00:00:05 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to the base of the Nakagin Capsule Tower building. You can see a lot has changed over the last two weeks since I was here. First off, they've completely closed off the entrance. There's now a wall all around it. This is where you would be able to go into the Nakagin Capsule Tower. Now, no longer can you do that. And as I pan up, you can see the scaffolding. They're putting it in place to remove each of the capsules.

00:00:32 John Daub: It actually takes quite a bit of work. I'm going to show you around the back side, the front side. We're going to go all around this thing and take another look at this. I know that some of you might be wanting to look at pictures of food, take a trip to other areas of the country, see airports, and I don't know, see the world's most expensive toilet and things like this. But for me, this is sort of a really big deal. This is the city of Tokyo. In fact, Japan and the architectural world losing one of its really most groundbreaking buildings. The fact that it's even here is amazing.

00:01:11 John Daub: Kisho Kurokawa built this in 1970. It celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. It was completed in 1972 to 2022. And on its 50th anniversary, it's being disassembled. I'm kind of glad, and I'm quoting PVG here. I'm kind of glad that they're not taking a wrecking ball to this and just destroying the whole thing. They're disassembling it in a very respectable way to preserve and return some of the capsules back to the owners and take some of them off to the museum. That's a good thing.

00:01:47 John Daub: So despite the fact that this building is going to say goodbye to us all, they are going to be well-preserving what is here. And I guess that's a consolation. We're seeing more and more in the news, some of these capsules being transported to other museums. And in fact, if you Instagram search Nakagin Capsule, you could see local residents from apartment buildings all around showing this building from different angles. There are construction workers up there, like ninjas, setting up the scaffolding.

00:02:22 John Daub: The Asian Nerd writes in here, "Goodbye, Capsule Tower. Thank you, John, for giving us a chance to witness the last moments of it." I'll be back when they start to disassemble the capsules. I think it's pretty interesting to go through and see each one of the steps. This won't be a very long live stream. I know that a lot of you don't get the notifications until 30 minutes in, which is one reason why the videos are a little bit longer than normal. You don't have to watch till the end. But this is a live stream. So when you can watch it live, it's a little more impressive, I think.

00:03:03 John Daub: Hope the signal's okay. I think we can go to the other side of the street here. There's no crosswalk, so you really have to be careful. But from this angle, you can see a lot more of the building. Panning up and you can see from this angle, maybe a little bit better. The scaffolding is about halfway up on one side. And I don't know how they're going to be demolishing this building. And by demolishing, I mean by removing capsule one by one.

00:03:58 John Daub: Yeah, I see PVG's in the house. Yeah, I'm not going to fly a drone unless you're going to bail me out. This is like close to some of the embassies as well. Peter von Gomm and I do know another YouTuber who did fly a drone in Roppongi, not that far away from the Russian embassy. And the police, within a minute, found him hiding in a Starbucks. You know who that was too. One day when he can return to Japan, perhaps we'll interview him about flying drones in the city of Tokyo. You just don't do it.

00:04:29 John Daub: Saying goodbye to the capsule tower. I always want to say hotel because the word capsule is so synonymous with hotel. This one was a capsule residence. And if we pan up here. That sign is so rusted. And if you've ever been on the expressway right above me, you've traveled and driven right past this. And seeing these capsules. It was just so cool. Kind of like driving through a video game. It made the landscape of the city of Tokyo so much more interesting.

00:05:11 John Daub: And I don't know what it's going to be replaced with, but a lot of the buildings these days are just like generic glass towers, which I guess corporations like to move into. It's a lot safer than this. A big Jenga. PVG writes in here, the expressway gives you an awesome vantage point of the capsule tower. It does, and you should get your camera, with your 360 camera, and do a drive-by just for archival. Again, it's celebrating its 50th anniversary by being disassembled. I love it.

00:05:46 John Daub: There are some places nearby, there are some museums in the area that are selling 50th anniversary goods like t-shirts and things like that. And it's now kind of sad, but there used to be a "save the Nakagin Capsule Tower." We filmed that last time we were here. I think that that capsule in particular has been removed. So the ones here where the scaffolding base are have been taken out from the Nakagin Capsule Tower so that they have removed a couple of the capsules. And it was a pretty challenging job to do that.

00:06:16 John Daub: So I guess, is there like one screw on the top, but you unscrew that and they all just fall apart? I don't know how Kisho Kurokawa wanted to have these capsules removed. How were they supposed to be? I wonder if they still have the blueprints and the plans from the archives. I don't know if they had the architect at the time or the builders on how to take these apart. It'd be cool to interview some of the people in the construction business to find out like what are they going to do. But I'm going to be back over the course of the next few months. Maybe PVG will join me. We could ride on his motorbike on the back and do a drive-by. I don't know.

00:07:02 John Daub: But it would be really interesting to see them disassemble a building like this. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. I think a lot of you might be living in European countries where they have this funky architectural style. Has anyone anywhere ever seen anything like this? The only places that I could see with wacky designs, like I remember Prague, Germany. There's some weird ones in Austria. The UK is getting weird, buildings that have glass that melt cars. Things like that.

00:07:34 John Daub: I'm going to take you around back in a second here. On this side of the tower you can see where they've already taken down a few floors of the Nakagin Capsule Tower building. And as I said to those that are joining us now that saw it before, they've closed the entrance of the Nakagin Capsule Tower building. That white partition there, that white wall is where it used to be. It's a very historic thing to me. It's a very personal thing to a lot of people that live here. I live in this area and Ginza's my backyard. So this, it's only about a 10 minute bicycle ride for me to get here.

00:08:30 John Daub: Let's walk around the other side here. Take a look around. I swear I'm looking at black and white video. Is it that bad? Or is it the building is just so black and white? Joy writes in, the building is black and white. That's true. And I'm glad it is because it was like pink or something. Orange, red and yellow. It would be an eyesore.

