00:00:03 John Daub: Greetings and welcome everybody to Akihabara Station. How are you? I'm here to say goodbye to this building in front of me, the Tsukumo building, which has been here for generations. It's one of the most unique buildings in all of Akihabara because of these hamster tubes. Literally humans go through these and it feels like you're in a hamster cage, which is awesome. We're saying goodbye because we got the news on August 20th via their Twitter that the lobby, which is part of Yamada Denki—that's that logo up there; Yamada Denki is a big electronics chain here in Japan—will be closing this location, the Pasokon-kan (PC hall), where you would get personal computers. It is going probably because there aren't enough tourists here to buy the products inside. Therefore, paying the rent for an extended amount of time makes no sense whatsoever. This is Akihabara.

00:01:07 John Daub: I'm just going to pan around and show you that there really aren't a lot of people here compared to what it was like a year ago. This was, you couldn't even see the asphalt. You couldn't even see the bricks. It was just humans, mostly—people who loved anime, manga, the vibe here, video games, figures, gachapon, whatever. Personal computers especially. And the history of this building goes back all the way to the 1970s, I believe, when Akihabara was the area for personal computers for home electronics pretty much. If you wanted a vacuum cleaner, anything for your home, an air conditioner, you would come to Akihabara to buy it at one of the many electronics stores—not just the stores themselves, but the parts to them where you could buy just the parts and do a DIY home fix-it unit. That part of Akihabara was still pretty much here when I came here in 1998. You could see it mixing between video games, which was evolving, and that home appliance center of Japan.

00:02:08 John Daub: Now we're going to be saying goodbye to this building because you guys aren't here. And it's not your fault because you just can't make it over to Japan because of the pandemic. So I'm going to give you all a little bit of time to join me before I go inside. Tomi Godden, thank you so much. Welcome to the Travelers. This building actually opened up at 10 a.m. and it closes at, I believe, 8 p.m. every day. There's a guy cleaning the hamster home. See, there are humans inside there. And we're going to go inside one last time. And then I'm going to jettison and come back out of the building. The signal might not be so good inside there, so there's a possibility that the signal will drop off. But we are right now seeing history, folks.

00:03:01 John Daub: This is history, whether you like it or not. Just a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Sega No. 2 building. This is the No. 4 building. Don't worry, they still have arcades and game centers here in Akihabara. That's not going to change. But they are saying goodbye to the iconic looking one around the corner, which is just about a 150-meter walk from here. I'm going to walk over there after this live stream, after I take a look at this and we go inside and you can say goodbye to that building one last time. I did not expect to be here in Akihabara this month, but when I heard the news that they were closing, I had to stop by and say goodbye because this building means a lot. I've done a lot of location shoots here in Akihabara, especially right in front of the station and the hamster tube store. I don't go in it that often, but we are about to. Sad to see the geekiest place on earth hurting.

00:04:04 John Daub: This is from Tony P: "I want to help, are the hamster tubes staying?" So there's nobody around me; I take off my mask when there's nobody around me. We don't know what's gonna be happening with this, and this is part of the mystery—the same with Sega Building Number 2 around the corner. We don't know if another business is coming in, if they're just gonna shut down and it's gonna become an abandoned building if anybody wants to pay the rent for these. I think it's a little bit crazy. We're not sure what's gonna happen, but I'm pretty sure this being across the street from the station and the city of Tokyo wanting to put a very good look on the Olympics next year, they're not gonna have this as an abandoned building either. They're gonna tear it down and build it up really quickly again and make it into a building that people want to pay rent in, or turn it into a museum—that would be probably one of the cooler things they could do with this. Welcome to Akihabara. I'm just waiting a second so you guys can get online. All right, let's go inside and just take a look around. You got to say goodbye.

00:05:07 John Daub: Here's the sign announcing the 30th is the last day, so we're going up now. We're inside of a hamster tube. How cool is this? I'm gonna miss this. That's where we started the live stream from here—you have it at a station. This is so sad. All right, here's the end of the line. That's super sad to see the tubes go bye-bye. But life moves on, so does the city of Tokyo. It does look like a hamster tube. And you do get a really nice view of the station entrance to Akihabara from up here.

