00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, how you doing? Welcome to Tokyo. I'm going to be giving you an update on the Kickstarter project. I thought this would be a great time to do that. I hope you're having a really good weekend. If you're in California, I hope that the forest fires aren't impacting your August too much. I know that the situation around the world has been tough everywhere, which is why I'm doing this Kickstarter project.

00:00:25 John Daub: First of all, I want to say thank you to all of the backers that have been supporting this project since the start. We hit our goal after about 10 days. And I'm so excited—in the last update, to say that we reached our goal and this event will go on, which is super exciting. The stretch goal, I want to explain a little bit about that. Like, where do we go from here? What is the stretch goal? As well as to show you some samples of the towel and the uchiwa (non-folding Japanese fan) and explain what the next stage is, because as backers, you are critical to this operation.

00:01:11 John Daub: All right. First of all, here's the design for the poster. I put this up last time and I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on it. This was done by Dakota, who is an artist in Gifu. See here. Oh, yeah. Look, there's the full size one. And on the left side, I have Only in Japan. It says Hanabi Matsuri (fireworks festival) 2020, the first annual. Do you see that number one? And Dakota did an amazing job with the colors. I'm going to see if I can get him to interview for the documentary as well, because the way that he made this, it's just really cool.

00:01:49 John Daub: Do you see us down there? That's so cool. He did an amazing job. And it all came from a picture that I took with—I got an eye on a date like about six years ago. And look at the old guy talking to Toby (crow). I asked if Dakota would add in a little bit extra, maybe put a crow in there. And he said, OK, and there you go. The poster looks awesome, as you can expect from the Only in Japan series. I really try hard to bring cool stuff, just like with the Kickstarter project that we last had. It was pretty cool. The DVD box that turned out pretty well. But this time I'm not alone.

00:02:29 John Daub: Here are the uchiwa fans. So we're working with this company. It's a yukata (light summer kimono) company here. This is a uchiwa. This is a Japanese fan. It's not one of these that you fold out. They come like this. And often when you go into the fireworks festivals, you'll put them inside of your obi (kimono sash) in the back. And you just pull it out. And wherever you go in the summer, you always have this because in the summer, that's when fireworks take place. That's when you need one of these uchiwa. So you'll be getting one of these and we're putting in the artwork, the poster, just fixing the size so it fits on the uchiwa. And that's going to be pretty cool.

00:03:19 John Daub: The company that makes the uchiwa sent us some samples. This one has a John Daub approved. No, not approved. Keating Beer on it. And another sample that they have has this really pretty pattern on it. And they put the event details on it. So there's two sides to it. The first side will have the event poster and the second side, maybe some pictures from the event. It'll be a way for us to remember this amazing festival that we're putting on. These are uchiwa. These are included in the summer pack, which is the solo, the couple, the family and the deluxe. You get a bunch of these. The deluxe, I guess you would buy the deluxe if you're wondering. Usually you will get these uchiwa and you get these towels and these towels are things like presents that you can give to your friends.

00:04:07 John Daub: So deluxe pack. I think we're getting like eight towels or eight uchiwa. Of course, it's not just for you. You can give them out to your friends or to your family members and they're really nice to have. And it's a good memory. I remember when I was doing the Kickstarter project for the hitchhiking Blu-ray DVD and I had a package for three Blu-rays and a lot of people supported that and they wanted the discs to give to family members or to give as gifts. So that's sort of what the deluxe package is.

00:04:37 John Daub: Here's the towel. And a lot of people have asked me about the length of it. So it's this length. You can see it's kind of longer. A longer towel. It's not a bath towel. If you go to the onsen (hot spring), people will—the guys will hold it in front of them. Or the ladies might cover up. But it's not that big. I put the dimensions of the towel in the rewards here. It's really good. I don't like them when they're too thick because they take forever to dry. But this one is actually thicker than the ones that you would get at the onsen. This is a little bit thicker. And on the front, we're going to be having—I don't think the logo, but we might put Only in Japan on here with a Japanese pattern.

00:05:32 John Daub: And it's these are like one of these things you can wrap it around your head. I did this in a lot of my videos in the summertime. That's what people in Japan do to keep the sweat off of their faces. They'll wrap the towel around or you can just put it around here or you can do whatever you want with these towels. And they're so useful in the summer. If you're getting a solo pack, you get one. If you get a couple, you get two. Family gets four. I think it's like eight or ten. And it's really cool to have. So this is like Japanese summer essentials. That's what's in those rewards. And they sent us sample packs to take a look at all the stuff that they do, which is so cool. That company has been really good. So I'm happy that we can support the local businesses through this.

