00:00:04 John Daub: Greetings! Welcome to Tokyo's Akihabara District. Right in front of you, you're seeing the remains of what was the Sega Game Center building number 2. It's gone. I'm in shock right now. I knew that it was going. I haven't been back in a couple of months. But this is the first time to see that they actually did remove all of the decals, the stickers, the colors. Check it out. There's nothing over there. The building's just closed down. And this is the grim reality.

00:00:38 John Daub: The grim reality of what Akihabara, what Tokyo has changed over the last year. Well, you international visitors have not been able to make it to Japan. In this live stream, I'm not just going to be taking you around Akihabara. I'm going to be taking you to the Kanda River and show you a different side of Akihabara. And tomorrow, Sunday morning—which is Saturday night in the United States—I'm going to be taking you to the east side of Akihabara, a side that a lot of tourists don't go to and show you some of the attractions there.

00:01:10 John Daub: So you're going to want to subscribe to the Only in Japan Go channel and the new channel, by the way, for some more adventures in Japan. This episode, I'm going to take you up and down Chuo Dori and just take a look and see how it's changed. Now, I love Akihabara. This is a place that's—for me, I prefer it compared to Shibuya, Harajuku. This area, it's a little bit too trendy for me. This area is part of Chiyoda-ku? No, it's part of Taito-ku and it has a lot of personality to it. I love Okachimachi and Ueno, which is just down the street. And Tokyo Station in Ginza is right down this way on Chuo Avenue.

00:01:48 John Daub: So for me, seeing Akihabara change, it's inevitable. But this is the result of a pandemic that has kept us all indoors. The places that we like to enjoy outdoors when we go out with friends, a lot of them are gone. And you're going to be surprised. So join me, buckle in for a nice 30 minutes or so episode in Akihabara. The place that probably many of you really like too. WX Turbo's in the house. Thank you. We're going to see if we can get to some gachapon (capsule toy machines), maybe get a vending machine as well. And we might loop around and I'll take you past some of the other places that I haven't hit before.

00:02:31 John Daub: But first, we'll start off going down Chuo Avenue, which is the main street. And just look at this building here. I'm in shock. Akihabara is famous for its video game centers. Now, just want to point out down the street, the Sega building number one is still there. So don't worry, it's not all gone. But Sega, it was written in the news, will be removing all of them. So the game center era is sort of finished because nobody is here to play the games. Maybe it'll come back. Maybe someone will start a new company called, I don't know, Sage.

00:03:13 John Daub: Sega is an institution here. Here's the old Sega number two building. This was such an iconic building. Look at the white tarp here, the windows. They've even removed the gachapon and UFO catchers and put in some Kitan vending machines. If you remember from the video a couple of months ago, when it was still in operation, they had a gachapon machine there. UFO catchers. And now it's all gone. And look at the hamster, little hamster tubes here. So different without the orange racing colors on the side of it. Just looks brand new.

00:03:47 John Daub: Somebody is going to take this building. I got a feeling that it's not going to stay vacant for long and probably sometime in 2021 it's going to become something. But whatever it becomes, it's got some big shoes to fill. Kind of sad. All right, let's make our way really carefully now. Social distancing towards Chuo Avenue. And I'm going to pull off of here. Again, on the weekend on Sunday, I'm coming back here to Akihabara to get another look at a different side with less people.

00:04:23 John Daub: I think that's going to be a different side of Akihabara that if you're going to stay here, you're going to want to know this whole neighborhood. What do you have in store? Jennifer French is in the house. Hey, Jennifer, I totally would. But you know what? We're going to get it on the way back. Let's circle around before we get into the food. Nobody wants to see me get a little bit of saliva all of this taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle) for an Akihabara live stream. Michael Sassana is in the house. Pick up a refreshing beverage. Actually, I could probably put that first on the list because I'm getting kind of thirsty. These masks are making me thirsty.

00:05:10 John Daub: Now I'm going to just kind of pan over towards Akihabara station. And for the next 45 seconds, I'm going to walk down in this direction just to give you a look and show you how the Electric Town exit looks today. December 2020. A lot of these shops are tax-free shops. They're not doing a lot of business. I know a lot of them are just holding on and trying to hope this tax-free business over here is gone. This one, I remember they had some speakers who could speak several different languages, including Chinese and Nepalese. They're gone. So this is going to become something else.

