00:00:01 John Daub: Good evening and welcome to the second Only in Japan fireworks festival. How you doing everybody? I'm in the middle, just in front of the factory that I showed you today in an early live stream. We're pretty much in the middle of a rice paddy and Kanae and I are going to take you out to a location where we're going to be so close that we're probably going to have to lay down on the ground to see it. The advantages to launching your own fireworks in a place like this means that you kind of have the freedom to get a little bit closer. Now, this fireworks festival, as I told you before, is different than Omagari. This one is special just for us and we're shooting off eight shakudama (size 10 watermelon-sized firework shells) sponsored by people and two star mines. One of them sponsored by people, two of them, the star mine and one shakudama is sponsored by our community.

00:01:14 John Daub: I can't see anything. We're literally going out into the middle of a farm field here to go and see this. I've got a few lights on here so we can attract more mosquitoes. So thank you so much everybody for joining me, especially if you're in the United States where it's the middle of the night. Joining me here in Japan to celebrate, I guess what's been a really tough year and to show something different. And I hope just for the next, I don't know, like 20 or 30 minutes, we can just focus on the fireworks in front of us and not on all the stuff that's happening in the world.

00:01:59 Kanae Daub: Are you still there Kanae?

00:02:01 John Daub: Yeah, it's very dark. It's very dark. I can't see. I can't see either. I was told that we're, oh, we're so close that we're going to feel the heat. That's so cool.

00:02:16 John Daub: They're going to launch off a warning shot, which is some sounds that will indicate that we're about to start at 10 minutes to the hour. And then this is going to be starting in about 10 minutes after that. So we still got a little bit of time to go. The reason why I started early was for a couple of reasons. One, so that everybody gets a notification and can join us on time. And two, we get a chance to talk a little bit about this festival because I never really run out of words. Now I've got, I'm filming this for a documentary. We are really in the middle of nowhere. Check this out. No, there's no yurei (ghosts) out here. I've got a GoPro here that's pointing straight up in a farm field. It's so quiet. If I don't say anything, just listen to the crickets. Yeah, it's kind of special. Listen. It's very cool. And the fireworks, I can't even show you, is going to be up there. I'm pointing it straight at the sky. And we're out here in the middle of Katakai, Niigata. This is the countryside. It's a beautiful place and it's very famous for fireworks. This is such a different experience than Omagari just 11 days ago.

00:03:46 John Daub: Shane Posh is here from Canada. Good evening. Good morning, everybody. Depends on what side of the coast you're on. Brendan Walker is here. Brendan, we just loaded your firework, your shakudama in one of the cannons there. I could tell because it's hard to miss yours. I think you're really going to be happy about this. Jeff Ang, how you doing? Nice to see you. We got so many people here from the Only in Japan community. And this is all brought to you by 831 backers. Edo is here from Holland. Greetings. Say hi, this is a new traveler. And Peter. Peter Steinkle is here from Vienna. How you doing, lady? Norimon, Eugene Holbert, is now upgraded to an insider. Awesome. Chang is a new traveler. Thank you so much for joining us, Chang. We're closing in on the time here. I'm just kind of looking around the ground for snakes.

00:04:47 John Daub: I'll put chapter markers in the description so then you'll be able to see which shakudama went up and of course those who backed the Kickstarter project. Oh oh that's the start of it. Okay I gotta turn the camera a little bit. Well just like a grasshopper okay this isn't super wide so we should be okay they said to point it straight up. Oh yeah that fireworks was just a notification before 10 minutes we have 10 minutes to go. Yeah it's I hope you're a little bit warmer where you are um you're a little bit warmer than than we are right now it's a little bit chilly out here in the Japanese countryside.

00:05:47 John Daub: Yeah do you want to let's show them the program all right this is the program and every single Japanese fireworks festival has some sort of a program where i'm showing you in the middle of a rice paddy here this is a hanabi banzuke (fireworks ranking/program). This is ours so everybody who sponsored one of these shakudama that you're about to see in about 10 minutes has uh is listed in the program in Japanese and in English and uh we have a main star from from Germany uh my message was stay safe and stay positive and everybody else has a message here and if you backed it um one of these shakudamas we're going to send you a program as well so you can see um during this period you are part of the celebration it's very very cool and we're going to be reading these messages out we see aloha from Hawaii there are some uh um some shout outs to twitch channels as well as to um Brendan's lovely wife there it's in here Brendan so we'll get you all covered.