00:06:21 John Daub: And I'm going to take some of your questions about the Kickstarter project. I think that's really important to keep a good back and forth as we're now in the final two weeks of this campaign to do a dream of mine and to help out some fireworks makers that didn't have a job this summer. This project was connected to history. In 1733 was the start of the Sumida fireworks festival, and they launched about 20 fireworks into the sky over the Sumida River that year following a famine that killed, according to historical records, about 900,000 people. It was like an insect infestation that happened in Shikoku that spread throughout the entire country, ruining the crops. Only 10% were salvageable, apparently. So a lot of people just didn't have the food. It was a tough time, just like the world is now.

00:07:29 John Daub: But with all the fireworks festivals canceled, I thought it was a really good opportunity to start my own. And I've been working with the Japan Hanabi Association—hanabi means fireworks in Japanese—to try to bring this to you in order to make professional grade fireworks. It's not something that an ordinary person like me can order. You can't order fireworks shells. You have to—there's a procedure. And the Hanabi Association has been really helpful to do this and if it works out we're gonna do this next year I'm pretty sure.

00:08:04 John Daub: Very very important—thanks so much for watching. Spin Alicia MXO thanks for watching the videos for many years. As you know I've started a new channel and maybe I'll address that at the end of this but I'm really happy to be doing this Kickstarter project. This information I'm about to tell you is kind of cool. I sort of mentioned it in the last update about the fireworks project with the Japan Hanabi Association. Ide-san—her company is Idot, but her name is Ide. We talked about this on Tuesday and we're trying to come up with the plans on the best way to make the biggest impact with the money now that we have to do our own show in an open field. This is sort of the dream right—to do our own show in our own open field. And all this the costs and the startup costs for something like this is really really high so before we even get to the fireworks we're already paying for security measures and safety precautions and the fire department and all these other things.

00:09:19 John Daub: So we're going to be partnering up with Omagari—Oh my God is a city up in Akita Prefecture—and I can announce the location to you too. We're going to be working with them so this does a couple of things: one it reduces the cost so we can make more fireworks and this is the whole point of this project to try to put some people to work manufacturing fireworks, also to give us some hope and have an event to look forward to in this really not good year that we've all been having. This is the best way to do it so I'm going to be going up in September to Omagari to start the documentary and to start filming them producing the fireworks and discussing where the location of the fireworks is going to be. And I'm going to be taking you with me after this project completes live. I'll be putting sharing the link on the Kickstarter page so you have access to these special links as well as supporters is mainly of this and those that have backed this documentary that I'm making on this whole project. I think the inside information over the next two months will just get you a little bit more excited.

00:10:44 John Daub: A lot of people have been asking me about the poster so now in this part of the live stream I'm going to talk about the poster. This is something that's not in some of the rewards right now. We launched this when I was in Shiga Prefecture. The Japan Hanabi Association pushed the button maybe a little bit too early. That's okay because this is our first time doing this and I didn't confirm the reward levels yet and a lot of things were left out. For example, digital download and like a 4K video—the wording of the rewards was not clear enough. So when I got back from Shiga Prefecture we had to write up new rewards and then limit the rewards that were on there. The old rewards have been limited so they're sold out but when somebody leaves one of those limited rewards it opens up again. So if you're wondering about these second reward levels do not pick the reward levels that are limited because that's the old reward levels. We cannot delete a level if there's a backer in it.

00:12:42 John Daub: This is the poster as I showed you. A lot of people really want to have this as a poster size. Now if you get in the solo pack the couple pack the family pack and the deluxe pack you're also getting a postcard which has this poster. You're also getting the uchiwa which looks really good. You're also getting this fan which also has the design on it so both of these will have the poster on it. I don't know how we're going to get that to fit on there that's going to be a tough job for Dakota but we'll get it to work. But a lot of you still want to get the poster so we're still thinking of ways to do that. I know it's going to be a little bit of a challenge but I think it's part of the deluxe package but it's not part of the solo couple and family package. It's a little bit confusing so we're going to clear this up.

00:13:46 John Daub: The problem is the costs of it is different if we roll it up and put it in a tube then it's not the same price anymore. And since the Japan Hanabi Association is going to be sending all these rewards to you except for the postcards which I love to send out anyway. The price changes if we add the posters in those reward levels so we're trying to find a way to do it that's not more confusing. But the deluxe package I can tell you right now has the poster in it. That worked out okay with them if we fold it up and put it in the box then the costs go down a little bit and that might be something we can sneak into all of the people supporting with the solo and a couple packs but we still have to discuss that and make sure the costs work out okay. So just stay tuned on that—probably by Tuesday night we have another update on posters in the reward levels. But if you have a deluxe package you will receive a poster according to the budget and what we talked to with the Japan Hanabi Association. It's not just me—I learned my lesson in Kickstarter, always have people helping you.