00:05:52 John Daub: Maidreamin, which is a maid cafe chain right there on the corner. They're sort of hanging on. But with the Go To Travel campaign off, it's going to be really hard. People are going to be staying inside. And I think those that were just hanging on by a thread are going to be gone. Only in Akihabara would you find a smokers cafe. Seriously, that's tobacco. They're very proud of their offerings. I want to just take a look at their offerings now. Catering to the smokers is something. Cigarettes, cigars, vaping—everything is OK. You got to be 20 to enter this free Wi-Fi. Twenty-seven seats and the drinks are pretty good. But you just have to go through a bill of smoke to get there. That's interesting, right? The smokers cafe. Only in Japan.

00:07:23 John Daub: Oh, they're not German, but could be interesting. I do like these. The Lion, Ginza Lion is Kanae Daub's father's favorite restaurant. All right. This is Radio Kaikan here. This is the iconic Radio Kaikan building. It used to go all the way up to here, but they moved it back and then built it up. And the new building opened up about 12 years ago. It's pretty nice inside. It's too nice. It loses the feeling of the Showa era, which I kind of miss. I wonder if this Pablo's has gone out of business. This is the Pablo Mini stand. It looks like it's out of business here. Well, they're closed on November 30th. Oh, man. Well, someone's going to snag up this property. That's super sad. I never ate there. I think it's an Osaka thing, but I feel pretty sad about it.

00:08:42 John Daub: So here's Akihabara station right there. Seems to be doing OK. It's a station. There's going to be passengers and you do get a view from the platform right there. If you find the right position so you can look down this street from the platform, a lot of photographers take a picture. That's kind of a secret spot right up there. This is the Tsukumo building number four, and I don't think this is going to be here when you come to visit in 2021. I think we're going to lose that. But this is the Tsukumo building. Tsukumo is closed and in a live stream I actually went inside and rode those hamster tubes. So if you want to go back to the history of Only in Japan Go, we rode those hamster tubes one last time. Rest in peace, Akihabara Tsukumo building.

00:09:43 John Daub: It wasn't always Yamada Denki. It was a different type of shop before. Different owners have had this building. Yamada Denki, which is a big national electronics store chain, was the last owners of it. And we don't know what's going to happen. But my feeling is that if this building is gone and then Sega pulls out, they might just tear down all these buildings and build a skyscraper here. That's my feeling to try to maximize this. This is for when things are better in a time like this—building for the future. But the last look of Sega here. Sorry, this is a lot longer than I wanted to spend. I'm just a little bit shocked that some more buildings that I hadn't expected were out of business. Let's go here. That adult department store. This is for adults only. You're going to find some weird stuff in there that still looks like they're still open.

00:10:45 John Daub: All right, let's go over to back down Chuo Avenue. We'll cut through Akihabara station. Hey, Vic from Canada. Thank you. Welcome. Air to the Ron. That's great. You guys are joining me for this. Whoa, shoe cream. Oh, that looks so good. All right, I'll be back. I'm kind of want to stay on focus here. Stay on target. It's like when Luke Skywalker was going to destroy the Death Star. Imagine if he saw some shoe cream stand and said, "Sorry, Obi-Wan. I'm just going to take a detour. I'll be back later." I wanted to come to this other side here because I wanted to show you that the AKB48 Cafe is gone. That might come as a shock to some people. But that's Akihabara station.

00:12:01 John Daub: This side of the station was renovated not too long ago, maybe about seven, eight years ago. It's so beautiful. There's the UDX building. Here's the Keihin-Tohoku line pulling in the UDX building right there, which has some pretty good event halls. That was the MC for a live stream for American universities appealing to Japanese students. That was kind of fun. That was like eight years ago now. And the AKB48 Cafe has now become Super Gundam Cafe. So, well, you lose one and you get another. Hey! I saw that pigeon went right through my shot. There may be less people here, but there are certainly a lot more pigeons. A lot more.

00:13:01 John Daub: Back to the stream. So the Gundam Cafe has expanded. So for some people, that might be a good thing. For others, there might be a tear shed. I'm no fan of AKB48. So more Gundam is good for the world. And let's face it, Gundam is protecting us all. These are mobile suits that will destroy us and everybody else. So good on them. Go Gundam. How you doing, everybody? Welcome to Akihabara. This is a live stream in beautiful 720p. Hey, don't blame the messenger. Blame YouTube. And this is the 4G LTE signal is strong here. We should be able to get HD and a 5G signal once 5G gets to more places here. So just subscribe and stick around. And since I started this in 2017, the signal strength has gotten only better and better. So mobile live streaming is just going to get better and better, too.

