00:00:08 John Daub: Hey! Greetings everybody! Welcome to Higashi Tokorozawa. This is Tokorozawa in Saitama Prefecture. It's about 30 minutes away from the city of Tokyo and in this livestream I'm going to be showing you something really, really unique. This is the first in Japan and definitely something that's only in Japan. We've taken technology and added it into the one thing that you think technology would never ever be added to.

00:00:34 John Daub: Manhole covers that are supposed to protect us from sewage and waste. Now this is not that far away from Higashi Tokorozawa Station. And I'm in front of it here. And the path that leads, these manhole covers lead us to is from here, this point, Higashi Tokorozawa Station, to Sakura Town. Which is this new attraction in Tokorozawa, which is built by Kadokawa, which is an anime company. It's really interesting. I'm sort of learning about Kadokawa as I go along here.

00:01:11 John Daub: But this is the first manhole cover and I think, that's right Joy, this is one of them. And I think that you have to see it when you're in a darker location. This one is the first one. I'm going to walk past it so you can see it down on the ground. It's pretty bright, right? But I think with all of the ambient light around here, you have to go out a little bit further. There's some that I want to show you. There's some that I want to walk past that are even more, I guess, stunning because it's in lower light. These are actually quite bright.

00:01:47 John Daub: Let's take a closer look at this one here. So this is what it looks like here. The LEDs are underneath here. I think that they're around the ring here and they're all pushing in there. But I shared a URL, a link. It's in Japanese from Saitama's prefectural page that kind of explains the technology and also a little bit about the information. But it's in Japanese so you can copy paste that into Google Translate and get everything, all the information on there. It's just strong. I'm not stamping it because I don't like you, but just kind of showing you that it's a manhole cover. It's supposed to be walked on.

00:02:30 John Daub: Now, that doesn't mean that all the manhole covers in Tokorozawa are illuminated. This is a normal one. That's normal. There are actually 28 of them. We've seen one. Let's see how many we can find. So for the next 30 minutes or so, buckle in as we explore the Tokorozawa area at about 11 p.m. at night.

00:02:56 John Daub: This one looks like it's... This is an LED manhole cover, but it's not on. Oh no, this one is an LED. This is just a building. But that one is over there. So number two. Let's check it out. All right. I don't know anything about this one. I've seen many of these anime, so just kind of go along with it. If you do know, share it in the live chat because that information is valuable.

00:03:38 John Daub: Zero. R-E-0. Oh, here's one right here. So this is number three. The Origin. That's really nice. You can see how bright it is. And it's the same design all around it. Made out of steel, but they've added technology underneath it. So there's a filter that brings out the image underneath there. Interesting.

00:04:22 John Daub: There's one across the street. I don't know if we're going to be able to get over there. But there's also one right in front of this kōban (police box). So we found three. The Evangelion one I can't show you because of copyright stuff. So some of these, even though they're manhole covers, have some sort of copyright to it that makes it difficult to show. This one is called the Five Star Stories. It's an interesting looking one. That looks tough. I've never heard of some of these before.

00:05:09 John Daub: They're on both sides of the road here. So we're going to go across the street here after we see this one. And there's another one right over there. There's one right here. And then there's another one. Do you see in front of that shop over there? Bungo Stray Dogs. Now, Kadokawa, I believe, they also do video games. So again, it's not a small company. They're not very well known outside of Japan. But if you're into anime and video games, you probably know them quite well. That's so interesting, right?

00:05:47 John Daub: It's weird because these manhole covers are so bright. There's one over here, but I don't think that this is a manhole cover. Hold on. This is an illuminated one. Yeah, this isn't an illuminated one, just a sponsored one here. So just the illuminated ones. And the cost for these illuminated manhole covers, nobody really knows. But the ones that are painted? They're quite expensive. They can go all the way from $600 to about $1,000 depending on how detailed it is per manhole cover.