00:15:23 John Daub: The next thing I want to discuss is the high level the new level. We're going to be launching a new reward level and I wanted to talk to you first before I launch it tonight or tomorrow morning. This is the opportunity I kind of teased it—it's an opportunity for you to buy your own shakudama (spherical firework shell) which is a size 10. A size 10 firework is this big—it's about the size of a watermelon. These things are massive they generate an amazing sound when they explode up into the sky. These can be purchased now—this is part of the stretch goal. This was not possible before we were funded. This is possible after we've gotten funded.

00:16:18 John Daub: I discussed this with the Japan Hanabi Association—how do we make the biggest impact with the money that we've received from you to help people who are affected by this project. What can we do with the money to help the communities and instead of putting all of the money into the one show and creating more fireworks in Omagari we're going to be putting some money into Katakai—which is where you saw the 420 kilogram fireworks episode. That's like bigger than a child—the thing is massive. Although we didn't see it go off last year maybe I'll get a chance to see it next year. But the relationship that I have with the team over in Katakai is very very strong and I have a big affection to that family—to the Honda family. I really like the guy. I asked him—are you an artist or are you a creator? He goes no I'm an executive. That was the best line. And since then that episode has gone on to like six million views. I think that it'd be pretty cool if we can use this project and support what he's doing and buy some of the big ones.

00:17:49 John Daub: So I'm gonna give you an opportunity to buy a shakudama which again is this big made by Honda-san's company in Katakai. This is huge—literally it's massive. These number 10 fireworks are too big to launch in Tokyo—you cannot launch these in Tokyo you can't even launch them in suburban Japan you have to go out to the countryside. There are laws that prevent it and probably you don't see these shakudamas being launched in New York City or other urban areas in the United States—they're that big. The cost for it is about 100,000 yen which is under a thousand dollars. It's expensive—I told you fireworks are not cheap. This massive firework shell is expensive but I'm gonna be putting this reward up tonight before I go to bed. You will be able to buy your own shakudama and on that shakudama if you want to write a message on it I will write the message on there for you or if you want to send me a letter or a sticker or anything I will be able to put that onto your firework.

00:19:09 John Daub: And then it will be filmed and launched into the sky and you'll get a copy of that that you can put on social media—your channel if you're a YouTuber or you're a company or an organization we will shout out your company organization and give you a credit for the firework that you have purchased and sponsored. And you will get a video from different angles and I believe we also will be sending you an empty shell—an empty firework shell as a gift. I don't know if it's a number three or number four but it's a little bit smaller—you'll receive a real empty shell. It's taped up as though it were a firework shell—that's something you can put on your mantle and they put a stamp on it so you have it as a memory. Now you get the videos and you get the empty shell and I think we give you a couple's pack—shakudama set. Yeah so we give you the couple's pack in there as well and if you want the family pack or the deluxe pack too you can talk with us and we'll see what we can do to add that in there.

00:20:31 John Daub: But we're just going to keep it as that simple package and if you want to do something more with that just contact us and we'll see what we can do. Because the thing is if you back you can only use one email address to back so you have to start another account to back two tiers and that's such a pain in the neck. So we're trying to find ways to do that so we're going to give you a couple of things to make it easier for everybody. That means we have not one but two events going on and that's crazy because I didn't think we'd get one event. I didn't know if we'd be able to generate the money but we did and then when the opportunity came to work with Katakai I'm like yes please.

00:21:11 John Daub: So now we have two events. I'm going to be filming on October 10th is the date—the Omagari fireworks festival live. I'm going to do a live stream and bring you there and inside of that we're going to have an Only in Japan amazing movement of fireworks. And I'm going to film them creating and producing this and that'll be live streamed to you for everybody actually. And then very quickly after that I'm going to work hard within a month if I can to deliver you the 4K video for those that are backing that. I want to show you the Japanese fireworks festival and I'm going to show you the fireworks in a way that you've never seen it before. It's super exciting when you think about manufacturing them and then launching them up in the sky and seeing them explode in our name—it's pretty cool. After that probably I think Katakai so I think like in two weeks or so I'll go back up to Katakai and do another live stream and show you the second fireworks festival.

00:22:20 John Daub: So because of the stretch goal I get to stretch out the amount of videos that you get too so we're going to be able to see our fireworks launched up. For those of you that have sponsored it you will be able to see yours live and you're going to get a video later sent to you with the fireworks show. So that's the second fireworks and that's going to be included into the documentary as well. So we got a lot of stuff going on here and you're going to see the big fireworks being manufactured and the little ones and not just one manufacturer but two now. And I think that's good because we're spreading the money around between Akita Prefecture and to Niigata Prefecture—Katakai's in Niigata so it's a good thing.