00:14:19 John Daub: There in front of us now is Sega building number one. And I'm looking left and right right now to just try to see what has changed and what hasn't since I last came here. If you see something that's changed, give us a shout out. Now, this building here on the left side, I've brought you here many times. This is old money. I guess that's one way to say that. But I don't want them to go out of business either. This is all going back all the way to the Showa period where these electronic store owners, all local people. Many of them are second, third, fourth generation. It's like father and son type of thing. They've been selling these really cool police lights. This part, 20 parts. They've been selling these awesome police lights and LEDs for decades since I first came here in 1998.

00:15:20 John Daub: Oh, we lost the business right here on the corner. What was this? Oh, they used to have—I can't remember what this was. Was this a Kentucky Fried Chicken? Maybe. Does anybody remember? No, that wasn't Sega. But this one, this building is now gone, too. Oh, no, no, no. OK, wait, hold on. This is a new building. I guess they've just reconstructed it. It looks brand new. Or they're seriously renovating it because I could see a worker up there. The combined sign up there is empty, so we'll probably see some things around. Nobody is buying advertising next to it is a brand new building. I know that for sure.

00:16:43 John Daub: All right, let's cross the street for a second. We're going to be on the lookout for anything that has changed. I'm doing this partly out of my own curiosity as somebody who loves the city of Tokyo. I'm always looking to see how it's changed, what's new, what's happening. I'm kind of walking wide to try to social distance. So this is the Sega building number one. And let's see if they have any signs saying if they're going to close or anything. Now, I knew from the news that Sega filed for bankruptcy, I believe the Sega World section of it. I think I'm right on that. So I'm not sure what they're going to do, but they do have alcohol pumps in the front here. And the UFO catchers are still here. Not that many people playing the UFO catcher games. And here the coronavirus protocols: wear mask, no loud speaking, social distancing and wipe your hands with alcohol. And they might do temperature checks. They're doing their best to try to hang on. And you have to feel for the businesses.

00:18:16 John Daub: K.Y.Q. Hi, John. I've been a fan of yours for several years now. Sega did sell their arcades, but the new company will continue to run them and keep the Sega brand. Awesome. Thank you for the piece of information. I've been doing my best to stay on top of this, but there's so much information that's always coming. I appreciate that. So Sega will still be here. I don't know if the other ones that have left will be coming back, but they certainly did have a lot of property in Akihabara, and that's really hard to maintain. Especially with not a lot of customers. I don't know the official data, but the amount of tourists coming here is like 0.01% of what it used to be. And that's understandable. A lot of it is turned from international tourism to try to take advantage of the domestic tourists with people like me.

00:19:04 John Daub: All right, look, we got to take a quick look at the gachapon here. Oh, these are like little wire ports. There's a doggy riding wire ports. Pretty cool. Gachapon is so creative. Look at this. Just regular like toilet sandals or something. Outdoor sandals, different colors. Here's different sushi with some weird dude on them. Oh, keyboard vacuum cleaners. That's kind of neat. These are like stuff you'll never see. Look at the little teeny electrical appliances, which really fits into the Akihabara theme. And down there you can recycle the gachapon balls, which is good to know. Just waiting for the street to cross.

00:20:02 John Daub: The Tokyo Radio Department store is still in business, and that makes me happy. Me and Scotty from the Strange Parts channel had gone in here and interviewed a couple of people on something that he was doing a project, and it seems like they're still in business. That is good news. Looks like Christmas. Hey, Joseph Keith Fernandez. Welcome new traveler. Trevor Beck's here. Dad, is that you? Don't forget to stop by somewhere to get a drink. I'm going to get around, see if I get a taiyaki or something. Jennifer French still on my mind. I appreciate it. Here's another Sega in the back here. Is this a Sega one that just connects up here? KFC, which has a Christmas box here. I think they're finished. So if you had a reservation for a Kentucky Fried Chicken box for Christmas, you have to make a reservation. You can't just go on the day and get your chicken. And to be honest, I'm not a big fan of chicken. Not a lot of Japanese do that. I think the foreign media kind of makes it a big deal. But you can't blame Kentucky Fried Chicken for trying their best. Right, Colonel?

