answer was most of these kids like they got to a million in like one or two years or three years. It's crazy how big YouTube is getting. So there's still an opportunity for anybody with an original idea who puts their heart and soul into their content to break into a million or higher. It just took me longer because they call me like they didn't call me like a old guy, like an old man. But they said like they said that I started six years ago when YouTube wasn't so popular in Japan. It wasn't YouTube was actually looked down upon. Yeah, they said the content wasn't good and people didn't want YouTube in Japan until the last two, three years, really. And then it's just like exploded. Or is there almost a teenager? Yeah, yeah. Younger, younger generation. Whereas in the United States, my father watches YouTube. Probably, probably more. He had a Google. YouTube is a portal into society and culture itself. Anybody can just pick up a phone or camera and just start broadcasting and make a show out of it. And if you plan it good, and put your audience first, don't waste your time giving them content that you think is really going to inspire. You can grow a channel. You can still even today just takes a little it just you got to be patient. PVG, you have to be patient a little bit. But this is the end result of six years of hard work for me. And since 2013, February, when that channel was launched, I came up with the idea to do only in Japan after the Great Tohoku earthquake in 2011. That was a time where people were leaving Japan. Do you remember? Yeah, after the Great Tohoku earthquake, people were leaving Japan, we call them fly-jin. They were gaijin who would fly away. So all the fly-jin like yeah, especially the France, France and Belgium left really quick Belgian friends because they had free airplane tickets to go back home from the government. America charged $3,000 for like 28 hour flights going routed through Taiwan to leave. That wasn't even option for me because when you make someplace a home to the good times and the bad times we I stayed. Kanae and I we were we knew each other date date to choose after the earthquake before I was before maybe a little bit before you were still in New York. Yeah, yeah, I went to New York after the earthquake. Right? Yeah. So I met you before the earthquake and then I contacted you after you came back in 2012 so that was before wow this predates before so that's when the idea for only japan came because a lot of tourists were leaving and the information was not positive about japan japan was radiation and polluting the world and it's really out of the control you you have that situation now what you do what you do after is very important um i think japan's done a really good job of coming back but my heart is you know a big part of my heart is here because this is my home even though i'm i always will love america and i'm not always going to be american a big part of me is here in japan and i've invested my life here my friends are here my business is here and i couldn't leave so in 2012 i started to draw up the plans for only in japan and to make a show and then in 2013 in february we launched the show and um there really wasn't any content like what i was doing i was doing like a tv kind of production on location with the naked man festival for youtube the other people at that event was tv from australia and uh think singapore tv was there at the naked man festival and then me a youtuber who was an nhk reporter and they gave me access because i said i'm an nhk reporter with a youtube channel and they gave me access to film the naked man festival and i started with this format and it hasn't changed in six years it's a behind-the-scenes informational program with narration lots of camera angles with a nice pace that moves quickly with interviews that was the first episode hadaka matsuri (naked man festival) where i showed my butt i wanted to make an impact with the first episode i really wanted to make an impact with the first episode and i think we did um me kevin reilly was the cameraman for the naked man festival by the way a really good friend of mine and um from there i had i just had a million ideas to make japan look fun and use the platform of youtube to correct the misconceptions about japan or to teach non-japanese about how special this country is and what are some of the things that make this place unique and maybe even correct the record because i know i know that a lot of foreign youtubers that come to japan focus on the ridiculous they they focus on the misconceptions and they don't really clarify what makes and then sometimes i'm not perfect at it either because there's a story behind the reason why for everything there's a reason behind the reason why for everything there's a reason behind it when you know the reason you know the reason you have a elementary my dear watson moment like ah that's why but nobody tells you that the bbc the cnn's of the world bbc cnn all of the tv media that does do reports here get it wrong more often than not because they don't ask them the important questions why and to me that hurt that as this being my home that's what i'm curious about as a journalist and that's why um i started only in japan that's why i wanted to do this all the way back um to 2011. when