00:23:02 John Daub: I will take some questions now. Yes that is fireworks on my LG TV behind me. Jeff Ang thank you so much. John I can't wait to see the package gift in the mail—couples pack thank you Jeff for supporting that that's awesome much appreciated. The next live stream will probably be tomorrow morning. Jake writes in here I just noticed the screensaver in the background very smart—I didn't do that LG did that thank you so much Jake. A Bradshaw studio always thank you. Jason 3000 from Switzerland hi John there will be a higher tier than the 25,000 yen super deluxe fireworks pack. I could upgrade greetings from up to 35,000 projects all right.

00:24:22 John Daub: Let me know in the comments below—write your name for the credits and things like this. At the end of this project I will be sending you a survey. The survey comes to your email that you've gotten. If you're getting the updates or the notifications about this project that's where the survey is going to be going. And it's very important that you answer that survey. That's where you enter in your address as well as give any kind of requests that you want for this project. And I might add in a couple more things for information like do you want something signed or something like this. That'll all be in the survey. And if you have any questions on that by all means in the comments just keep sending questions. I'm trying to check that as much as possible but Nina an assistant who's helping out with the project is also answering some of the questions. Kanai has been monitoring them and letting me know when there's some really important questions that affects the community. So we will get to you as soon as possible with that information.

00:25:22 John Daub: The shakudama sponsoring your firework in Japan is something that was requested by a couple other supporters. I kind of teased that that might be possible and there was an interest in it. So that's opened up this whole second fireworks project. By the way should I tell them about Mindstar? Mindstar you have to say it right? All right for people that are super backers if you really really really love fireworks this is up to you. There's a movement called the Mindstar. A Mindstar costs 350,000 yen. A Mindstar is not just one firework—it's a bunch of fireworks it's a movement of fireworks. And there's one shakudama so you get one big shakudama and you get a bunch of like a movement. And that costs 350,000 yen which is about $3,300.

00:26:46 John Daub: And if you buy this package we will send you a deluxe with your Mindstar package—you'll be getting like everything. That's like the super super like I really love Japan Japanese fireworks project. A Mindstar and you will have your own Mindstar. And we will put anything that you want on the Mindstar. This is the most expensive thing that you can sponsor. And it's in Katakai. So if you're interested in buying a Mindstar you can go to the website. I think it's really cool too and you will be putting a lot of people to work to create this. I think there's some music—sometimes it can be coordinated to music. But that's something we can discuss and if you do back something of this size please contact me I will get in touch with you and we can discuss about customizing it. We do reserve the rights to reject if you have something that is you know you're not going to be able to get it. If it's a hateful thing or something that is mean spirited or disagreeable we have the right to reject what you want to sponsor for the fireworks. We want to keep it non-political non-religious and very on key.

00:28:11 John Daub: If you have like a YouTube channel you can sponsor—we will launch up this firework in Japan for you and slap your logo on the side of it. I will even hold it up and take a picture of it so you know that this is yours and it will go up and you'll receive that. They've been doing this for a while now in order to try to generate money. But I thought that this would be good if the Only in Japan community puts the money for the stretch goal into helping our friends over at Katakai build some goodwill and maybe we'll be back again to film someday. Cause I think that that's an amazing place for fireworks.

00:29:03 John Daub: The support has been amazing and it's made us feel really really good because like I don't know this is still a dream of mine as a kid to be able to fire up fireworks. I don't know if they're going to give me the lighter to launch to light it—I'm not even sure how they would launch it up but we're going to figure this all out. And that's what makes it pretty exciting. Is that a real plant? I carry this in the background cause it's just nice to have something green. I've had plants before but they all kind of don't make it. This one's real. I'm just basically having fun. Isoko how you doing? This is live. Lisa Rodriguez greetings from Puerto Rico. I'm really happy for your firework project. You know it's going to bring a lot of joy to people around the world. Can't wait to see it. Thank you so much.

00:30:26 John Daub: It's just so cool that we can do this and bring Japan to you like a Japanese event to you that we created—to me it's just so cool. Whether you're in Puerto Rico you're in Europe you're in Australia you're in India everyone is going to be able to see this because the live stream is free for everybody. I think this documentary is going to be really really interesting. I'm going to teach you some things about Japanese fireworks that I didn't know about until a couple of months ago—things that I've been learning about the process things that I learned last year when I made the documentary. You're going to love this documentary. I think it's so worth supporting. That's basically one of the many reasons. One is because I want to make a documentary on the Japanese fireworks. The other one is because I want to put some people to work because everyone's been affected by this. The other one is I want something to look forward to this year because it's a big year. The other one is that I just had this childhood dream to launch fireworks in the sky at this massive size because I've always only had bottle rockets. I've never had anything this size.