00:21:40 John Daub: Oh, let's see how this machine is. Wow. Nobody is buying them. Usually you'll have one or two sold out, but nobody has bought any of them. So you can see the world economy. People just not having any disposable income or any foreign tourists. Nobody has purchased anything in the mystery vending machine here. I've never really gotten anything good out of it. They have like keto bowls, tanks, cameras. I've never gotten any of that stuff, but I know he does put it in there because I saw inside. I know the CEO. He opened the machine for me and I kind of remembered and I went back there the next day. But I guess they changed it all around or they were sold out again.

00:22:26 John Daub: If you look down this street, it's going to be hard for me to social distance, but I'm going to try. This is where there's a lot of maid cafes and you can tell right now that there's not one maid on this street. I don't see one maid and that is bizarre. There's always an army of maids, which in itself is pretty incredible, but I don't see one. There's usually a ninja maid. There's some kind of Victorian England maid. They're all gone. Not one maid. Is anybody else think that this is weird? Or say I remember there was a stream a couple of years ago where you went inside a small flea market. Is that still there? No, it's not. Those are all gone. That store, that market is totally gone. And what they do though on the weekends is you'll see them spilled from the outside there onto the streets around there. So you'll still see people selling like old things from the third and fourth floor of these old electronic stores from the 1980s. They're still sold, but just on the sides of the roads. You can find stands a little bit further up there.

00:24:08 John Daub: Now we're going up to the avenue, so I'm going to wrap back around. But yeah, I'm seeing that there is a lot of business that has left us. This shop looks like it is closed down. Super Potato is always going to be here. I believe this is one that's in the hearts of a lot of old retro gamers. And let's just see if they're still open. There's one maid out of a million of them. Crazy. So Super Potato is still here. Nothing has changed. That's good news. I think that they can stay in business because they have a pretty good mail order business. So if you can internet shop, that's the Akihabara that I know. All these like random parts fans for a computer that you build yourself. I love that just right here on the street.

00:25:17 John Daub: Bradshaw Studio. Yes, Sony is going out of business. No, they're not. Really? They just released the PlayStation 5. All right. I'll tell you this. My A7S3 camera fell off the tripod two days ago in Kochi because of the wind. And I thought it was fine. But the mic port broke. So I get to wait three weeks while they repair my A7S3. So that's at home. This is one of the first maid cafes. The first ones and they're still in business. But I think with the Go To Travel campaign closed, I don't know if even that chain is going to be around. Maid cafes consolidated into chains. Really, there's maybe five or six. One really big one, Maidreamin. And then there's a few smaller ones. And then everything that was on the fringe is sort of underground now. So we will see.

00:26:25 John Daub: All right. We're going to walk down now to the avenue. We started here at Manseibashi and we're going to walk up to the avenue and come back around. Let's see if there's anything else that we've lost. Well, we lost a tree. I don't think it has anything to do with the pandemic, though. It's kind of cool. So when you come back to Tokyo, that tree will be shorter or have less leaves. It's kind of a fact. A weekday is the best time to come. But I'm not going to stay away on the weekends. There's no way you can't get me out here on the weekends. We're going to wrap around here and come back. And if you do want to see me get some—oh, that looks like that shop is going out of business. Click the like button and I will extend this live stream by another 10 minutes or so. It's up to you. Now we've got 1500 people watching. See if we can get up to 800 likes. It's up to you, community. This is where we get some community wins. Keep me walking. Click the like button.

00:28:01 John Daub: So if I look across the street, it's kind of neat. The dudes are climbing the—I think that's a ginkgo tree. Wow. They're really chopping it down. All right. We're going to walk up a little bit more. See how the city is doing. These were put in last year. I think they give Wi-Fi out and touch menus, but no one's going to touch them. I don't think I was going to touch it. I'm going to wrap around here at the next road crossing. I think this is going towards Suehirocho, which is the next subway station. But this is just a little bit further. And if you follow this road up, you go to Ueno. Takes you straight to Ueno Park. I don't think we lost too many businesses here. But down in the back streets there, the alleys, there are some businesses that are just emptied out buildings. It kind of makes me sad.