everyone was leaving so that's the that's what you see as a product of this series that's what you support when you you know when you watch this show and i hope that that meaning of where this show came from also means something to youtube that's important to me uh i i shouldn't talk i get emotional sometimes about it because i it was a hard hard hard do the show sometimes. I couldn't imagine when the beginning so when you started YouTube so yeah I couldn't imagine this. So you were in the stage for hours today but in the beginning oh! 110 subscribers! Yay! I had it! That's right! Can you imagine? I don't know. When I started the channel we had like I got my friends to subscribe real fast on Facebook. I said everyone I said subscribe! I was like subscribe! You know, by written text messages I was shaking them like this. But that's your job as a YouTuber. You have to get to a thousand really fast. And we got to a thousand subscribers really fast. And for that that was a feat. And then from there it just kind of exponentially grew. But from that moment I started to believe how much where I am now. Because it was slower than some of the other channels I think I might appreciate it more. But I do appreciate it very greatly. So thank you YouTube for inviting me and allowing Kanae to come into my dressing room. She gets a little she has her media pass availability there. That means a lot to us. Dean is coming and another friend. Joe can't make it. My friend Joe Hatab so a friend of his is going to come as well. So I'm really happy right now. I'm really excited because I drank a lot of coffee. I got to use the restroom. So I want to see I want to see if you have any questions related to this. Sudhati you're very welcome. You're all very welcome. I want you guys to also feel that you can come and say hi if you do see me on the street. I want you to say hi. I want you to take a selfie if you want to. I don't assume that you want to but if I do see you it makes me very happy because I do feel like we have a very big happy community. Oh! Nosh! I don't know if Nosh is watching. I didn't forget. So on the Discord server we have an emoji contest and I'm going to be releasing emoji here on this live stream where you can add an emoji into it if you support the channel here. And we're going to do an emoji contest for the Discord server as well. So if you want to you can submit your homemade emoji for this channel on that page in Discord. There's a community. Inside of it it has the criteria of what you need to do. I think it's 128 by 128 pixels and I believe the size is very small. Less than a megabyte. But if you submit it it might be something an emoji in the Discord server and maybe here that you're going to be able to see and use. So if you're interested in emoji here on this chat that's a good place to start on the Discord server. That's where we're going to have some fan submissions. So I'm really happy about that. Come up with something where you made it. So that's the channel. I think that's the direction for the channel in 2020. We're going to do more content together. Right? Maybe. Maybe? We're going to see if she can. Why wouldn't she be able to? She has ballet teaching too. She has ballet teaching. We'll try to do some trips. Right. We're going to be doing some more a lot more. A ton of content in 2020. I'm going to be so busy. Probably not in Tokyo a lot but I'll be coming back here to edit. It's going to be crazy. I have some big plans. So if you hit the subscribe button I would very much appreciate it. This is what you subscribe for. Some behind the scenes stuff and some amazing stories from Japan live all over the country. We're going to be going. Leave a comment below. Definitely because I like to hear back from you and I do check the comments on Only Japan Go and the other channel. This is the channel where I have very very high interaction with all of you. Through the chats, through the comments, on the Discord server, through the messages, through Patreon which is huge. That's how I can afford to take Kanae with me. Through Patreon support. So it's greatly appreciated over there. 2020 is going to be a massive year of growth. I'm just so excited. I can't tell you everything yet. I'm really excited about it. And of course culminating with the 2020 Olympics. Which we've got planned out pretty good. I can't talk about it. It's not an NDA. I just can't talk about it. Yeah. Alright. Questions. Question times. Queen of Tacos is here. Jason's here. Tacey's here. Jim's here. This is all our family. Contest is active now. And Asha's now made it active on the Discord server. So you can submit your homemade emoji from Only in Japan. Some of the things that might be good emoji. Screenshots. Anything that you design that is Japanese. I'm going to get one of these emoji where I'm going like this. Like I can't believe it. Some of these emoji. Yes and no. Anything that you want to submit, submit it. And the best ones we'll make into emoji. First on the Discord server to test it out. And then here in the chat. We're going to do that. It's so exciting the way it's evolving. Can I seem so pleased. Oh this is from Nick. Can I seem so pleased of your accomplishments, John? How does it feel? We'll do a livestream. How does it feel to be married to a YouTuber?