00:31:45 John Daub: Japan is a nice place with a lot of nice people. I want to go there after this. Thanks John for creating—please do come back to Japan. I'm not liking being around and not seeing any foreign visitors anybody. It's so quiet—it's kind of sad actually. When I ride my bicycle around Tokyo and it's just empty. And I think that people here really are missing you guys too. So hopefully in 2021 you can all come back. And until then I'm going to be here bringing you Japan. I hope that you enjoyed the Earth Celebration which just took place the last three days. I was online chatting and watching on my TV right there supporting the Kodo Taiko group.

00:32:41 John Daub: I have a video that I'm going to be uploading probably next week. I was going to upload it this morning but I held off on it because I want to give Kodo a little bit of time—they're so busy this week. Uploading this would just create—I don't know—like it makes sense to just wait a little bit after we talked about it together. So this video probably be going up sometime next week. In the meantime I'm editing the next video which is like an earthquake safety video in case there's an earthquake in Tokyo what do you do? I've been—I filmed this a while ago. So this is something I'm probably going to upload in the meantime. I also have an Omi beef farm to table episode that I'm going to be uploading in the next couple of weeks as well as a samurai episode. I'm going to be uploading another episode a historical episode that I filmed when I was in Kanazawa answering the questions about samurai culture. That's one of the most asked about episodes about the Bushido and the samurai culture. And Kanazawa is the best place to learn about samurai history. We met some masters and museums that allowed us access to get the story and examine some of that history from 400 years ago. It was really really exciting.

00:34:00 John Daub: When I hear the taiko drums it just hits me and for the rest of the year I feel all this energy. It's different when you watch it—I don't think I got the same buzz as I do when it's in front of you like in person but it was pretty good because all the other performances were canceled and this was a pretty good effort. It was very well appreciated. When you walk around it's as if I'm there too. You know why? Because you are there—I believe like fully in my strange imagination I get an imagination of a kid because I used to teach kids. We would have fun in the summer those lessons too. I believe that you're with me like even now and that's sort of—it's important for me that you're here too you know what I mean. It wouldn't be the same if you all weren't here.

00:35:11 John Daub: There's quite a few of us that miss Japan. I'll keep bringing you with me—this week I'm going to be going to another location shoot take you with me again show you a new area of Tokyo maybe one that I haven't showed you before. Guillermo Daniel greetings from Argentina awesome. I'm waiting for Argentina to open up airmail again because we have a couple of backers in Argentina and Brazil for that matter airmail is not started again I want to send the postcards there thank you so much for the support that's awesome. Sometimes we go places right in here John just donated the Kickstarter any plans to incorporate Kodo into the fireworks display that would be super cool. I didn't think about that—maybe I don't okay I talk with Kodo in a live stream on this channel thank you this is a great suggestion it makes my imagination start to think.

00:36:20 John Daub: They are on an island in Niigata—Sado Island (island in Niigata Prefecture) and Katakai so maybe—but the thing is they are pretty much locked down because they're on an island. If they were to get COVID it would be a really big problem on their island so they and their team because they practice to get to the island—they're in the same prefecture so they work together as long as they stay together and don't leave Sado Island they're not going to be affected by the pandemic. But I'll ask—you never know ask because you never know what will happen it could be something good. Geijin Otosan thank you for that I'll put that to good use as I almost always do.

00:37:26 John Daub: So there you have it. The rewards for the shakudama and the Mindstar will go up tonight before I go to bed. The Mindstar is very very pricey but you will be happy with what they prepare for you. Let me just put it like this—Honda-san and his team are going to prepare it for you. That's the creator of the world's biggest firework the 420kg firework. His team is going to prepare this for you. So you're getting something pretty amazing. We're not really adding in anything extra into these prices. The money is going to the manufacturers to help them and just to cover transport costs for me to get there. That's all baked into the price so it's a little bit more but a lot of it is just going to the manufacturers. I think that's important to be very transparent with that.

00:38:20 John Daub: Here in the Philippines we launch our fireworks in front of our own houses during New Year for good luck. That's awesome Gemma but are the fireworks in the Philippines this big? Can you get a ball this big? Because that's what this is about. I'm a madman. When I saw those fireworks and they said to me that I can have those I can touch them I can hold them and I can launch them—that to me is everything. It's the dream. What kid if you're 12 years old and you're a boy and someone gives you a Roman candle and says hold this—and you're not supposed to hold Roman candles by the way—isn't that your dream? What's bigger than a Roman candle? There's nothing that gets bigger than this. This is it and we're doing it.

00:39:32 John Daub: Kodo as a soundtrack for the 4K video? That's possible. I will ask them if that's something we can add in there. Maybe—we'll see. That'd be pretty cool because it combines Japanese traditional culture with Japanese traditional culture right? Shane from Canada how you doing up there? Nice to see you again. And Robert Denhardt how you doing? Five bucks for the takoyaki (octopus balls). Kanai gets cravings sometimes and she says I want takoyaki and I have to get on my bicycle and ride over there to get her some. So it's part of the job—part of my responsibilities being at home.

