00:06:00 John Daub: Welcome to Akihabara! How you doing everybody? It is May 31st, 2020. And you can see right there, Sega World, the Sega Game Center, is closed. Those signs on the doors say they won't be opening until tomorrow, or until a little bit later on in June, when Step 2 or Step 3 of the Tokyo Reopening Plan commences. How you doing? This is my government-issued mask, and when you're not around a lot of people, it's okay to take it off.

00:44:00 John Daub: Today I'm going to be taking you around Akihabara and showing you a little bit of this area. It's a unique time, where the city of Tokyo has opened up again. It's in Step 1 of the reopening. This is a Sunday, which means that this whole street should be crowded with tourists. There should be thousands and thousands of tourists from all over the world. You probably can't even hear any Japanese when you're walking around the streets of Akihabara. But today, you can see, it's not really that crowded at all for a Sunday afternoon, which is pretty extraordinary.

01:19:00 John Daub: That's a nice shirt. That's the Soba Line that goes across up there. And let's go on a tour of this area. I'll take you over towards Akihabara Station really quickly, and then we'll loop around towards the back alleys. I want to see a couple of things. Number one, how many people are wearing masks or even have them on? Number two, are the maid cafes open? Are there any maids at all on the streets of Akihabara? It's a very strange sight to see no maids in this whole city outside. Usually you'll see them passing flyers as another Soba Line goes by on the bridge crossing Chuo Avenue (central avenue). It's a very unique sight to see no maids here at all.

02:11:00 John Daub: And I'm going to get my mask on, and we're going to take a look. Alright, I got it on. This is my government-issued Japan mask. They call it Abe no Mask. It's actually quite comfortable. And when the weather is hotter, these cloth masks are a lot better than wearing the paper ones that just trap in all the air. You can see the old Showa era electronic shops are closed here in Akihabara. They won't be reopening until maybe tomorrow. Let's go take a closer look at that sign to get an idea. We're going to try our best to keep a distance from everybody just because we want to make people feel more comfortable.

02:54:00 John Daub: Yes, tomorrow it says here. This is the Eigo Jikan (opening hours), the time that it's open. It's closed between April 16th and today. So tomorrow this area will be open again. It's going to be interesting to see what this town looks like tomorrow compared to today, which is a Sunday, which is crazy, right? I appreciate it. Welcome everybody joining me on this tour around Akihabara. Garrett and Nolan, thanks for the superchat from a beautiful place. Akihabara can be beautiful to a lot of people.

03:35:00 John Daub: Alright. Let's walk around. Some of the stores are open! Are they defying or just keeping to themselves? Let's take a look here. You have the typical walkie-talkies, electronics, blinking lights, all that kind of stuff. CB radios. I don't see any staff here. The gachapon (capsule toy machines) and the vending machines are always open, but you can see here inside, it's actually kind of open, but it's not. Okay, there's only a couple of shops that are open here. Maybe we'll have a pretty good signal because there are just less people in the area.

04:27:00 John Daub: Hey, Misty's here. Hey, John, be safe. Always a blessing to see you. Thanks, Misty. Let's try to keep our distance. It's very hard. You can see just about everybody's wearing a mask. I'd say 90% of the people have masks on and people are together with friends or family members that they've been quarantining with or kind of keeping a distance. Usually people are shoulder to shoulder. Those two should probably have a mask on, but I'm not going to be a mask policeman.

05:05:00 John Daub: Here we go. Here's the start of Akihabara Station. For those of you who have been missing this area, a lot of you had to cancel your trips in March and April and May and June and July and August and September. Well, right now with the Only in Japan Go channel, you're here. If you guys like Akihabara, let's give a thumbs up. All right, from here, we're going to take a walk. There's Radio Kaikan, the iconic building that's been redone and turned into a modern skyscraper. I kind of miss it, but it was also kind of sad to see it because that Radio Kaikan sign was all the way out onto the street. So a lot of things have changed here.

05:51:00 John Daub: Hey, Mr. Das, no tourists calls for a sip of dry. I cannot argue with that. But what you're seeing here is more domestic tourism, more Japanese coming from different areas of Tokyo, maybe from Machida, maybe from the surrounding areas. But generally speaking, it's a lot emptier. And really, this is crowded with tourists. It's pretty amazing that there's not a lot of people here. I'm really shocked.

06:20:00 John Daub: Now, what we've been seeing here is a trend. You see staff members now are wearing face shields in the streets here to welcome people inside. And a lot of the register clerks, if they don't have a vinyl cover protecting the register, they have face shields on to make sure that they're not giving droplets to the customers and vice versa. Tom Burns is here back in my favorite place, open for business, sort of. The Fuji Soba is booming. And by the way, I don't have "find me" cards, so don't try to find me.

07:07:00 John Daub: OK, keep to yourself. The Fuji Soba is quite crowded. It's interesting to see how the businesses are operating. Oh, wait, this is pretty interesting. There are actually maids on the streets, as you can see on the left side. And I think it's interesting because I don't know if they're open or not. So let's go take a look at the sign and see what they actually have as a standard. I'm just going to wait for the crowd to go by. We can walk out a little bit. Now, this is a Sunday. It's just around lunchtime.