40:29:00 Kanae Daub: Yeah. She knew this before she got into it. Alright. This is no secret. I'm enjoying my life with John. I'm very happy to marry with a YouTuber. Yeah because he's a very positive person. Yeah and he has big respect for Japan. I'm very happy about that. I can travel with John alone now. Yeah. And also I can find good point and bad point. Japanese good point and bad point. So when I see other country, you know what I mean? When I visit other country, I also can realize Japan is this point is good. This point, Japan, we should change a little bit. I can learn each time. So yeah. I think it's good.

41:40:00 John Daub: One of the things that I've learned a lot from doing this content, I've lived here for 21 years now. That doesn't mean I know everything. I know a lot of stuff. But I don't know everything. This job allows me to satisfy my journalistic curiosity on asking that question, why, what, who, when, who, what, when, where, why, and how. That's what I bring you in the show. Because I'm just super curious as a person. I have almost a childish curiosity where I'll just wander through doors and figure out stuff. And I think that's something that we all, even as adults, we forget. That we always need to continuously learn more about it. And through this series, I've been able to find a lot of new things that I love about Japan. And some things that I don't. But that's another episode. Don't ask me about that. But that's also a very big part of this series. If I'm not learning more stuff too, and that includes through your comments, then really, this doesn't work as a social media because I'm not learning. Because YouTube is a social network. It's social media. Social meaning we talk. And I learn a lot of stuff from YouTube. A lot of stuff from other people living in Japan who are giving me ideas for episodes. And that's super greatly appreciated. Not everything comes from just me. It's always going to be a team effort. Even though I might be the one filming and editing on the road a lot, it's a team effort, meaning the community also plays a huge role in Only in Japan, and Only in Japan Go, Only in Japan 360, Patreon, Discord, all of these places are very community oriented. And that's where the success eventually has come from. What activities are you guys going to have in Germany? Nick's asking here. I don't know. I think we're just going to take it easy. We're going to do some fan meetups. And then Christmas markets. Eat. Eat. Eat. Yeah. And then just walk around. Kanae likes museums. And I like eating. And walking around and getting lost. We've been to Germany before. But I wish we could do... I wish we had more time to do more. But we'll be traveling around. David writes in, am I nervous? Not really. Not really nervous. I don't get nervous anymore for these kinds of situations. When I did the live show on Hiromi, which is a big news program, I think I've been on there almost 10 times now. They asked me to come on there. My Japanese is not good enough to be on this show, to be honest with you. But I'm pretty flexible with it because I don't get flustered. I'm pretty... I don't know. I don't see the camera anymore. Like, as a camera. I don't see the crowd as a crowd anymore. I see it just as my friends in a situation that seems casual and normal. That's how I got over my fear of public speaking and talking. I just don't see it as big as you see it anymore. The more you do it, the less massive it seems to you. And that's something that just comes over experience. So am I nervous? No. I'm excited. What do you do for work in Japan? I produce content. And not just for YouTube. I have other clients that I produce work for still. I keep some of my work with my clients. But the majority of the work now is YouTube related. It's all Japan based. Only Japan Games channel would be pretty cool. That would be pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I used to be a big gamer. I was in junior high school, high school. And then when I came to Japan, I lost touch with it because I was just busy. I'm so busy. I think it might be something I get back into. Yeah. Well, can I be on the stage? No. I don't know. That would be great. We gotta make a John and Kanae channel or something. And then when we get to a million, we'll be back on the stage. You know what? When I get back on the stage next year after the John and Kanae channel gets to a million, the first thing I say to the camera is I'm back! And I brought Kanae with me. That's what's gonna... I'm back, baby! I brought her with me! That's what I'm gonna do. Does Kanae play video games too? Video games? Do you do video games? Not a lot. Not a lot. No. I don't have any sense for games. She doesn't have any sense. I'll take you one more