00:40:16 John Daub: What is your favorite movie? What is turning into 20 questions? Braveheart and Babe 1995—amazing year for movies. I was rooting for Babe to be Best Picture but Braveheart won. I was not sad—both of them were really good. Those two movies were amazing. One of them is violent the other one is the opposite and to me those two balance out. I love those two. James Bond—I love all the James Bond movies. I have the entire set on Blu-ray. Not the 4K one—the Blu-ray version. And it was on sale so I bought them all. I love the Bond movies. I'm reading You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming—the book not the movie. And the book is so different than the movie with Sean Connery. It's kind of interesting to read that and how Ian Fleming saw Japan back in the 1960s when he wrote the book. The books that Ian Fleming wrote if you've already watched the James Bond movies read the books because they're different but you don't picture Sean Connery and you don't picture Roger Moore when you read them. You picture somebody different and that's interesting—it's a whole new take on James Bond.

00:41:42 John Daub: Don't fold the poster—that's why there might be extra cost involved to get the cylinder and then the postage. Will I'm really glad that you brought that up too. The date for you to receive the rewards we've written it as December to give us leeway in case something happens. I believe very strongly that airmail will be back and we'll be able to send this to you by airmail. If you're in Germany if you're in Europe there's airmail packages are okay. DHL and UPS are extremely expensive like $100 $150 to send packages abroad with that. So we have to rely on Japan Post because we don't have a corporate account. So that means if we can't send it airmail then there's a chance we have to send it by sea and sea mail takes two months. So that's why we're trying very hard to ship this out by airmail. Again this is two months in advance but if there's any way that we can send it by airmail and get that to you we're going to be doing that as soon as possible. If not we're going to send it very very quickly to you so you get it before Christmas.

00:43:01 John Daub: This is something I have to be extremely transparent about. We don't know the situation and how we can send you the rewards but this is probably one of the options for Australia and the United States right now. That's the situation right now and we're hoping that in two months it's different. The mail now to the United States the postcards are taking less than a week. So I figured that they're going to be changing the US back to receive airmail packages soon I believe. I'm pretty confident that Australia I'm not quite sure about but Singapore and Europe and Canada have all been doing airmail. So that hasn't changed but I know in the US it takes about seven weeks to get the sea mail packages. So I'm just saying to be completely transparent we don't know for sure if it's going to be airmail sent but we will send them as soon as possible so they all arrive before Christmas before December. And the video will be a digital download so that arrives when it arrives. I'm also seeing if we can add in like a digital calendar as well. I kind of want to give you more perks and not raise the price but raise the value of what you've already bought. So we'll try to find some ways to say thank you. I might put some stickers in there as well. I've redone the Only in Japan logo which I've been working on for quite a while.

00:44:47 John Daub: Little teeny Easter eggs might be in your package—things that you didn't expect might be in the package. Dry moon stickers perhaps. My favorite hobby during the quarantine since the quarantine is over—indoor camping was pretty fun I gotta say. A bumper sticker maybe a magnet. I like the magnets maybe that you can put in your refrigerator. That'd be pretty cool to put the poster the design for the on a magnet that you could put in your refrigerator. I think that'd be pretty neat to do. I do want to work with Dakota the artist. Did you finally sell the GH5? I will never sell the GH5—I will build around it. A Sony infrastructure right now but the A7S III has been ordered—it's been pre-ordered. So I will build around it and around that is Frosty—yes Mal. Frosty is always going to be part of the package.

00:45:50 John Daub: Will there be an exclusive merch that will sell this big kaboom project? King I'm glad that you asked about that. And yes I will be—this is what I was talking about before. I love the poster that Dakota made. In fact his artwork is so inspirational the way that he makes it—he does it all digitally. I would love to work with him a little bit more. And the design that he made is perfect to put on a t-shirt. And I think it's something that we can talk about and see if when we start a merch store which is inevitable by the way. I think that having t-shirts with this design—the fireworks festival on the back I think that's a great way to start a merch store. The design is kind of busy so I don't think that's something you can put on the front but it would look really sweet on the back. And then put Only in Japan Hanabi Matsuri on the front here—maybe just in English and that'd be a pretty cool t-shirt I think.

00:47:02 John Daub: In the Kickstarter project and on Discord I'll share Dakota's Instagram page and you can take a look at his work—it's really good. I'm surprised—when I got the work I was really surprised how good it was. I'm very happy with this design and the fact that he put us in there so perfectly. I do look a little bit older than I thought I would. You like your picture in this? I love it. Don't you think I look a little bit too old? Like I got some wrinkles in there. Actually yeah you got a little wrinkle—that does look like you. I look like Bruce Willis with hair a little bit. No English please writes in Stanley. All right Stanley we can do it authentic. I think maybe authentic is better—maybe we don't need English in there. He could have made me look a little younger—I'm only 46. John you do look old. Hey I'm not that old—I look pretty good for 46. I probably should dye my hair maybe put a little black color in there but not too bad.