00:29:21 John Daub: Mr. Donut is still here. They're still selling the Pokemon donuts, I believe. Yeah. I see some Pokemon balls there. They still have some of the Pokemon ball donuts. There's the Don Quijote up there. That won't be going out of business. It's an off-duty maid. There aren't that many maid cafes open. I mean, how do you do it? How do you keep social distance? You know, if you want social distance, play a video game. Hard. I don't see a lot of the—I see all these buildings just hanging on. I don't know if they're going to still be here. I don't know if they're going to be here in 2021. But the end of the year, it's worth doing a walk through here just to take a look.

00:30:43 John Daub: All right. Where's there a crosswalk? I kind of want to go across the street now. Follow these guys. Run, run, run. So Tsukumo, I guess this is the other Tsukumo. I don't know. But I guess they moved out of that building because the real estate prices are high and they moved over here. This is the Don Quijote. And this we bought like a matcha thing. They have like melts. That looks really good. Wow. Okay. If you're thinking of the secret shrine, that's not going to be going out of business and that's going to be here. You can still walk that street and they cannot close it because it is a public street. I researched the history of this, so they can't close it, but they can try.

00:31:50 John Daub: Do you see this right here? That alley is public road, so you cannot keep people from walking through there unless it's under construction. I researched this. It goes all the way back to the Edo period. Public road grandfathered in law. Interesting. All right, we're going to walk down Chuo Avenue back down and just see what's changed again on Sunday. If you're watching YouTube on Sunday, Sunday morning, you're going to be on the other side of Akihabara. I'm going to be on the other side of Akihabara to bring you a less populated, probably maybe even more interesting area. I know a lot of people have seen this side, the east side of Akihabara, closer to the Kanda River. It's pretty interesting. And there's some neat stores that I think you might want to check out. So that's what we're going to take a look at on Saturday night, Sunday morning, weather permitting.

00:33:06 John Daub: Just so you know, this is like not the top quality Kobe beef. Okay. It says Kobe beef. But it's not Kobe beef. I've already tried this out with Peter von Gomm. It's not real. Well, it might be real, but it's not the same. Oh, mochi cheese, mentaiko, takoyaki (octopus balls). Should I do it? Should I do it? Taiyaki? Jennifer French? Taiyaki? Or takoyaki? This is a hard one. It's hard. Oh, man. Jennifer said yes. Okay, back. There are crepes too. That one's got an Oreo in it. All right, let's just do takoyaki because I can. I like that. Mochi cheese mentaiko. 6 minutes. Please give me 6. I forgot my point card. Thank you. I forgot my point card. Oh, no. It's all right.

00:36:10 John Daub: There's the Don Quijote mascot right there. All right, let's go to the end of the street and eat it where there's no traffic. And where I don't burn my mouth. Let's give this thing like five seconds to chill. I'm going to chill down. You know what's going to happen if I eat it right now. There's always some sort of weird stuff here. You know, you just look and you'll find some really weird stuff in these little side shops. It's inexplicable. All right, let's keep going. We're still on the search on how Akihabara has changed. And then when I get to the end of the street here, we're going to stop, eat some takoyaki, and I'll take some of your questions because I'm interested to hear what you think about this.

00:37:00 John Daub: I like the history of whenever I see these signs, I always thought Kanda Sarashi-rocho. This neighborhood was once called Kanda Sarashi-rocho. It is said that the name derived from the fact that in the late 18th century land that had been used by a retainer of the Shogun was offered as alternative land for people who had been displaced from a nearby town to make way for a fire break. Interesting. So back in the olden days, we saw that. In Akita, in an old samurai town, they had actual fire breaks where there was a large area with nothing there. So if a fire had come through, it would stop right there. Interesting. Tokyo is always changing.

00:38:09 John Daub: We're fascinated by what they're doing here. It's a little bit of autumn. Akihabara is always changing. Awesome. Hey, look, this construction dude's looking at gachapon. They do have a pretty good selection here. Always look on the ends because this is the more popular place here. Whoa, little Doraemon vault bags. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, not too many things on the ends here. What is that? Uh, that's Animal Crossing. That's a Nintendo game, right? Interesting. All right. I'm walking the outside, trying to get to the end of the street here, avoiding people.