00:06:24 John Daub: And apparently in Japan, there's 15 million manhole covers. A great percentage of them have some sort of design. And these designs came after, I guess, in the 1960s. They wanted a way to promote this new sewer system because before World War II, they didn't really have a sewage system in Japan. So the best way to promote them was to put designs on them. And now we've gone to the evolution to make LED ones.

00:07:03 John Daub: Now, it's hard to see how bright it is because of the ambient light from this store right next to it. I think we missed one. You have about 15 million manhole covers. And here in Tokorozawa, the illuminated manhole covers, this is the only place in Japan that has them. And there's only 28 of them. Oh, this one's not animated. This one isn't... This is a water one. Again, this one has no illumination, just an average everyday... Hey, fireman! This has water underneath their manhole cover. It's pretty cute. That must be the mascot for Tokorozawa.

00:07:48 John Daub: Alright, so just from here, this point, we're going to be walking towards Sakura Town. This is outside in front of Higashi Tokorozawa Station. It's a nice looking station. This is a JR station, Japan Rail. You can see there's Higashi Tokorozawa. Alright, on the move. It's really quiet, except for some people who might be out and about with friends.

00:08:33 John Daub: So we've seen about four or five of them. Again, the technology, I shared a link to the city that's all in Japanese. You can check out in the video description about how they make these. But there's more to it than just that. I'm going to share with you in a second where does the power come from for these LED manhole covers. Today I'm using a super wide lens. I hope that this makes it a little bit more interesting to see the live streams in super wide.

00:09:19 John Daub: I've never been to this area of Tokorozawa. Again, Saitama is one of Japan's 47 prefectures. And we definitely could explore more of Saitama, I think. Oh, okay! I see right here! Check this out. These are the normal Saitama manhole covers. They're for Tokorozawa. These are the normal Tokorozawa manhole covers. And you can see there the mascot is represented inside of it. That's interesting. So the normal manhole covers are pretty exciting.

00:10:00 John Daub: Alright, I'm going to cross the street here. We have a street walk crossing. Alright, there's one right there. Ooh, FamilyMart. See, that's what I'm talking about! In the dark, in a street that's a little bit darker than normal, you can really see it coming out, right? The colors coming out. They are really LED. That's awesome, right? Uzaki. She walked right by it. She was not interested at all in this.

00:11:41 John Daub: That's super interesting to me. Just being able to see the angle of it and see it reflecting in a city. Across the street, check this out. So if you look across the street from here, you can see the manhole cover in the middle of the sidewalk. Do you see that? Just glowing. Isn't that awesome? Just across the street.

00:12:10 John Daub: So I'm going to walk across the street here. Let's go back to the crosswalk here. That's super interesting, right? You can see it glowing inside the sidewalk. Does anybody know this one? Oh, she's got cat ears! She's like a yōkai (demon/spirit). She's half cat. Spicy oof. That's very cool. It's kind of dirty. Let's clean you off here. It's nice. It's beautiful. I love it. Again, this is a darker one on the street. You can see this from a distance. So they definitely stand out, don't they?

00:13:24 John Daub: Now, these are all powered... I got a light here. So these are all powered by this application. Up here. Do you see it? I'm shining a light here just to give it some illumination. This is a solar panel and all 28 of the manhole covers have a solar panel next to it and a battery up there. So it collects power and the solar panel, which is, I guess it's not that far away, delivers the power to the manhole cover like this. And from what I heard, this does not need any maintenance for up to four years. It'll deliver the power.

00:14:01 John Daub: So if there is some sort of earthquake or natural disaster, these manhole covers will still be glowing because of the solar power. And I like that they're self-sustaining manhole covers. And some of you might be asking why Saitama, why Tokorozawa, why not in Tokyo? Well, I think Kadokawa, which is the name of the gaming company that is sponsoring this. Wow, this one's painted. This manhole cover, the mascot is the only thing painted. That's awesome. So just the normal Tokorozawa manhole cover. The manhole covers are pretty neat.