00:48:43 John Daub: While we be seasoned insider I have an insider guide coming. I've been working on it on my computer this weekend and I'll have that about the Shiga Prefecture coming really soon. So that's a new insider guide that I put in for the backers on insiders. Is there a camera making John's hair look silver? No that could be this light. What time is it in Japan? You're asking me what time it is in Japan—there's a clock right there. It's sometimes answering questions—it's hard. It's 1:30. Can you go to bed? Anyways it's 1:30. I want to say thanks so much for watching—leave him alone. Thanks for the support.

00:49:38 John Daub: This is the towel. We will have our design on it but this is the one that they sent us. So you will get one that looks like this and you will be able to send me pictures like this. So you can pose in your living room wearing a Japanese towel head to keep the sweat out of your eyes. I like to do this because it's sort of fashionable. Maybe we put the Only in Japan logo on top—you know helicopters will be able to tell you're an Only in Japan supporter. Is it a towel or a bandana? It's everything. What do you call these Japanese towels? Tenugui (Japanese hand towel). So there's a name for it. You can use these for different kinds of things. A lot of people use these for in the bath when you take a bath at a sento (public bath) or an onsen. These are good for wrapping around your head so the sweat doesn't get into your face and burn your head especially dudes with a little bit less hair like me. I'm getting—I can get sunburned up here a little bit. The towel is good for spills—it's always good to have a towel like this but it's so convenient. That's why the size is great. You can wrap things in it—you can wrap a bento (boxed meal) inside of it and you can carry the bento in it. So there's a lot of things that you can do with these towels. You can actually just use these as art—I've seen that people buy these and put them on their wall as like tapestry looking things. So I think that's also an option that you can do with these towels.

00:51:25 John Daub: These are the uchiwa and these are the ones that are backed. They're made out of plastic—they're pretty standard here in Japan. But they will have the artwork on the front and some information on the back just like it was a fireworks festival. I want you to feel like you're getting your part of this fireworks festival. And when you watch the 4K video on your TV you can put your blue sheet on your living room floor and get out your uchiwa and towel and get a cold beer and get some edamame (boiled soybeans). And you can watch the fireworks show. That's my dream—it's going to come true. I've been planning to do it but I have been overwhelmed with work which is not a bad thing thank you.

00:52:20 John Daub: Print the poster on the towel—Lawrence the poster is kind of busy. This is the problem—we've been talking about this. The poster is kind of busy so I think it'd be hard to put all of that on the towel but we could do it. I don't know if it's going to look that great because it's kind of too busy. Is there a package for couples? There is Eri—we have a couples pack so you get two of everything. We have a solo pack couples pack family pack deluxe pack. There you have it. I will give you another update on Kickstarter when the reward tiers are up tonight before I go to bed which is like very very soon. I'm going to put the shakudama and the Mindstar. And hope that this explanation helps—I really appreciate the back and forth with you guys to discuss any question that you have. Once again ask away in the comments on Kickstarter and if there's a question a lot of people ask I put it in the FAQ. Like how big are the towels? And what is an uchiwa? And what's the difference between a digital download and a 4K? I think I've answered them in the FAQ. And if you haven't backed yet back soon because once the project is over it's over. I'm not going to resurrect this project again—it's over once it's over.

00:54:01 John Daub: How much have we made here? It's pretty good—we have almost 3.6 million yen out of 2.5. So we've got 13 days to go everybody. And I have 86 comments—oh my gosh. 517 backers—awesome that's wonderful. Let's see if we can get this up to 4 million that would be really cool. My goal is still 5 million but I'll be happy with four. Anybody buys a Mindstar that'll pretty much put us over that. Please use the money to hire Kodo drummers perform at the fireworks festival—thank you. The problem is they're on quarantine and they can't leave the island. That's the problem but I would love to bring them in and we would have the budget to invite them over. I might see maybe we can get some taiko drummers from Akita Prefecture to play. Kodo is on an island and they're very locked down there right now but we would love to invite our friends of Kodo to perform there too. And I'm sure they would love to perform as well because they've had all of their performances cancelled this year.

00:55:32 John Daub: They were in Europe when COVID-19 broke—when Italy was really in a bad situation. They were in that area and they had to fly back to Japan and it was really hard for them because they had all their crew and all of their equipment with them and this hit them really really hard. And today in the live stream on Earth Celebration Yui was in tears—she was crying when she thinks about all the hard work that they did this year. They worked really hard to practice for all of these performances and they were all cancelled the entire year. And Earth Celebration this past weekend was a way for them to perform and to show off all the stuff that they were rehearsing and that made them feel so good. And thank you to all of you that took time to watch them because their YouTube channel is new—they don't have the kind of support that we have here but I believe that they had a really successful Earth Celebration considering. Always take care of your friends and Kodo is a friend of the channel and you know they take care of me to invite me to special events and stuff like this and I'm so thankful for the friendship that we have. It's good to have friends right? You gotta keep your friends close.