time around a little bit around the event hall in about a minute. And then we'll end the livestream. So you might want to hang on if you've been watching the playback. I will take you one more time around. Can I... I think... I don't know about the main channel. But I know she's gonna be a lot more in another channel that I'm making. And we're gonna make it very special, I think, because if we can do the show together, then I think that that's a chance where we can travel more together. And that's important, I think, as a family, right? If we can make the show together, then we can do... we'll be happier. And maybe even make better content. Pro wrestling is huge in Japan. Japan has their own pro wrestling. Um... Did Kanae play PC Engine? She said, what is it, Nosh? I don't think so. I don't know. She doesn't know. I want to get a Sony PlayStation 4, but I'm just... I figure I might as well just wait until the 5. Alright? And then Xbox is not big here at all. Almost nobody has an Xbox in Japan. Everyone has a PlayStation. Um... My favorite pro wrestler... Oh man, you're taking me back to elementary school. I... I was at WrestleMania 3. I was a kid. I remember watching Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant on pay-per-view on my neighbor's TV with binoculars across the way, because we didn't want to pay $80 for it. So we had binoculars, and we were watching um... WrestleMania 3. Um... I believe Hulk Hogan won. This is ages ago. This is ages ago. Nintendo Switch might be something that we do, because Peter has the ARMS game. He's Spring Man in ARMS. Thank you guys for the super chats. I appreciate it. Raf writes in here. Raf, congrats on the award. Wanted to know if you visited the new Shibuya observation deck that opened in November. Their PR has been really strong, but I haven't been there yet. Um... Maybe I'll do that in another stream. And MIR, um... It's kind of blocked from behind here. Are there any places in Japan that you've been wanting to go to, but haven't yet visited? And would you... And what have you learned from live streaming? Wow! Amir, that's an excellent question. Um... I think I'm gonna do something where I spend more time in one area. This is another reason I might not be in Tokyo a lot next year. Instead of just going there for the story, I want to kind of live there, maybe in an Airbnb. And this is where Patreon makes a huge impact in my ability to do that. To live in an area for like a week or more, and then find the stories instead of researching them online. But go there and find the stories. That's gonna be what separates what I do with other creators. And get to know the people and build trust with local people, and then make friends. I would prefer that way, and do it a little bit slower, but at that same time, I can find like a dozen stories that nobody else is telling you, because nobody knows about them yet. The job of a good journalist is to find the stories and to dig them out. That's why they call it a scoop. Is it? Maybe not. But that's sort of what I want to do with the channel. And Okinawa is a place I think that I might be exploring. Some of the places in deep Shikoku, up there in Hokkaido maybe. We're thinking of going to the Sapporo Snow Festival for a few days as well. I've already done an episode on it, but I'll redo it and refresh that. There's a bunch of stuff I think. Just the mountains, more in the Alps, the countryside, some of the views out there are stunning. Toyama, which is where Shacho, Hajime Shacho is from Toyama. Yeah, from Toyama. I would love to get more places in Toyama. Maybe he'll produce it. Maybe he'll be on the show. I would love that. That's what I would say. What did I learn from live streaming? I learned how to be more natural. I learned how to speak better in front of the camera. Yeah, you too! I want to know. Oh, you want to know? Alright, I'll tell you what I learned. If you want to be a live streamer, I'll tell you what I've learned. Number one, trolls are awful. And the feedback can be harsh. Number two, live streaming is unedited. You cannot take back what you say. So, number three, you are who you are. You cannot fake the kind of person you are on live streaming. It's impossible. Either you're a good person or you're an evil... I can't even say that word. Kids might be... I don't know. I don't know. But you can't fake who you are if you do what I do. And I think over this, you've gotten... The best thing about the GO! Channel is I've gotten to know you, and you've gotten to know me. This sounds like the Rocky IV, when Rocky goes to the Russians after he beats Ivan Drago. He goes, I've seen the way you change, right? I can't do this. Don't even try. About the way I feel about you, and about the way yous feel about me. I