00:40:01 John Daub: That above us going by there is the Chuo Line. Or is that the Sobu Line? I always get them mixed up. I got to see the colors. I think in the distance, the orange one is the Chuo Line. And this is the Sobu Line, which is going between Chiba and cutting across towards Shinjuku and Kichijoji. These shops here are still doing okay. For now. Oh, are these the 5G? That could be the 5G units right there. Interesting. That's an old Toyota Century right there. Whoa, how cool is that? All right, we're going to be making our way just straight up here where there's less people. But I'm really amazed how much this area has changed, huh? And I'll be back here. And this is the Chuo Line. I'm going to be back here in this area next year in January just to do another walkthrough. I think it's pretty interesting to see how Akihabara is changing. Where it used to be really focused on international tourists, now Akihabara is very much on the domestic side and it's not doing as well. It's hard to pivot.

00:42:01 John Daub: The taiyaki place in Akihabara was the first place I ate at on my first day in Tokyo back in 2019. Whoa! Yeah, that's right here, right? Taiyaki place on the corner. They'll still be here. And they have strawberry chocolate and bacon and egg. What? I gotta try that. I think I've had that before. All right, we'll try a bacon egg one. So Jennifer French gets double. Bacon egg, please. Yes, I'll eat it. I've never seen a breakfast taiyaki before. Thank you. Wow! I've never seen a breakfast taiyaki before. This is getting weird. We're gonna have to open this up first. Okay. Keep it real. This is massive. I've never seen this before. You know, only in Akihabara you have to innovate. People like taiyaki, they're going to like taiyaki with bacon and egg.

00:44:21 John Daub: Safety first. Just the volume on this thing. I'm like looking for cream. Instead, I see a piece of egg sticking out of it. What? Interesting, right? Wow, that's nasty. Whoa. It's got that half-boiled egg in there. Check that out. This is really, really good. Wow. It's starting to come out. Satisfaction limit met. So this was the first taiyaki shop that somebody had visited back in a couple of years ago, did you say? I can see why they're staying in business. They've innovated and now you can get breakfast in a taiyaki. Hmm. Good stuff. See the piece of bacon in there. It's pretty good. Four out of five. It doesn't have—it's a little bit too doughy. I prefer an English muffin maybe. Little too doughy. Too good.

00:46:28 John Daub: Behind me, for those that are still watching, this is the old Sega number two building. Out of business. Let's go. Wait a second. Nathan McSprane's here. That's the innovation of a little too much sake one night. Could be. Japanese sake has, in itself, innovated a little bit. I saw that some sake brewers in the last 10 years found a way to extract even more flavor by using centrifuges. Massive centrifuges to extract more purity out of the sake. And the centrifuged sake actually sells for three times more expensive. Three times more. All right. Now what we're going to do now—this is up to you. I want to get to a thousand likes in this live stream because that means we did a successful job. I want to take you over to the old vending machines. The weird vending machines. See if they're still there. If we can get to a thousand likes in the next one minute or so, I'll go and take you there. I might do it anyways, but just humor me. Make me—let's all feel good and accomplish something today.

00:48:02 John Daub: All I gotta do is go to the end of the street after the bridge and make a left and we'll be at the very weird and strange vending machine. I'm going to eat the takoyaki there and we'll do a little Q&A. But it's up to you. Let's see if we can get to that 1000 like threshold, which we rarely do on a live stream. That's my bike over there. So lonely. We're a hundred likes away. I know we got this. That's one of my favorite bridges. The one where the Sobu line is crossing it right now. I love that bridge. Oh, we're like 60 likes away. This is incredible. We're doing it. Small little achievements. Whoa. We're like 16 away. This is incredible. We did it. Look at this. Power of the people. Community. Whoa, 999. We're going to see the Shinkansen rolling by as we just passed 1000 likes. Awesome. All right, I'm heading there. You've done it. And now I'm going to do it. Let's go deep into the heart of this area of Tokyo.

00:49:49 John Daub: And the next time when I come back here on Sunday morning, Saturday night in the United States, I will take you here as well. We'll get a chance to see. Maybe I'll get a couple of things at the end of the day. I'll take a look at this vending machine. Oh, it's still here. Check it out. I remember I did a livestream with Peter von Gomm. One of the first livestreams that Peter joined me on was right here. This is the weird vending machine corner. That's sort of an art project with popcorn, bugs. And we'll explore this next time a lot more. Well, look at the bugs in here. Now I know what to get Kanae Daub for Christmas. Spaghetti sauce. Is it still haunted? I think it might be. Hold on. Last time we came in here—oh, it's so nasty in here. There was, above this vending machine, steps that led to some random neighborhood. I'm going to get out of here. This is creepy.