00:08:02 John Daub: Jeff Ang, I'm sad to see it go. I know. Michael Sassano, goodbye to that Sega building as well. Let's drink some Asahi and Marty. Thank you, Marty. Maybe not victory for this building, buddy. It does look really cool. All right, let's get down. Hey folks, the signal dropped off inside of the elevator in the heart of the beast over there. And here we are back in front of Akihabara Station. That was just a little mini tour. I don't have permission to film in there, but I think because of historical purposes, we sort of do. What do you guys think of the tubes up there? For those joining us right now, I just went inside—you can see the playback. I visited all three tubes. This is an iconic building in Akihabara that we're saying goodbye to in less than five days now. August 30th is the last day for the Tsukumo building, taken over by Yamada Denki. Actually, Yamada Denki kind of took this over about five or ten years ago. They didn't have this forever. This used to be just called Tsukumo, and they kept it as the Tsukumo building. So there's a lot of history behind this here.

00:10:25 John Daub: As we see John Kimura checking in: "I like your video" and combination of emoji. But the tubes, the tubes are memorable. They make for amazing pictures. Thank you, Jason, for signing up for the postcard club—just got the notification. And we got to say goodbye to this. I'm kind of, for once, just speechless. So I'm going to do one last pan here before we move on to the other building and maybe just take a quick look around Akihabara. If you're here, and since you all can't make it to Japan, I might do a little walkabout of Akihabara before I go back home and start editing. Got a new video coming up on the new channel. Let's just do a slow pan to remember the Tsukumo building.

00:11:00 John Daub: Transway 50 writes in, I was in that building in 1974. Wow. Guess what? It's still here in 2020 for just five more days. And we don't know what's going to happen with this building, but I do hope something nice. My imagination is wandering. I don't really want to lose just a little piece of the identity of Akihabara right outside of the station. You would come out of the Denki-gai (Electric Town) station exit, and this building would be right in your face and go, "Whoa, this is so only in Japan. This is so Akihabara." Pasokon-kan is what's written on the top there. Love you. Miss you. I left my mark on you and in you. Walked all over that building. A lot of people are sad to say goodbye.

00:12:10 John Daub: Chris Lane, thank you. I know in Australia, you guys can't come here to Japan. I can't even send postcards to Australia right now. I just feel a big disconnect with the rest of the world. And that's sort of been my feeling the last six months—tourists can't come here after March. There's the Radio Kaikan. This is an interesting building. This Radio Kaikan used to come all the way to the curb of the street, and you'd walk underneath. It's like a little shopping arcade. But they tore that building down and they built it up. But what they did was they kind of protected that Radio Kaikan look, that yellow, red with the green tones over there. Seikai no Radio Kaikan Akihabara—it's still there, that sign. So maybe across the street, right next to it, they will find a way to keep that iconic design in the next building design. But we're still uncertain what they're going to be doing with this. I'm just a little sad.

00:13:24 John Daub: Leave your mark in the video below if you've ever been inside of this building or you had a memory or you bought something. Let me know what year you did it, because it was interesting to see that somebody had been here in 1974, the year I was born, and it was still here. So I know it does span at least five decades, I believe, that building. We don't know what else is going to say bye-bye to Akihabara. We have here this building, which is quite iconic. Inside there are alleys with electronics parts. Let's just take a quick look. See, I know the signal is not perfect in there. We can look inside of a Japanese vending machine—that's kind of neat. It's mostly Dr. Pepper's. Now these alleys here might be going sometime, because I don't think that they're the best for fire, earthquakes and protection. They did survive the one last month, but I'm always worried that they might be destroyed. So I'm worried to say goodbye to some of the electronic history. You can see how narrow these alleys are—these alleys are super narrow in here. I was here with Scotty Strangeparts getting gachapon about a year ago.

00:15:21 John Daub: As you can see clearly on Chuo Dori (Central Avenue), Sega has a lot of properties here. There's Sega Building No. 3. There's Sega Building No. 1. And the Chuo Line above us. And Sega Building No. 2 is just at the end of this street over here. So we're going to cross the street and walk. We're going to walk around and cross the street and go over back to that Sega No. 2 building to say goodbye. But just to give you a little bit of vibe of Akihabara in itself, it'll never really change, I think. Akihabara has always been the same. Hey, Tony P, thank you. And Raymond Centeno. Reid Kanai is now active. It's crazy. Look at those LEDs. When I first came here in 1998, I remember just looking at all the colors of the lights and all the blinky flashy stuff and thought that this is the coolest thing ever. And that has not changed in this section here. This goes all the way back to the 1950s, I believe, this building. It's been renovated a little bit, but the inside still looks like early Showa—that goes back to the 1930s. Akihabara in itself is a neighborhood that's always in change. And that won't change. It's always going to find itself in the maid cafe phenomenon and the video game phenomenon. That'll probably still be with us in one way or another. These generational trends leave its mark on the city.