00:14:42 John Daub: This city, Tokorozawa, has a history of being the first place with an airport tower. So because of that history of having an airport tower, I guess these lights are somewhat similar to that of an airport runway. It has that kind of history to it. So that's really interesting. Hey, Andrew Boguch, sponsoring a drink or snack stop. Hope you're staying safe during your travels. Thanks. Thanks for bringing us along. You're very welcome. And John Kimura, get something warm. You got it. I'm going to be going back to that convenience store to get a drink. Thanks, guys.

00:15:34 John Daub: And you can just get a quick look and see what it looks like on the streets here. It's pretty cool. Would you think that this would work in your city, in your town? I don't know. If this is in New York City, I think a lot of people would want to take these home. I don't know if it would last in the city that never sleeps. But it is a great city. This is very cool to have something like this across the street here.

00:16:08 John Daub: We can cross here because there's a store across the street. Let's see if there's anything. All right, there's a couple of manholes this way, but I don't see anything lit up. The only lit up one is right here. Let's go take a quick look-see. Very cool. Yamato Takeru. Does anybody know this one? Very nice. Most of these, I'm trying to find the ones that are sponsored by Kadokawa.

00:17:00 John Daub: Again, the costs for these kinds of LED manhole covers are quite high. And I don't think that a city would be able to pay for these unless they had some sort of corporate sponsorship. And this is interesting. Tokorozawa is quite interesting because these manhole covers here, these manhole covers actually are corporate sponsored manhole covers. Meaning the city is not picking up these manholes. They're not picking up the bill. The city is actually making money from these manhole covers. So these manhole covers are sustainable, not just in the power that they generate, but also in the fact that the city is making money off of this.

00:17:43 John Daub: I got some light on me, which is very cool. I want to keep the noise down here. That's another thing. If you do walk around, keep in mind that as you get away from the station. This one is not illuminated. But this is a water access point. As you get away from the station, you want to start to keep your voice down here. Because there are, at this intersection, people that are living in this neighborhood. So be really respectful. And now that I've moved away from where all the stores are, I can keep my voice down a little bit more.

00:18:23 John Daub: That's kind of a neat one. Does anybody know this one? Haruhi. I love how you can see them glowing off of the street. That's just so cool. Oh, there's another one over here. In total, there are 28. This one says, How you doing? Very cool. M. Miller writes in here, Awesome stream. The LED covers are made of glass? I don't know. Let me get you a little bit closer in there then. Do you hear that? They're made out of, feels like some sort of plastic. I'm not sure exactly.

00:19:49 John Daub: They feel like made out of some kind of hard plastic. But I know that there's layers and filters, polycarbonate maybe. I don't think it's plexiglass. Just keep our voices down here. That's pretty cool. Now they're quite bright. You can see it slayers, right? It's quite bright and you can see it when the car goes by here. Just how bright they are. Not a lot of people out here.

00:20:44 John Daub: There's an Evangelion one, but I'm not going to take you there because of the copyright stuff. And I'm going to just pan around this intersection a little bit. You're going to be able to see, I think there's like six of them at this intersection. There's one right there. Two, four, five, six. We showed you that one. Yeah. So there's six at this intersection, which is very cool. Mario Jose. Thank you, John. This is the live stream I was expecting to watch. Greetings from Costa Rica. Hey, that's great. I was in Costa Rica in 2003.

00:21:40 John Daub: So let's wait for the light to turn green. We're going to go to the other side. Kisa, I do want, I do need to watch more anime. I need to play more video games too. I've been waiting for the Sony, the PlayStation 5 to come out for a long time. And now that it's out, maybe I'll get a PlayStation like in 2021 sometime because I think there's a waiting list. It's really hard to find a place to buy them. Why can't they just have a waiting list? Like first person you order it, you get it. You know, I don't know why they don't do that?

00:22:25 John Daub: Right now we can cross here. I can't do a live stream if it's not like, you know, a gaming live stream. If it's not like PlayStation 5 or something, I need to go and get a decent gaming system. Like I tried to get one when Switch was out. I know PS5 is sold out everywhere. I tried to get one when the Nintendo Switch. For during the pandemic, but you couldn't find them anywhere. And they were three times the price on the black market. So I ended up not getting into getting like an old retro, old retro Nintendo that Kanae preferred because she grew up playing the Nintendo games as a kid. So that was kind of fun. They had Metroid, which kept me busy for a little bit.