00:07:00 John Daub: And before we get to that i want to say thank you we're going to do this for you today and i really want to thank you to the Japanese and um we're going to be doing this for each one that goes up we're going to announce it just like in the Japanese manner because you are here as long as we're live streaming you're here with us. This light does not look cool this is from my indoor camping days during the the tough days of the pandemic here in Japan.

00:07:19 Kanae Daub: By the way, this is, what do you call these, Kanai? Happi (festival jacket).

00:07:23 John Daub: This is a happi I'm wearing. It's so cold. This is definitely not summer anymore. This says here, hold on a second. Katakai Enka Kogyo, which is the name of Honda-san's company. And this side is Koyo-sha. This is the day of the week, Yobiyo and sha. Very cool. And that's the name of the group or the organization. And Kanae has one too. This is hanabi fashion. These are actually meant to keep you from burning up. Basically, this protects you from fire and flames. So there's some sort of properties in this.

00:08:08 Kanae Daub: Yeah, I heard from Honda-san, they put the fireworks shell inside of clothes.

00:08:14 John Daub: Whoa, that's pretty hardcore. Yeah, and for protection.

00:08:20 John Daub: Air to the Ron is here. Welcome. Matt Hatta for the vending machine. Oh, you remember that. Dylan Osborne's here. Welcome for new traveler. Matt Hatta is writing in here. Thank you, John and Kanae. Everyone involved. Well done. James Boardman. Big bada boom. You got it. That's what we're going to be saying. Every time one goes up in the air. So we're about five minutes away from this happening. Seven minutes away. Let's see here. What on the schedule? Can I? Who's first? I think it's Matsumi, right? Matsumi's firework. Shakudama is going to be the first one. What is a shakudama? It's a size 10 watermelon sized firework shell. And yeah, it's about the size of a watermelon. A big watermelon. And you can't fire these up in Tokyo. So you can only fire things about a quarter of the size of what you're about to see in the city of Tokyo, which makes this really special. The fireworks that are going up here in Katakai, you can only fire in a place like this out in the middle of the farm fields. Now, Honda-san, you can see him back there. He's got a radio. Every time we read this out, we're going to ask them to launch it. We're ready. So I have to give him the word. And this is just the coolest thing in the world.

00:09:47 John Daub: I said, launch. Baby. I don't know. What should I say? Launch baby. Fire it. Fire it up. What should I say? Light the fuse. I don't know. I haven't thought this through. What do you think, Kanae?

00:10:01 Kanae Daub: How about Japanese?

00:10:02 John Daub: Okay. What do you say in Japanese?

00:10:03 Kanae Daub: Um, onegai shimasu (please). Tsumannai. Dozo (please go ahead).

00:10:12 John Daub: Fireworks. Let's fireworks. You're stealing that from Peter. I'll think of something. It's going to be really cheesy. Just to make it funny. I'll make people cringe. That makes you feel better. But it's just nice because it is, it's nice that those of you, the 1400 people that are watching, are up for this. It's kind of a really important moment for us. And I don't know. We've been building up for this for so long. Suzette's here. Suzette's rocking it. How much time we got? We have five minutes. That's nothing. I could talk for another 30 minutes. Camera's good. Walk about. So everybody's coming in with the notifications now. Welcome. We're literally in the middle of nowhere. And there's Honda-san over there with a light and a radio. And Hayashi-san is with him as well. And we give him the word and they light a fuse. That's the power that he has with the radio. It'd be cool if the TNT box was right in front of us, but that's not how it works. It's actually over there by the cannons. This is going to be so cool.