00:17:03 John Daub: Look at all that. What's that blue one? It's a good job to try to get you to go in here and buy a loaf of bread with cream on it. All right. There's some horumon yakiniku, lots of izakayas. This alky store looks sort of out of place, but if you're going to buy your first suit, why not buy it in Akihabara, right? If you're going to buy a suit, buy it here in Akihabara. By the way, I'm using Chelsea—she has been resurrected. This is the DJI Osmo Mobile 3. I just ordered the Osmo Mobile 4—it's on the way. But I resurrected Chelsea because the Zhiyun Smooth Q2 was really not smooth. Chelsea's back. Never say never to Chelsea. She is a fighter.

00:18:22 John Daub: So we're going to go to the Manseibashi (Mansei Bridge) now location—that's where the Akihabara Sega number two is. And we've walked out and through here. We're going to cross the street and walk back through this alley to number two. And I've done this walk so many times, but you can never do this enough. It's different when you're live, I think, and you're here with me sharing the experience. I think it's different, right? Lionel Sancho, thank you. Sad to see the number two iconic building closing down next to Tsukumo. Yeah. Thanks in the Philippines. Michael Lim, Reid Kanai. Get caramel donuts—you mean the caramel? Camel donuts would be pretty cool too.

00:19:56 John Daub: Everybody, if you do like these walking tours, click the like button. And then we're going to take you around. Whoa, in between the alleys, there's a little trash. Some of the trash includes gachapon balls. I've never seen that before. I don't think it's going to be here for very long. But it's a pretty clean place. People usually clean up Akihabara. Akihabara is typically pretty clean, but historically, this is also a place where there were ladies of the night, and things go boom boom. Part of the history of Akihabara. I love this curry place. They also have this food challenge here called the champion's curry. I think that's there right there at the bottom. It's $25 and it's a massive portion—that is not healthy. Don't eat it—it's not good for you. But the food here is so delicious for people on the run that want something juicy and that gives you energy and might make you a little bit chubby.

00:21:06 John Daub: Number three building looks like it's doing fine—it's got good traffic, but I don't see anybody really playing any of the games. We're gonna go back to go to this building, but I like what they've done here on the streets. It says that for 17 years the building has been standing as part of Sega, and it tells a little bit about the history of the building and then says thank you in English. I really like that, and a shot dedicated to the building itself—that's really nice. I loved the really big posters that they put on there—you just felt like it was just part of Akihabara. And if you look down the street, let's go down this alley and we'll wrap around. Whoa, I don't often see Mountain Dew in vending machines or Suntory's water with cider in it—that's bizarre. Suntory is the distributor for Pepsi. You have to say it like this: Sega! That's the way we used to say that in the '90s—just look at your friend, turn at him and just shout "Sega!" in his face, especially for people who played Nintendo. I remember the family-friendly crew—they get a big "Sega!" in his face. It's like going back.

00:22:51 John Daub: Speaking of which, going back in time, there's this building called Super Potato—you can see that. This building, Super Potato, is always gonna be here, I think, and it's doing just fine. Because of the pandemic, you see Pac-Man up there—they have used game consoles through the ages and you can see a little bit of history. You can even play some of the game center games up there on the top floor—they're doing just fine. I've seen a lot of customers going in and out, but I can tell—look at this street here—it's virtually empty. And I know that the maid cafes are hurting, and @home cafe probably will be fine—they have a lot of investment money and they're at a lot of locations around the country now, not just Akihabara. But the independently owned maid cafes, I don't know if they're gonna be able to make it through this pandemic. A lot of them have been relying very heavily on foreign tourists. I don't see them doing a good job—it's not their fault. I don't see them bringing in people to keep the businesses afloat. I know that a lot of the maids have been let go or put on hiatus until the pandemic turns around, but it's kind of sad to see.

