00:00:02 John Daub: Everybody, welcome to Nagano. That's the new governor, shichō (mayor), the mayor of Nagano City. We're going to be starting the fireworks festival in about 10 minutes, but the mayor came out to this, which is awesome. Just the TV and the local people are here, which is really amazing. So I'm happy that all the community people from this area have come out to the riverbanks. Lots of kids. I want to show you around just to take a look before we go to a spot.

00:00:54 John Daub: You can see there really aren't a lot of people here, and this is what makes this really special. Just the local people turned out. And you can see there are some TV crews here. I've been asked a couple of questions, which is pretty interesting. A lot of people are going to hear "Only in Japan" a lot over the next 30 minutes anyways. I'm going to turn on my cameras and make sure I'm filming something. This is the documentary cameras that we have here, and the fireworks are going to start in about five minutes. So I'm just going to let this roll here.

00:02:25 John Daub: Oh, they're going to do a countdown. Now I heard that they have copyright music, so we're going to have to go to a different area because I don't want to mess this up and I want to get some clean booms for the documentary. I was here about three hours ago and I showed you what it looked like. It's pretty much just a farm out here. This is where in October 2019, this is completely flooded. The water coming over here and really wiping out a lot of areas around this part of Nagano City. And two years on, it feels really good that I've driven through here. I saw that they've been able to rebuild a lot of the area. They're in a much better situation, and today the locals have come out to watch this and the Nagano City mayor is here. So it's really exciting for me.

00:04:39 John Daub: I think this is the local Nagano channel right now. "Only in Japan." Woohoo! The people of the world are watching the live stream right now. My viewers are watching the live stream from anywhere in the world. Where are you watching from? Barbados, Guam, California, New York. That's right. Florida. I can see a lot of places. 20 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

00:06:32 John Daub: Oh my god. Wow. I'm going to escape from this area because of the copyright music. That was pretty awesome. I'm running to the other side. There are fireworks over there. From this area, we have a pretty nice view and we're far enough where I don't think the music is going to be impacting. Leo's asleep. I can't believe he's asleep.

00:08:08 John Daub: I'm going to record the sound right here. I'm going to go put this down here. Oh my gosh, this is so high. I put the recorder there. Don't let me forget that. Get ready. Let's get ready for the fireworks and I'll talk to you after when we have a little break. We have some time.

00:09:01 John Daub: Hey, what is this? That is some kind of character. Looks like an octopus, like a taco. I put two GoPros about five meters away from the launch zone. This is going to be awesome. We're so close. It looks like Anpanman, Shin-chan, right? Folks, these are number five fireworks shells. That's the biggest ones that they can launch. They're number five. And on November 27th, 28th, we're going to be launching number tens, which are shakudama (large spherical fireworks), which are way bigger than this.

00:10:57 John Daub: Leo, are you awake? He's awake. He's got a hat on and earmuffs so he doesn't break his ears. He's not even shocked. He's just enjoying this. The fireworks just started. For everybody who just joined us, these are the fireworks for the city of Nagano. Also purchased some fireworks. Not a lot, but this isn't going to be a very long event. I don't think any of my cameras are getting the fireworks up in the sky. I hope. I don't know if my cameras are high enough. I better go and check. I'm going to go back to the camera. Leo's crying.

00:13:13 John Daub: Next are the Nagano Ringo (Nagano apples), which is this area. My gosh, this is huge. Looks like that was an apple. Did you see that? Because this area of Nagano is famous for apples. That one's better from the side. Oh, that was a beautiful apple. How did they do that? Fireworks are coming at different levels. They're coming from this direction, straight ahead, from the left, from the right. And in the distance, there's some more fireworks. This is what I'm talking about when it comes to Japan, fireworks in Japan. There's just something so magical about it.

00:16:36 John Daub: Over there in the distance, you can see some going on. There's some really nice characters. This is the 8K camera taking it, but it's not getting much. This is the A7S III. And there's the GH5 down there. And that's straight up. GH5, are you okay? Whoa! Oh my gosh, that just hit me in the heart. That was art. They're right over my head. It's literally about 100, 150 meters away. It's really close. I think it might be less than that. It's just going. Oh, I missed it. It's a documentary. Don't worry. It's like every color of the rainbow is in there. Impressive!

00:20:41 John Daub: Okay, this lens doesn't have any purpose. Luckily, I got the GH5. All right, escape. Run away. Copyright, copyright. Get away. I think we're at a safe distance away from the speakers. This is actually pretty loud. It blasted some sort of American pop music. We're clear. Can't outrun sound. Okay, maybe it's okay, we're here. Where's Rio-kun? Over there. I ran so fast, I went right past Kanae and Rio. Oh, they're announcing "Only in Japan." They're talking about us. Yeah, you can still hear the music. We did ask politely not to have any copyright music, and some things got lost in translation, but the heart is there, okay?

00:24:27 John Daub: Here's our fireworks. Thank you everybody who supported this on Kickstarter. This is our part. This is all of ours right here. I hope it's awesome. This is awesome. Massive. They're so high. I'm having trouble. I can't cover them. They're too high. We're too close. I had to move the microphone. It's like rainbow colors. I love it. They know we love smileys too. Did you see the smileys? Oh, there's two more smileys. Oh, this is so epic. They know we love smileys because I told them. We'd like eight smileys. Massive. Smile overload.