00:11:28 John Daub: Oh gosh, I wish it was on my phone. Leaflet is one of the sponsors of the shakudama with our friend Matsumi. And Leaflet has a Twitch channel. You definitely have to check it out. We're going to be telling you a little bit about it before we launch it up. But Leaflet, you're first, by the way. So it's going to be taking place in about five minutes from now. It's the first one to go up. And we put the stickers on. It's so cool. I think there was like seven stickers or something in the pack. And we found places to put it all around it. I think you really personalized it. I think it's really, really personalized. I like that. Oh, you have the picture of it? Can I have the picture? Show it to Matsumi. Here's the picture. We also have the letter that you sent us with all of the names. And it has been approved. We put the sticker on the shell. On the shell. And then this is on the side of the cannon. I guess it was a fire hazard to actually put it inside of it. This is cool. And then the pictures are on there. So when you see your shakudama goes up, going up, it has your seals all over it. Do you have the one with the seals on it? No, all the pictures are on my camera. I'm putting the pictures up on the discord server. If you want to go see it, we have a fireworks category discord.gg/onlyinjapan is free. Anybody can go there and chat about this project. And I shared some videos and the pictures of us sealing up and dedicating to you. And then we're going to be doing a video of us sealing up and dedicating all of the shakudama shells. We have two minutes left. Two minutes! I've been talking that long. All right, this is so exciting. I don't have anything to show you though. For the next two minutes, you're just going to see like, what is that? Is that daikon? Daikon radishes. We're really in a farm field.

00:13:30 John Daub: Jehova from Osaka. Congratulations for the festival. I've been enjoying tonight. Tomorrow is my birthday. Happy birthday. This is really going to make a go shakudama. It's not going to happen. I really asked. Anjun's here. It's time. Honda-san. Congratulations. Tortoro porko. I want to join the vending machine gachapon. You got it. And D-me DM. 13 p.m. fireworks festival afternoon. That's right. Toantron. All right, I'll get to these later. And Bob Joe, I saw that. One minute? Okay. I'll announce it. First. I don't know how to say it. First. Where is it? Here. Oh, okay. First. Katakai Only in Japan Fireworks Festival number one. Sponsored by virtual streamer Leaflet and her community. Join us at twitch.tv/Leaflet, live five days a week. Very cool. And it's from the United States. Matsumi. Awesome. Light it up.

00:15:10 John Daub: That's the sign. Whoa. It felt like a lightning strike right in the heart of right here. Oh my gosh. That was amazing. Thank you, Leaflet. That was awesome. Thank you.

00:15:42 John Daub: Second. This one. Richard. This is from Richard Brown. Can I read this one? Ichitenbato. From Richard Brown in the United States. Second. Here you go. Thank you. That means it's going to be launched right now. That one was red. That was so colorful. It's like red burning my retinas. Wow. Thank you, Richard. Thanks for that, Richard. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that.

00:16:43 John Daub: This one. From Singapore. Oh, Diana C. Yeah. For the love of Japan and the community. Thanks Diana. This one's for you. Dozo. Okay. These are. Wow. I didn't think they had pink. I didn't know that they had pink. Shane is impressed. Thanks, Shane. All right. Who do we got here next? Thank you, Diana.

00:17:42 John Daub: From Hawaii. Hey, Nicholas. Nicholas Lezak from Hawaii. Aloha. That's the spirit. Simple and to the point. Hope you're doing well. Aloha. Can I do the aloha? All right. Light it up, boys. Oh, please. Oh, my God. Whoa. No car alarms going off. Are the people in the city okay? You're used to it, right? I'm saying like the residents of Katakai, they're used to fireworks being exploded in their town like this. It's extremely loud. If this happened in Tokyo, people would think it was some sort of something. Godzilla coming from the Pacific. Who was that from? That was from Nicholas. Thank you, Nicholas. Mahalo.

00:19:08 John Daub: Oh, it's Brendan Walker. Yeah. This is so beautiful. Yeah. This is the fifth one, shakudama. To my lovely wife, Valerie, and to my mom, Adrian, I know it's been a rough year, but keep your chin up. Good things can happen. Maybe even some fireworks. I love that. Brendan. Thank you. Great message. You ready? Hai dozo. Wonderful. I like to keep, just stay silent for a few seconds and just let that sink in because it is an impressive, it's just you feel something when fireworks of that magnitude goes off. You feel moved. Thank you, Brendan. Thank you, Valerie. Yeah. Thanks, Brendan. That's beautiful.