07:46:00 John Daub: We're going to peek in the Fuji Soba right there. It looks like it's almost shoulder to shoulder with people. We welcome foreign guests very much. Free Wi-Fi and charging your phone. But looks like they have a... Maid Dreamin has wash your hands, wear a mask, social distancing, and temperature checks. So that's pretty interesting that they do this here at Maid Dreamin. This is one of the maid cafe chains. All right, let's get a move on here.

08:37:00 John Daub: I'm trying my best to stay distant from everybody. That's a telling sign when you look across the street and you see the game centers closed. That's part of Step 3, I think. They're the last businesses to open. Irvan is here! Walk south for a creepy vending machine building. I know where that is. Tasty Chronicles right there saying, go get some lunch! Enjoy this soft opening of Tokyo. It is a soft opening. Mary Dee's here with Pear Man flying through Akihabara. Thank you, Mary Dee.

09:15:00 John Daub: Just waiting for the light to change. So for the next minute or two, I'm just going to be silent and let you just take in the sounds of Akihabara, which is the way it should be. Steven Theis. Hi John, get something for the missus. You got it, Steven. Nice to see you. Hope you're doing well. I hope everybody out there is staying safe. Like that bike rider. Go outside and get some sunshine. Get a little bit of exercise, but just be careful out there. I'm going to do my best to be very careful here as well.

09:48:00 John Daub: But it is odd. This intersection would be completely packed with people. I'm going to say hi to the crowd. It is interesting. So we do see some maids. I didn't expect to see any, but they have masks on. I don't know if that makes them more moe or not. But the maids are back in town. So I'm going to be hanging a right here. It is a little eerie to see them wearing masks. I have to be honest with you.

10:46:00 John Daub: All right. Pan around a little bit. Then I'm going to let you soak in the sounds down this intersection. There's that mystery vending machine. The Colonel's not wearing a mask. Hey, Colonel, put your mask on. Okay, here we go, guys. Take it nice and slow and try to keep your distance. Judah Lynn is here. My whole parents are siblings and watching with me. Hey, shout out to the whole Lynn family. Thank you, John, for the virtual tour. And welcome to Akihabara. Welcome back.

11:37:00 John Daub: Raymond Centeno is here. I've had many walks around that same area. Thanks for taking us around. Normally, many people would be found here. Indeed. Irvonne knows very well this is the route to Super Potato. This is the way to Super Potato. So that's just up over here. And then you're going to see on the right side. The maids are extremely, extremely good at plucking people off of the streets to get them to come in.

12:26:00 John Daub: This is like a Soviet era maid cafe. It's interesting. The streets of Akihabara are a lot more lively than I thought that they would be. But this here, Irvonne, this is for you. This is Super Potato in the exterior. It's a retro game shop and it is actually open. So you can buy video games here. There's the entrance to Super Potato and around in the back here. This is where you're going to see a lot of the maid cafes. So they'll get you off of the streets here and pull you into the cafes into this direction.

13:29:00 John Daub: Kawasaki. It's a red light. That dude's crazy. He felt the need for speed. You hear that wind? That wind is that motorcycle still going by. Created a lot of wind. That is super interesting. Look at the people lining up to go into the Abura Soba. This is the ramen place that's like the oily ramen. I guess it's back, huh? Tokyo seems like it's back.

14:22:00 John Daub: Kanai hasn't had ramen in months. I came here with my friend Randy Santel and we ate. He ate. What am I talking about? We. I filmed him as he ate. I think it was like four mega bowls of that oily ramen. That one really was really tough for him too. You can see that live on the channel. Watch Randy Santel and a buddy of his take down one of the challenges. Food challenges of Tokyo. That was pretty insane.

15:11:00 John Daub: So this is the back street here. It wasn't that long ago I was here with my friend Scotty from Strange Parts and they had this little yard sale thing where they were just getting rid of all of the secret stashes from inside of the third, fourth floors of these buildings that have things from the 1980s in them. Just parts and old camera gear and used electronics. And that building was torn down. And I don't know if Scotty's watching, but they created this. They created, I think like an APA hotel, which is pretty insane. So that secret closet is now a hotel. I was just here. Oh, not that long ago. And they've built an entirely new hotel here. APA is everywhere.

15:55:00 John Daub: There is still some retro stuff here sold on the streets and there's people here. So on the Sundays, people will come out with the streets and start to sell some of the used things that they have from their collections. So it seems here he might have some. Well, we could take a look in there. It's kind of a semi dangerous area called the cluster. He seems to have some iPad minis or something going on there. We can look from the side. I didn't know that was going to be this crowded. What does he have? Some kind of tablet. But a lot of these things are very old retro goods. Not a lot of social distancing there when you have a discount. Let's get out of there.