00:24:02 John Daub: Here's a tonkotsu ramen shop, which is making me really hungry. And I like the fact that you can get an extra bowl of noodles for 10 yen—do you see that? So if you still got soup, you're still hungry, come on in—for just a 10-yen coin you can get this. And you can't buy a lot for 10 yen. Here's a 10-yen coin—that's a new one; you can buy something with this. It's pretty cool. I've been doing this for a long time—I've been trying to get people here to come and try the ramen. You can't just get the noodles—"Hey, I'll have some noodles"—you can't do that. Nobody does that, but you could try. But you can't come here, so kind of—all right, we're gonna wrap around now. There's the Chuo Line above; there's some blue skies. It was raining so hard when I came over here, and no rain can stop me from getting a story. Look at the blue skies over there—it's crazy. It was raining so hard about 30 minutes ago. This humidity has gone away too, which feels good.

00:25:22 John Daub: Sega also has the back of this building. What's this, Sega number six? I just know that they own a ton of arcades here, game centers. So saying goodbye to number two—it's sad, but Sega's still here. Sega's still here. There's some game centers this way. Jim Pepper is in the house—thank you. Kazo Kazmin—Kazmo Kazmo—get yourself a cold one, mate. Asahi. I'm studying hard to get into the JET program. Whoa, that'd be awesome. JET program is a lot of fun, and I think it's good that you get stationed outside of Tokyo, out in the countryside. So many people want to be put in the JET program in Tokyo, but you really get to know Japan when you get stationed out in the countryside. That's a non-Sega-owned game center, and there's some more game centers around this way. This is a new building. I kind of wanted to wrap around just to take a look at this. Felix is now a traveler—welcome, Felix. DVD game hobby? Mula—that's been here for a while.

00:26:52 John Daub: And walking around here, you always kind of discover little Easter eggs like this guy here—looking at you. This building is new, and this is sort of what I'm talking about. These two buildings, I remember there was a lot of construction here about two years ago, and now you see they've created a new bank. This is a real estate agency, I believe. They've got a very tall building right on the outskirts of the Akihabara center. And then this one across the street, which looks very waifu, Japanese style—a lot of glass, but some wood trims on there, natural looking wood. A lot of little shops in here. I think it's easier for people to pay rent. The millennials want a different look than what was the old Akihabara, which you can still see very vibrantly down the street here. This look is not as popular with younger people. But feels nostalgic to me, and I kind of have a connection to it.

00:28:01 John Daub: You can see the signs on the side, and the left and the right. Japan's changing, and I think we talked about this a little bit over the last couple of days as I've been showing you more of the Tokyo neighborhoods. This is sort of the limits of it, and you get into Ochanomizu and the university areas this way. This is the Chuo Line. The other one was the Sobu Line, I believe. Here you go—here comes the Chuo Line right now. Oh yeah, this is where Scotty Strangeparts and I were eating at a cafe, the Glass Cafe just over there. And the Chuo Line splits between the middle of the cafe, so you get a train on the left and the right of you. It was pretty neat. We hung out there—that was the last time I saw him. Man, get back to Tokyo.

00:28:56 John Daub: Robin Smith's here. Take some sweets home for Kanae—you got it. She put in a request for me to stop off at a bakery on the way home. That mango sandwich that I got her last time blew her away. We weighed it—it was 350 grams, like two pounds or something. It's pretty crazy. But after like three bites, she just ate the mango and left the bread. She's like, "I just wanted the mango." That's fine. Just some ramen shops. So there you go—this is sort of the back alleys of Akihabara. And I'm always going to be very impressed by Akihabara. There's my friend's mystery—I say my friend because I've met him a couple of times. He owns all these mystery vending machines. And I think I'll interview him again and get a look inside those machines. He's more than happy to hang out. He's got a station wagon filled with goodies that he continuously loads up those machines. That one's one of the more popular ones. I'm surprised he's not here today. I'm going to go to the yakiniku restaurant over there. And Shinobazu Ninja Cafe—what? I never really look up, but I wonder how they're doing. Hope they're doing okay. I hate to see anybody's business really suffering. It's good, I guess, to get out and try to support your local businesses in your neighborhood, just to make sure they don't go under.

00:30:47 John Daub: Oh, this is like a wagyu menu. In tourist areas with English menus, I'm always very suspicious about the quality. Always suspicious, but that's just me. Sure, it's fine. Wear your mask. That's pretty funny—looks like a vacuum cleaner. It's a cosmonaut. I could watch this all day. Please wear a mask when you enter the shop. He's looking at you. There's another look at the Tsukumo building in the distance—that's the hamster tubes. And yeah, I'm going around here. Look at all those smokers congregated in one area—crazy.