00:56:52 John Daub: Nova documentary was a huge insight—yes Marty the video that I made shows the daily life of Kodo drummers in their training center. I went before 7 in the morning—I woke up at like 5 I drove to the training center. I never wake up at 5—usually that's what I'm going to bed. And I watched them wake up and cook breakfast and their day their routine to get an idea of how hard they work. They work hard and I wanted to give you insight into their lives as well as show you how they live and that gives special meaning when you watch them perform. Kodo is the biggest brand—most well-known taiko group in Japan. I think Gocco is another band that I love—they play taiko. Gocco—Kaori-san and that's also a very friendly group and I know them as well. But Kodo is such a amazing performers group and they're really close group and they love Sado Island and they love Japan and what I do is promote Japan so there's like a natural friendship.

00:58:13 John Daub: Kodo's remote live streamed on a projector on the screen at the festival so they can stay safe and healthy—there's a lot of things that I think they can do. So next year is going to be a lot of fun. Remember to take Greg with you to the festival—Greg Lamb from Life Where I'm From needs to be there. I went like—Greg and I have been talking for a long time. This pandemic's ruining—Greg and I will be doing a collaboration and I can't tell you exactly but we're going to be renting a car and traveling together and making an episode. We've been talking about this very seriously for the last couple of months but actually for like over a year. We've been trying to do a collaboration together. The reason why you don't see more like YouTubers especially ones with very successful channels collaborating more—scheduling it is very very hard to get people at the same time in the same place to make an episode together. That's probably the biggest thing. A lot of YouTube creators that are successful don't really see the value in doing collaborations but Greg and I do—our styles we put a lot of love in our videos. We love Japan very much so we will be making this happen where we take you on an adventure and share it with our channels. Greg's channel is much bigger than mine now because I had to start over but that's the size of the channel does not matter—our communities are awesome and we are good friends.

00:59:59 John Daub: Art Stagio do any promo artwork for the festival—they're so busy. I'm glad that you asked about them. Art Stagio—Arthel and Henry the two managers at Art Stagio—Arthel being the owner and Henry one of the managers. They're so busy right now they don't have time to do this artwork and to do things like this but we're going to tweak the animated opening a little bit. We're going to put in the new logo the Only in Japan logo in there as well—I kind of altered the logo again. Peter von Gomm kind of changed it. So we tweaked it a little bit to make it better based on your feedback and Art Stagio's desire to get it perfect. So you're going to see an evolution in the animated opening as well. Big thank you to Art Stagio—love them. They're so kind to make the opening—it took a long time but it's an amazing opening isn't it? It's precious for the channel. Having Art Stagio—it's like they're to me like Ghibli. What they do with animation to me is like Ghibli and hanging out with Art Stagio fellas like hanging out with Miyazaki. I saw right—it's like he's president of this really successful animation studio. When I first met him they were just a start-up and now they're so big—it's impressive.

01:01:51 John Daub: There's an hour update—I really appreciate all of the new members that we got here as well. Noah welcome to the travelers thank you. And Katrina Johnson welcome Katrina. I think I just put—is this Katrina from Minnesota? I just put a postcard in the mail for somebody with a similar name. Thanks everybody so much for the support. I will be taking your questions about this project. I have something very dear to my heart and since I had to start over the Only in Japan brand on my own now this is you have to go big or go home. You have to do something outside of the box—you have to do projects like this. You have to continuously do something that inspires yourself. You have to do something bigger than life. So expect more—I don't think they're going to be Kickstarters but expect me to take on some projects that are bigger than life because I've always wanted to use this platform to do something that didn't just help me but help my friends but help my community. And if that's something that we can do and we can do it successfully like we have with this campaign I'm going to do it more and more. And that's what's really special about this community—the Only in Japan community and I cannot say thank you enough for all of the kindness and the support that we've been receiving. It means the world to me and to the community that we live in. Thank you. So be safe and stay well. And everybody have a good night have a good day—enjoy your Sunday. If you're in the United States our Monday already started so I'll bring you another live stream tomorrow. Bye everybody. Hey Eddie—thank you for all the hard work when the borders open and plan to travel throughout Japan for three months. PS I'm looking forward to the great collaboration. Thank you Eddie from Australia and Kevin Rutley hi from Halifax. We'd love to come to visit Halifax sometime. Have a good night everybody a good day and I'll see you again tomorrow.