00:27:39 John Daub: Oh, that's it. Finale. Like at a major fireworks festival. Like a major one. That was a finale at a major fireworks festival. Wasn't that? I can't believe we crowdfunded something so awesome. I can't believe we just did that. Oh my god. I'm hoping that the cameras for the documentary, all of them, all five of them picked up some really good footage for this. Because this is going to be, I can't wait to edit this tonight too. Oh gosh. Did you see that? It's just so quiet now. Only in Japan was about maybe 40% of it. There was a really nice children's fireworks before this. And then I guess that the city started a Ringo or apple fireworks. It wasn't very big. And then we had our Only in Japan tagged onto this. And this was viewed by television all over Nagano. And we didn't just inspire this community. We inspired this whole prefecture. And that's awesome. The Nagano City mayor was here. Got a chance to talk with him and tell him about how many viewers are watching from all over the world. And I'm just overwhelmed with emotion right now. For this community, this is a really big deal. There hasn't been a lot to really cheer for for a very long time.

00:30:04 John Daub: Just to let you know the background story of why I picked this area on the Chikuma River here in Nagano City. When Typhoon Hagibis came in here in October 2019, it kind of stalled over Nagano and created an amazing amount of flooding that devastated the area. It really did. And if you look at the pictures, I have it on the Kickstarter project. You can see what it looked like after the flooding. It reminded me of the images that we saw during the 3/11 tsunami. And you could see people had lost a lot. They'd lost their livelihoods. They'd lost everything. And then the pandemic hit and they really made it even harder. Volunteers wanted to come in here, but because of the pandemic, it was really hard. We still had thousands of people who made a really big difference. And now when I drove through the community here, it just looks so much different than what the images that I saw. For me, this is the start of something good for this community. And maybe for Japan, as the country starts to look into opening up its borders. There's been a travel ban that's been in effect for a very long time. It's affecting not just you and a lot of people that are trying to come to Japan. The travel ban is not just affecting the people who are waiting to come into Japan, it's affecting a lot of people here too that rely on tourism and rely on people from abroad coming here and supporting the businesses that they've created ever since Japan became a very popular destination.

00:31:45 John Daub: When I came here 23 years ago, Japan was not on a lot of people's radars, places to visit, at least not in the United States. In 1998, Europe was still really big. People went to Florida, the Caribbean, and close to the United States as an American. And now a lot of people are really interested and curious about Japan. And this makes me really happy as someone who's lived here for so long because it's an amazing country, Japan. And as you just saw, like the fireworks festivals and the hospitality from everybody here. It's just overwhelming. It's an experience that you won't forget if you do travel to Japan. And the travel ban has really hurt on both sides. And hopefully, with the pandemic simmering down and everybody getting vaccinated to come here, I do see it coming back. And in about a year or two, perhaps we don't even think about this anymore. We're just past it. So thank you so much once again for everybody for backing this project. It means a lot to me. I didn't think we were going to do it for a second year in a row. But with all of the cancellations and the way that the world was in 2021, it just seemed like the right thing to do. So I'm overwhelmed by the Only in Japan community for making this happen. I'm just overwhelmed. I didn't know what to expect and I was blown away. And as you saw with the fireworks, that Aoki-san just brought out his A-game.

00:33:33 John Daub: If you want to see what the setup looks like, I did a livestream earlier today to show you what it looked like during the daytime. And the documentary, I'll put that out as soon as I possibly can. Don't worry! There's more though. November 28th we'll be going to Yamanashi to film the shakudama. These are number fives, all right? They're like this big. All right, we got shakudama which are like watermelon sizes and we had Kickstarter supporters buy them all right and I bought one for Leo because he was born this year it's a celebrate and we're going to launch that on November 28th so there's more to this because you guys are just awesome and I hope we can you know do something again in the future I don't know but right now I'm just overwhelmed with emotions and on so many different levels. Oh my gosh I feel so alive. I know you're on the other side of this you're not here but it feels so different to be right in front. Everybody's seen fireworks but to be right here and be able to report to you.

00:35:13 John Daub: Thank you. Did you hear that? They're thanking us. It was our community that helped to make that last part of the fireworks festival. That's pretty awesome. She was saying thank you to you, thank you guys. People here are so healthy eating. We're driving through this community, it's all farms, it's awesome. I can hear Leo, he's gonna be the only baby here. New Yorker, new Yorker, hanabi (fireworks). Was it good, Leo? You don't want to see any more fireworks, huh? Did you get it? Was it scary? He's looking up to the sky. He doesn't want to see anymore. He's like, why is the sky on fire? Where's the blue sky? It's okay. Nothing happened anymore. It's past his bedtime.

00:37:17 John Daub: Alright, everybody. Thanks so much. I'm going to take my cameras down now. You can watch it in the playback if you want to see some more. I have the documentary coming. I'll start editing it right away. I'm not going to release it until December because we still have, as I said, one more fireworks festival on November 28th. Which is... Gosh, I'm looking forward to that one. Oh, it's still recording! I wonder, did I record anything? How does it look? Okay, good. Alright, it actually recorded. This is good news. And then I got two GoPros five meters away. And I told them... I told Aoki-san's staff down there and I said, I want to put this as close as I can get them. And he said, they might melt. And I said, awesome! Let's put it as close as we can put it. So we clipped it about five meters away. I would have clipped it right onto the cannon if I could. But you saw the way that it was spraying. I cannot wait to get the GoPro footage back. This is probably going to be the best of the best. It could be the GoPro is the winner right here. Because that middle ground where all the sprays are coming out, five meters away. It's going to be awesome.

00:38:59 John Daub: Alright, everybody. Thanks so much again for supporting. I could do this livestream all night long. But I'm not going to because I think Leo's crying and Kanae wants me to help get her back home. So I'll see you all. Make sure you give this a thumbs up and like it. And I will see you probably tomorrow as we walk through Nagano City. I'm going to take you to one of the temples in the center of Nagano. I think you know which one. Tomorrow for a walk and take a look around the front of Nagano Station. Gosh, I'm overwhelmed with emotion. It's so awesome. See you guys. Have a good night. Or good day, wherever you are in the world. Good morning, America. Bye-bye.