00:23:23 John Daub: Is that, that's a pretty nice one. There you go. This one's quite bright. Hey, Nora. A new traveler. Welcome. Mekane. Thank you so much for becoming a member. You've just unlocked some pretty cool emoji. One of them might be an LED manhole cover. All right. This one I can't show you because it's an Evangelion copyright, but I can show you over my shoulder. That doesn't mean anything to anybody.

00:24:05 John Daub: In these neighborhoods, you want to keep your voice down and be respectful. There's a lot of people trying to get some stuff. I'm going to go sleep around here. There's a couple more. There's one over there across the street and one here. Sakura Town is really two years ago. If you look at Google Maps, Sakura Town did not exist. And now it's this amazing museum hotel shopping place. It's like an oasis in the desert. I wouldn't call it a desert. Just there was nothing there. And now there's this amazing shopping plaza and these LED lights. I think kind of guided me towards Sakura Town and that's where I'm staying tonight.

00:25:31 John Daub: All right. There's like no traffic here. Let's cross the street and go check it out over here. I think this is the one in the thumbnail. Let's just let the bicycles go by. You almost don't want to walk on them. They're so pretty. You kind of want to keep your distance. This is Date A Live. Date A Live. So it says right there, Date A Live. I don't watch it, but I probably should. It's just cool. You can see how bright it is, right? Look over my shoulder. That's so cool. Honestly, I'm amazed at these LED lights in the manhole covers.

00:27:29 John Daub: There's a Bamian. Looks like it's closed. It's a Japanese Chinese cuisine chain. But for me, Bamian is a marker. Bamian because this is where you turn. Was it here? Or up there? It's hard. I gotta navigate. Oh, there's another LED cover. Okay, good. I'm still on the right trail. To get to Sakura Town, it's about a five-minute walk. But if you look at all the manhole covers, it can take you quite a while to get there. Anime tourism. Okay. It's nice. I like how bright you are. And next to the manhole cover, once again, you can see the solar panel that makes this possible. All these are illuminated. They're self-powered. So the sponsor doesn't have to pay an electric bill. How cool is that?

00:28:46 John Daub: Okay, there's another one up ahead. Okay, there's a lot of residential buildings here. So keep the voice down. And I'm guessing that Kadokawa can change the images depending if there's a new game release or something. You can see there's some credits there. Pretty cool. They stay pretty clean too. But I'm really impressed with the brightness of it. I didn't expect it to be as bright as it is, right? They're very bright. All right, let's cross the street here.

00:29:57 John Daub: This is the last one. I think it is. See how it's kind of dark here. I don't see any more manhole covers up this street. So this is a good point because it tells you, again, if you follow them, it'll tell you how to get to Sakura Town, which is where I'm staying tonight. I'll be at Sakura Town in a hotel room called, it's the Anime Hotel. And I wish I could take you inside of there. Again, there's some copyrighted stuff that I'm not really sure I can show you. But inside of the room, there's, I mean, it has a 150-inch television, a projector screen. And there's a walk-in cosplay closet. So you can take all of your cosplay costumes and you can go there. And I don't know, it's like a dressing room and stuff inside my room. And I didn't even bring anything, just a change of clothes. I'm only here for a day.

00:31:25 John Daub: So there's a lot of manhole covers all around the area. And I think that this is great that they're doing. What do you guys think? What do you think about these LED manhole covers? Is this something that is a good thing? Do you think Japan has come up with an amazing idea that we should spread to the rest of the world? Do you think that this is, corporate-sponsored manhole covers is a good idea? I think I can see this other countries, other cities sponsoring like hundreds of manhole covers with some kind of promotion on it. I can see that happening. I mean, I can see Coca-Cola or McDonald's or multinational companies buying some real estate on the ground. It's kind of cool, right? And again, if you look up, you can see that this is where the electrical power is being drawn from here. A solar panel.