17:42:00 John Daub: John Wakamatsu is here. Eat some ramen for me. You got it, buddy. Everyone seems to be wearing a mask or almost everybody, but not a lot of social distancing in the back alleys. So I'm just going to kind of be a little careful here. No food or drinks, but mask usage is encouraged. Guys, if you do come around Tokyo, do they have any mask police? Like people to tell people to wear their masks or get off of the street? I've heard that there are some around Tokyo used to be a couple of months ago.

18:35:00 John Daub: People couldn't get masks. They couldn't find them. The paper ones at the stores. So they were going without masks because they couldn't find it. But after the government sent out masks and you can now make your own or buy them cloth masks and the masks have come back into the stores. There really isn't much of an excuse not to have one when you're walking around in public. Hello. She's like a yurei (ghost). So this area of Shio Avenue is pretty open. This might be the safest place right now.

19:23:00 John Daub: All right, better get out of here. And the traffic lights stop on Shio Avenue. They all stop so you can kind of get around. Okay. I ain't here with Peter. This is still in business. And a lot of these street foods are open. Restaurants are essential businesses. This is Kobe beef on a stick. But this is certainly not A5 or A4. It's probably a lesser grade. But they assure me that they have Kobe beef. I don't know. I just think it's a brand. What do you think? She believes it's Kobe beef. And this is the rainbow cheese dog that we bought. And now it's a matcha shop with tapioca. This is Don Quixote in Akihabara.

20:38:00 John Daub: This, guys, here is Don Quixote. This is the entrance to the secret shrine that I introduced two, three years ago. And it's open. All right. It's between this shop, which is now a hedgehog cafe. It's crazy. And the Radio Kaikan building. It's right there. That's the alley that I took you down. And it's a lot cleaner than it was in the past. Should I take you down there now? It's open. If we can get to 500 likes, I will take you. Hold on. If we get to 500 likes. Come on. We can get 500. I will take you down there to the secret shrine through this mini alley. All right. It's up to you, the community. This is weak. We should be like at near a thousand likes by now.

21:42:00 John Daub: Don't touch anything and try to stay clean, everybody. This is Coco. What is this? This is a new shop. When a new shop opens up, they'll put these flowers out here to say congratulations and welcome. Usually backers. But you can see they now have vinyl shields in front of the registers to keep the staff safe and the people safe that are going to buy. But what is this? This looks like a juice stand. It's a tea and juice stand. Akihabara changes so quickly. A business that's here one day, the next day could be something completely different. I did not expect. I don't even remember what it was. Like an old camera stand. A camera shop or something. All right.

22:30:00 John Daub: We got the 500 likes. I'll take you down into the alley. But I'd like to get to a thousand by the time we get to the other side. All right, everybody. The signal may go out, but on the other side, it'll come back on. So just stick with me. We're going to go Minecraft into a very secret, secret area. Here we go. Let's do this. Three, two, one. Now we're deep into the bowels of Akihabara between the buildings.

23:35:00 John Daub: There she is. And she's been cleaned up. This shrine has been cleaned up a little bit. There's the torii gate (shrine gate). I can't get the super wide anymore. YouTube took the access away. It's pretty wide. I like how the cleaning staff leaves the broom and the gloves here. So they'll be back. And there's a closet here for the goods. But people do come here and pray. And they pray for business. That's the fox kitsune (fox spirit) here. And it's a nice little shrine. It's a well-preserved shrine that's been here for a very long time. And what is, this is actually considered to be a street. And it's grandfathered in as a public walkway between the buildings.

24:33:00 John Daub: And it's so quiet because we're in a pandemic. Because of the tourists that have come here, they've put in padding so nobody hits their head anymore. I might have done that a few times. Brand new air conditionings. It's a lot cleaner. They also have lights here. If you do come at night, it is illuminated a little bit with scary lights. They're the kinds that flash a little bit. Those are the flashy lights, the ones that you see in the serial killer movies. You don't want to be messing around with that here. Thanks guys for helping us get to our threshold.

25:11:00 John Daub: I'm going to walk out now towards Chuo Avenue. We're going to walk a little bit around. Take a look at Gachapon Kaikan. Gachapon Kaikan is one of my favorite gachapon shops because he has a history of this. He was one of the first people, first businesses to just put hundreds of gachapon. And he stacked them up four gachapon machines high. It's pretty cool. That's Street Fighter. That's a pretty cool car. You can come here and do car watching. I didn't say car washing. I said car watching. Because then you'll own it. You'll always get these really cool cars.

26:33:00 John Daub: Weak, weak. I know, right? Somebody wrote in here, drift. I thought he was going to drift. I was asking for too much, I think. So no kicking it. All right, let's get, I'm going to stay away from people. No drifting allowed on city streets. Inagi-e is here. First stop at the vending machine corner. All right, we can do that. I think it's time for a drink. Eugene Hurlbert. Welcome, Eugene. Eugene, thank you so much.

27:24:00 John Daub: Oh, look at that ramen. That reminds me of our stream the other day where we had some soba. Delicious soup. All right, here we are. This is Gachapon Kaikan. And we're going to take a quick look here to see. What is that? Oh, the police have a sign here about people scouting for models and stuff. Sometimes just creepy people who look for people. They end up in certain movies.