00:20:28 John Daub: Oh, who we got next? This is number six. This is Arthur Morgan. Art. Happy birthday, Arlene. Love Art. Great message, Arlene. This is a wonderful present. I want to hear his wife's name on shakudama. Oh, that's right. You don't have the video, right? I shared this video on the Discord server. Honda-san actually wrote it in kanji on the shakudama. So when it goes up into the air, your wife's name is written on that shakudama, that mortar shell. It's awesome. All right. What am I showing? Here we go. Raise back it. Hai dozo. Okay. This just clears the air. Happy birthday. That's it. Happy birthday, Arlene.

00:21:54 John Daub: Chizuko-san. Yeah. Next. Hong Kong. Okay. From Hong Kong. This is Grace. Grace S.Y. Ho. Thank you so much. And this is a message to everybody who's watching right now from Grace. Good health and good luck. This is number seven for our neighbors over there in Hong Kong. Thanks Grace. Let's hold the sun. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Purple, green, pink. And it just sat there for a little bit. That was really nice. Yeah. Thanks Grace. That was really nice. You know, I could hear when the shell was going up, you could hear the ... It's because we're so close to the launching zone, just about 150 meters or so, that you can hear the shakudama being launched up after it's been ... The explosion underneath it. It's really amazing. I've never ... We were pretty close at Omagari, but this is a little bit closer and feels a little bit different because of where we are. It feels just different. Hey, DJ Midori, thanks a lot. That's a big thanks to Grace there.

00:23:46 John Daub: Next. Next. Israel. From Israel. Yeah. So this is from Gil. Gil Hasid. Thank you so much, Gil. I appreciate it. I'm sure Gil is wishing everybody something really special. Yeah. I hope we all stay safe and have a really good 2020. The year's not over yet. Thanks Gil. Thank you. This one's for Gil. How are you doing? Number eight. I heard it echoing until that point, all the way in the distance. I like the fact that there was some red in there and ... Yeah, and white. Yeah, white in the center. Now, the people who picked the fireworks, they made a request for the colors and Honda-san did his best to try to accommodate for the colors, but I don't think ... No matter what it is, it's just extremely beautiful. And you can see the craftsmanship, the perfect circle. And in the documentary, you're going to see how these are made. Only in Japan.

00:25:14 John Daub: Oh, this is ours. Oh, stay safe. Stay positive. I've been telling people who write me this at the end of the email messages, I'll say, stay safe, stay positive. This is all for you. This is all for everybody who's watching right now. Yeah. So this is a gift from our community. Everybody has chipped in for this one. We blew most of the budget at Omagari. So this one is just a special thank you. So I hope you enjoy this. Stay safe. Stay positive. From the Only in Japan community. Oh, . I still see a little bit. And it's gone. Wow. That one hung in the sky for ... I don't know. It seemed like ... For me right here, I'm sure it wasn't that long, but it seemed like 30 seconds to me. But probably just like 10 seconds. But that was really incredible. I like the colors of it and the way it just kind of hung in the air. And I'm really curious about the makeup. What is the composition of these firework shells that make it stay in there? So that's something that I might try to touch on in the documentary. All the different minerals that they use to make it.

00:26:59 John Daub: It's a star mine. Whoa, it's a star mine. It's amazing. Star mine. You have two star mines. It's a star mine. It's pretty long. About one minute and thirty ... It's one minute and thirty-three. It's more than just a shakudama. It's kind of a movement. You'll see. This is star mine number one. And this is ... From Germany. Oh, from Germany. Yeah. From Marcus. Marcus Adensmann, I just hope that these fireworks not only lighten up the night, but the mood as well by spreading joy and happiness. Oh, beautiful. Thanks for that, Marcus. Yeah. So everybody, soak this up. Thank you to Marcus. Here you go. It has been ordered to be launched. Here comes the shakudama. I'm speechless. There were seven of them. There were some sevens in there. I saw like three sevens and a shakudama and loads and loads of four. I'm starting to get to know the numbers, the size of the fireworks in there. That's a mix of everything, including the sound that was coming from it. Incredible. Marcus, thank you for that one moment. The entire world, at least from where I'm standing, stood still. And I hope it did for everybody out there too. Really positive thing. Thanks. Wow. That felt so good.

00:29:35 John Daub: All right. And we bought a star mine too. This is called the Only in Japan Star Mine. I don't know what else to call it. And our message is the same. Stay safe. It's the last one. Stay positive. And this is the finale here. This is the last one here. Anything you want to say to everybody, Kanae, before this one launches?