00:32:36 John Daub: So on the left side now, we're going to see the Sega number two building that's going to be extinct in about four days. Just one last goodbye. It's interesting—all the shops that I passed, they have all of the procedures here necessary to get this sticker. Do you see that rainbow sticker is from the city of Tokyo saying that you're adhering to all of the policies. They do make public announcements in Japan like that—I couldn't even understand because it was so muffled. Though here we are. There she is. Sega number two also has that hamster—I guess it's that design with the escalators that look like hamster tubes. But that's the number two Sega building that we're saying goodbye to. And I feel real sad about that. Sega—say it out loud. Say it out loud at your home right now if you want. A lot of people taking pictures, looking at it for one last time before they say goodbye.

00:34:01 John Daub: Goodbye. The truck went right through there. But it's a pretty vibrant building. I guess in five days they take down that poster on the side as well as the Sega logo. I don't know what they're going to do. They take down the red sign below to Sega number two. But we're going to lose her. And I just hope we don't lose too many more buildings. Just hold on for another couple of months with the pandemic. I know that Japan doesn't look to be opening up really, especially to the United States, till spring 2021. Some countries I think—Laos and Cambodia, some places that have very low rates—will be able to come into Japan from September, I think. There's talks now with Laos and Cambodia and some other countries with very low rates in the region. But yeah, it's just kind of sad.

00:35:13 John Daub: Any last questions before I leave here? If you want to see the Tsukumo building, look in the playback because we did a pretty thorough—we went inside, enjoyed the hamster tubes, kind of said goodbye there. Chuo Line going through over the bridge there. And there's a lot of people—there's the Yamanote Line stopping in Akihabara Station. Can you go to the barber shops? What are you saying? I need a haircut. Yeah, I might. I'll ask my barber who I've been going to for 15 years if he'd be cool if I went in there and filmed. I don't know—you can't leave him a tip though. That's the thing—he won't take my money. Why close it? They can't pay the rent. They don't—there's no people inside there. Nobody's in there. You know, the rent's got to be amazingly high. And they got five other, seven other locations. There is a sign saying goodbye, which I thought was really touching. I showed that to you a little bit earlier at another one of the Sega buildings. All of the Sega buildings are saying goodbye. And they did put up a sign there that says August 30th is the last day—very clearly. Thank you for 17 years—it says there on the banner below the Sega. That's a nice little touch—that wasn't there last time.

00:37:07 John Daub: Honey Creepin, thank you for introducing me to gyoza—really? You're one of my favorite things. Gyoza is awesome. And they're one of my favorite things to order whenever I stop at a Japanese restaurant in California. And David H, hello from Australia—keep up the great work, John. Thank you, David, for the encouragement—that's awesome. I think gyoza is really high on the list of episodes to do. There's some more people taking shots of this iconic building—a little bit of activity here. There you have it.

00:37:49 John Daub: The city, this area of the city is always going to be changing—it's inevitable. It changed after the war, in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s. There was always some sort of shift every 10 years. Last 10 years, they had the maid cafes coming in—a lot of maid cafes. Ten years before that, there was a lot of video games coming in, probably from the '90s. So you've seen the evolution of Akihabara. Now we're seeing it change again. And I can't clearly see what is going to happen to this building. I asked Sega people last time—do they know what company or building is going to be coming in next? And they did not know. The same with the Tsukumo before I started the live stream—I asked them what's going to happen and they said they're not really sure. And they just know that they're going to be transferred elsewhere and the building will close that location. Tsukumo across from Akihabara Station was very much—there was a lot of money made by foreign tourists coming in, buying computers and electronics from Japan, mainly from mainland China, but also from other parts of the world. And they had Japanese products with English on them—and those, of course, are not selling either. So it's just part of the pandemic and we're losing some of our businesses all over.

00:39:14 John Daub: Take care, everybody. I hope this was informational. Say goodbye one last time to both those buildings—take a look at the playback again, hit the subscribe button if you like Only in Japan Go and being here live with me here in Japan. I'm gonna next week make a trip out to another area of Japan, so I'm gonna take you with me through the live streams. And a new episode on the John Daub Only in Japan channel is coming very, very soon—it's actually done, but upload it. Bye guys—thanks, my kero TV. The tubes are reflective of the tubes Sonic runs through in Sonic the Hedgehog games—interesting, very interesting. See ya.