love that phrase. To me, I'm almost in tears at the end of that, because we know what Rocky had to do to get there. But the GO! Channel has done that. It's huge. The interaction and the contact that we can have. Not just through the livestream and the chats, but how we feel about each other on the contact we can have through livestreaming. You can't fake that. It is what it is. And I like it. I like it. Maybe almost... Not because I don't have to edit, but almost because it feels right. It feels natural. And to me, that's the way it should be. Now, if only the content, the quality of the livestreams could be better. If we have 1080p with flawless livestreams, or save this internally, and then it can be uploaded to YouTube later, I don't know. In 4K. But the one thing... That's something's out of my control. But what's in my control is the way I present information, the way I do the livestreams. I become a better speaker. I don't think about what I want to say. It just comes out naturally now. I don't have to think about, should I say it this way? Should I say this? And that has helped me in the main channel. When I do the opening talks, or if I'm on other TV shows. I think you can see it if you watch Tokyo Eye. I'm more natural. I feel the other person. I don't think about myself anymore when I'm in front of the camera. I can feel a little bit more kanai, and then you get the sense of the other person more. I'm not perfect, but you can feel that a little bit more. Hey, Top Shelf's here! Hey, Top Shelf, thank you. You're an animated emoji. You are amazing. No. Yeah. So where can I watch NHK? So, NHK. Sorry, NHK World. I put a link on the Instagram so you can actually go and watch it. It was live about 30 minutes ago. 30 minutes ago. I'm going to take you one time, for those who are watching, take you one more time around here so you can take a look here. This is our dressing room. This is the history for the record. Yes. Push the button. Push the button. This is our room here. How cool is that? I like the fact that this is what I'm really honored about. I know that the channel is a big... I write the emoji like this. It's in the trademark. It's like this. But I really, really appreciate they put my name on top there. I don't know. It just feels pretty neat that they, as a person, I'm not just... It's not just a brand. It's a person. It's a living... I'm not just only in Japan. I'm actually John. So there you go. This is... What the heck is that? That's the Coca-Cola. The bear? Yeah, go get the bear. Is that the Coca-Cola bear?

55:02:00 John Daub: Are we allowed to show that? Is that a real bear? Oh, wow. Appeal yourself. Oh, so cute. He's my YouTuber. Look at those eyes. I want to teach the world to sing. I want to teach the world to sing. Ah, cute. So this is the stuff that happens behind the scenes at the YouTube Fan Fest. Gotta love it. You gotta love it. Here, can I get the bear a hug? Sure. I can hold it. Okay. Okay, John's gonna hug. Okay. Do it. Oh, hug. Okay. Thank you. Arigato. Run away. He's soft. He's so soft. I don't want to talk about it. What happens at YouTube Fan Fest stays at YouTube Fan Fest. I don't know. It just seems... What happens at YouTube Fan Fest stays at YouTube Fan Fest. Don't share this video. Share this video. I don't know. I think he's got a fan inside. I don't know. He's a fan. He's got a fan inside. So he's at Fan Fest. Somehow I tried to make that funny. Didn't work too well. That's awesome. Yuru-kyara (mascot character)? Yuru-kyara? Yeah. Yuru-kyara. It's a very awkward polar encounter. It's Vash. You have that right. Kiss the bear. Lick the bear. Come on. I don't know. You guys are just going. So there you have it. That's a little bit behind the scenes at the YouTube Fan Fest. We're gonna go back and end where we started. I really guys appreciate the support over the last six and a half years. Seven years since 2013. I know. It's been crazy. Already it's 2019 and hey! Oh, that's good. Super polar bear. Super polar bear? Please use it on John's channel. Please use it on John's channel. I'm live right now. Oh, you're live right now. Yeah, I'm live right now. Are you going to the stage? I'm going to the stage. Yeah! Yeah, live fan. You can't talk, right? I can't talk. You can't talk, right? You want to hug me? Thank you. That's great. Yeah, that's great. Alright, so let's say goodbye to everybody. I'll see you tonight. Everybody watch, enjoy, and look for me on stage around 7:55, 7:55 pm Japan time. I'll be collecting the award for all of us. You'll be in my thoughts. And you can see if I'm nervous or not. I'll be having fun. You'll be backstage, right? I think so. Yeah, she'll be backstage. But you guys will be having a front row seat. So enjoy it. See you everybody.