00:29:49 Kanae Daub: I really want to say to the people who support this project. Yeah. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed about it all over the world. So thinking about Japanese hanabi, it's a very beautiful thing. I'm so glad about it.

00:30:15 John Daub: And I want to say thank you so much to the 831 people who backed this project and also to all of you that are watching. Many of you staying up in the middle of the night have been looking forward to this for several months. This is why we did this. This is to give us something to look forward to. This is this night. And I'm filming it, which will be put on a video for later. So you'll get a chance to see this again. And I'll share some pictures as well. But once again, just my heartfelt appreciation for this community that we have. We've done something really incredible here. This is the final Star Mine. I hope you enjoy it from our community. Stay safe. Stay positive. Right. Hi. Let her loose. Smiley face. I didn't know they were going to put the smiley faces in there. They put the smiley face inside the shakudama, right? They put the smiley face inside of that shakudama. You didn't know that? I didn't know that. Oh my god. I realized right now. Yeah. I just saw that. I was like, wait a second. No. Can you do that? I guess you can. So there's a smiley face in there and the message to everybody is obvious. If you can't get that from a smiley face. I don't know what it takes for you to do it. Everything's going to be all right. It's been a pretty tough year for everybody. No matter where you are in the world, nobody is, is, is everybody's hurting. And I hope that this event just brings you a little bit more happiness.

00:33:10 John Daub: They finished the fireworks. That's all it was next year. Maybe we're going to do this again. I think it's amazing that we can have supporters from all around the world that are watching and supporting this community to have the fireworks. And launch it off here in Japan. I know so many people could not come to Japan. They had to cancel the trips February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and probably all the way into the spring of 2021. But for just this night, for those that supported this, you made this happen. You were here with us. And that is, that's pretty, that's, that's amazing. So thanks so much for this. Again, we'll do another live stream tomorrow. Probably. I got a lot of stuff to say. I'm pretty emotional right now. I'm probably gonna have some sake. Celebrate a little bit. With Honda-san. Probably with Honda-san. Yeah. But I, again, like a big round of applause around the world, wherever you are, maybe clapping. Everybody's clapping for the Japan fireworks association, for Hayashiya-san, for Ide. Thank you so much. Ide. Kabushiki Kaisha Ide. Ide-san. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks so much. They helped me, helped so much to make this event possible, bringing us the, the access and the organization for Omagari and then here to set this up in Katakai because you need a team to do this. Absolutely. And then there's, there's Honda-san in the distance back there. Honda-san, Honda-san, please. I know. How was it? Success? Success. That's right. Success. It was a big, big success. Big shout out to all of you.

00:34:53 John Daub: And for those that have supported here, let's show the program one more time here. Ami87, Celebration Drinks, aye aye. Thank you. I think that's from India. Marty Ditmers here all the way in Australia. Mermaid Hina, thank you everyone that helped put this together. This is amazing. So proud of yourselves. Thank you. PC is a new traveler. Shane gives us another thank you. Antonio from the Philippines. Basinga, very appreciated. John, Jave, Javelina. Thank you. Can I tell, John to Kanae, this is my first time catching the live. And oh, it's a fireworks. You really picked a good time. John, Colin for food from Australia. DJ Midori, thanks Grace. And everybody else. I don't think I missed anybody here. And if I did, I apologize. Anjun and Toro Poco Leaflet. Again, check out her channel. She sponsored one of these fireworks. Where's Leaflet on the other side, Kanae? Yeah. Just a shout out to Leaflet. For bringing this in. Twitch.tv/Leaflet. And I got a feeling she might be going live sometime soon to talk about this experience. And we'll send her some photos and video. Yeah. Send her some photos and video for this. Much appreciated for the support. Bob Joe. Boom, boom, boom. Suzette Andrew Fort Wayne was here too. Kim Wong. We love Kim. King down in Singapore. Much appreciated, everybody. If I missed anybody, I apologize. Jays Boardman. Good night from Katakai in Singapore. Niigata, Japan. Arigato gozaimashita. Thank you for your support. Otsukaresama deshita. Arigato gozaimasu. Thanks for the support, everybody. See you in another livestream again tomorrow. I can't show them anything. It's all dark. This is the last 20 seconds. Enjoy some soba. This is like soba grass. What a night that was.