00:51:25 John Daub: Each one of these has an item. It has a story attached to it that's quite weird. Do they still have the bear curry? I'm a big fan of looking at it, not eating it. No, I don't see bear curry. Oh, they do have like pills. What? Interesting. Some weird stuff in there. I'm not quite sure what that is. Oh, there's yakitori in a can. Oh, look at that. That's azarashi curry? What? It's like seal. That's nasty. No way. I'm not going to. I can't. Just no. Alright, let's try this takoyaki because we can. I'm not going to do seal. Not unless I'm like in the North Pole or something. Itadakimasu. Oh, I'm so happy right now. I'm not going to pay $10 for a can of seal curry. I'm not hardcore enough. Done. It smells so good. Look at that. Congealed cheese, mayonnaise, sauce, seaweed. Ah, I love it. It has just cooled down enough. It's cooled down enough that I won't get burned.

00:53:22 John Daub: This might be the best one. Besides the normal takoyaki, this one with the mentaiko cheese mayonnaise is just so good. This is an Akihabara. Well, no. The main shop near Tsukiji, that's the first one from this chain. But when in Akihabara, you have to go with simple street foods. Mmm. I love just the rumble of the trains going by, right? That's so Akihabara. Wow, look at that cheese on there. Mmm. Urban Raiten. Get some seal curry. Look at that seal curry. Look at this. That looks strangely like takoyaki. Wow. Seal curry looks so familiar. Wow. No, that didn't work. Internet rejects my plea.

00:55:00 John Daub: Darkzaku has no comment. Isn't seal supposed to be super fatty? Yeah. Foul. I'm trying my best. Tortoroporco. If John is brave enough to bungee, seal curry is nothing. I cannot do seal curry on the street. It's uncooked. Alright. We got some fails. No. Mmm. I will tell you what. I'll tell you what. I should get double chin cam right here. On Sunday I will get your seal curry then. If it's still here. I will get it. I have to get back. That was incredible. So there you have it. I will be back for this. Urban Ravon. Urban wants this badly. It says it's spicy. So we're gonna have to come back here on Sunday morning. Look, it's even special made. Aww. And I gotta bring a—look, I gotta prepare for this. I gotta bring a can opener. How am I gonna cook it? That's weird. I don't know. I gotta get some rice. Can opener.

00:57:16 John Daub: I don't even wanna know what that is. Oh, it's gold coins. Okay. I don't wanna show you anymore or else you're gonna make me buy more stuff. What is that? Just like jam. Weird. If I show more stuff, Urban's gonna make me buy more. What is that curry? Deer curry. From Hokkaido. Ezo shika (Hokkaido deer). It's a weird one. I prefer to eat the deer curry than the sea lion seal curry. Oh, there's chocolate chip bread in a can. Just coconut milk. Which probably Kanae Daub could use, but that's too much for coconut milk. 10 bucks. And just for the record, Urban, that can of sea lion curry is like 15 bucks. I can't believe I'm gonna buy that tomorrow. Or on Sunday. Please, somebody—I hope it sells out. Maybe that sea lion seal curry will go good with some canned bread. Just some canned lychee for dessert. I could do lunch here, maybe. I don't know how I'm gonna heat it up. But that's it, folks.

00:59:00 John Daub: I've been going for... Urban, why? Why do you have to do that? It's weird. What is this green can? Why is this can green? Why? How do they do this? How do they make it green? Matcha coke? I don't know. It says original. Alright, folks, this is just weird. Okay, I gotta get out of here. There's some bad vibes going on here. I don't know. Alright, folks, I wanna say thanks to everybody. We're gonna end this year with loads of livestreams and I have a ton of edited episodes. My location shooting for this year is done. I'm gonna be staying here in Tokyo and trying to stay safe. Some indoor camping is coming. But Sunday morning, I'll be back here—Saturday night in the US. Probably like around 10am-ish or so to bring you Akihabara on the east side. And I might start here, unfortunately, for Urban's seal. I can't believe I'm gonna do this. Have a good day. Have a good night, everybody. I will probably have livestream in between then. I'll see you tomorrow from Akihabara. Thanks for watching, everybody. It's different Tokyo than we saw last year, isn't it?