00:32:47 John Daub: This machine right up here is supplying the power to the manhole cover. Very cool, huh? This is the way to Sakura Town. Now I know. You can see because it's quite bright over there. Like Victorian England, early or late 19th century looking street, mist. It rained earlier today. Mysterious. Foggy. Looks a little bit foggy, but it's not that foggy. As you can see over here. Just over there because actually this over here used to be a forest, right? There's a forest inside of there. So there's a lot of trees. So I think that's what's causing the mist. All the trees and the wet, moist ground over there. Ooh, creepy. Could be yōkai over there.

00:33:58 John Daub: Actually went inside of Sakura Town about three hours ago. If you guys like this live stream, definitely give me a thumbs up. Encourage me to do some more. Like right now, click the thumbs up. Just do it right now. Do it. And don't forget to subscribe. This is a live streaming channel. This channel is all mobile live streaming and it's supposed to be casual. Kind of give you a new and a different point of view of Japan. For those of you that are confused, I have a main channel. My main channel is youtube.com slash John Daub. J-O-H-N-D-A-U-B. That's it. And you can go and see edited videos that are much, much shorter. And to the point.

00:34:40 John Daub: The point of these live streams is that you get a chance to feel the atmosphere. And get a chance to be here with me. And experience Japan in kind of a different way. You can activate the live chats and see what people are writing right now as well. And that's kind of cool. And that's why people subscribe. Be a part of it. I actually have to say that because I'm getting an increase of people saying, Why are the streams 720p? Not realizing that they're all mobile live streams and I can only stream in 720p. And that I have a second channel. That's really cool.

00:35:34 John Daub: Again, it's about 30 minutes to get here from Tokyo. But it's totally worth it, I think, to just come up, see the manhole covers. And then go over to Sakura Town and get something to eat. Or maybe spend the night in the anime hotel. Very cool. The anime hotel room is pretty neat. These manhole covers, by the way, if you're interested, they go on in the winter at 5pm. In the summer, I think it's at 6pm. And they go on until 2am. So after 2am, it gets dark again. I guess it's conserving power. And there's nobody to appreciate it at 2am. And if you're around at 2am, you're probably maybe a little bit tipsy or something. I don't think you stop to appreciate the manhole covers at 2am.

00:36:36 John Daub: This is, as I was saying before, it's a very local street. Very quiet. Alright. So there you go. Thanks so much for watching. I see Tony's here. Scott's in the house. Have a drink and snack. Thank you, Scott. Carruthers in the UK. Tony P. You're very welcome. Thank you, Tony, for joining. Thank you, Scott, as well. Thank you, everybody. We have a moon here in Japan. And you're going to have this moon in the US in 12 hours. So I think it's worth 13 hours ahead of New York.

00:37:38 John Daub: Have a great day, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. And I'll see you in another live stream tomorrow morning as I eat some ramen. I'm going to be eating ramen at the Sakura Town at a new ramen place that is an event hall for ramen. Meaning this place. And again, it's at 10am tomorrow. It's a hard live stream. It's going to happen at 10am Japan Standard Time. It rotates ramen chefs every month. So there's always a new ramen shop coming into this event place. It's going to be pretty awesome. And I'm looking forward to trying the ramen. Talking to people why they have this event at Sakura Town and in Tokorozawa of all places. And what is unique about the ramen that we have. And just ask a lot of general questions about ramen.

00:38:21 John Daub: So if you're interested about Japanese ramen, you're going to get a chance live to be able to talk to me about it. And I'll answer all the questions that you might have. As well as enjoy a bowl or two of really good ramen. I just had some ramen. Yeah, this would pretty much be ramen for breakfast. Right? Ramen for breakfast, manhole covers for dessert. There you go. I'm such a geek. Good night everybody. Thanks so much for watching. See you in the next live stream in about 12 hours from now.