00:09:12 John Daub: It wasn't until a tree showed up. Now you can see from the backside, they've removed the one capsule here. And I guess it was, you can see a little bit of the inside of it. Might have been suspended. I really don't know. But it's really getting interesting to see. The underside of the building that we've been, I've been in Japan for 23 years and I've known this building that whole time. And to know Tokyo without this building is a little bizarre.

00:09:53 John Daub: But we've seen Harajuku Station go. We've seen some very famous game centers go. So it's nothing new to the city of Tokyo. The city's always evolving because of the earthquake proofing, the old Showa buildings built after World War II. And some of the ones built in the 60s and 70s just aren't up to code. Because if we do get a very large Shindo 7 big earthquake and we have some big ones just in the last couple of months, these buildings don't do well. And I believe it suffered some structural damage during the great Tohoku earthquake over 10 years ago.

00:10:27 John Daub: But the backside of it, you can see how the capsules here are. Let's walk around the front of it. Let's go through the backside this way. If the signal gets bad, just let me know. And if you're watching this in playback a day after, turn on the live chat. So you can see what some of the comments are. A lot of people are sharing their travel experience and adding in notes that I think are pretty critical to this and the history of it. But I'm somebody who likes to do these walks because it preserves some of the history.

00:11:12 John Daub: Is that the Yakult woman? Yakult is like this yogurt drink and they still deliver it by hand. Yakult girls, these ladies, sometimes there's a guy who will take these little yogurt drinks into businesses or homes that order it in bulk or something. It's kind of neat to see. Like the milk delivery person from the 1950s, the milkman. Craig, I completely agree with you. It is super sad and that's why I'm going to be here a few times. I just hate losing. Like I don't mind losing some of the buildings from the 1970s. But this one is, you know, I was born in the 70s, right? PVG can relate. You know, we were born, I think you were born in the 60s. I was born in the mid 70s. So this building and I, we were almost the same age.

00:12:22 John Daub: Here's the back of it. You can see there's some capsules. Yeah, I'd love to see some new Metabolist buildings going up. I'm not a PhD in architecture or anything like that. But when I see something beautiful, I really do admire it. I'm not really impressed by the shape and structure of buildings inspired by it. This is one of them. That's why it kind of stinks that it's going. Look, they've boarded up. You remember I was here a couple of weeks ago. Now this whole wall is closed off here. You can't even see inside of the maintenance room, which is on the side here.

00:13:13 John Daub: In fact, from this corner, it's very hard to see because the scaffolding is going up. So I'm not sure what we're going to be able to see in a couple of weeks. But it looks like they've removed some paneling and some things on some of the capsules. It looks like multiple washing machines glued together. It's a good comment. It really does. The round windows at the time were super futuristic. Like you could jettison this. I guess this is before Star Wars, right? This might have been an inspiration for Star Wars or for some of the space movies in the late 70s. You know, maybe George Lucas. George, if you're watching, just write in and say hi. Or Mr. Spielberg. Great directors that were inspired by some of the unique things coming out of Japan.

00:14:23 John Daub: We all know that Darth Vader was inspired. The costume by some of the armor from. Look at that. They stopped by. They stopped in their taxi to get a picture. And then they're going to get back in the taxi and then ride off. That's pretty cool. This is running to get a better shot from the back. Ma'am, you should probably go to the front and the other side or take the taxi. Go on the expressway. Highly recommend this side. There's no scaffolding, but you can see the net has been on. The nets have been on here for quite a while. And I think that the ropes, do you see the ropes there? Is that new? But that might be just to keep them structurally together in cases of earthquakes. So they don't just topple down. I don't know. I'm only guessing.

00:15:18 John Daub: I don't know anybody that has contacted the building supervisors or construction. Don't run in the expressway, but from the car window on the expressway, you can get a really wonderful shots of the building. In fact, I've seen a couple from Instagram of those that were working in these buildings and have actually tried to go into some of these buildings to get a shot. You can't go too high or else you're just looking down on the roof of it. But if you go up to about this level here, you can see it. However, you can't get up to those office buildings without a pass. And hey, if you work there, give me a call. I'd love to take all of you and show you a really unique view of this wonderful capsule tower before it gets torn down.

00:16:06 John Daub: I have my 8K Sony A1 with me. So I'm getting a lot of background videos on this kind of architectural style before it's dismantled and put into a museum. It's different when you find it in the wild. I'm going to go back to this bridge and then walk over to the other side to get a complete picture of the Nakagin Capsule Tower. And then I'm on my way out. So the scaffolding is going up. I guess they're going to go all the way to the very top. Japan emphasizes safety in everything that they do. So it does take a little bit more time. But when you have earthquakes that could happen at any time, I really hope that these guys are ninjas because they could cling to the side of the building should anything happen.

00:17:23 John Daub: Let's go to the other side here. Everybody who walks by it stops and takes a picture. Welcome to Shiodome. I guess this area would be the Shimbashi Shiodome Higashi Ginza area. It was raining a little bit as I was riding my bicycle over about 20 minutes ago. Let's go up the bridge here. There's the Don Quixote across the street underneath the highway. Weather is 62 degrees Fahrenheit, 17 degrees Celsius. A wind is coming out of the east southeast. Again, if you're watching this in playback, you can take a look at the live chat. It's kind of cool. Makes up for the 720p resolution, which is what we're trapped at.

00:18:50 John Daub: I got your postcards right here, and they're going in the mail at that mailbox right there. That's the post office, Ginza post office. So your postcards are going in the mail from the Ginza post office. Thank you guys so much for the support. I appreciate it very much. Keeps me on the road traveling to places like East Hokkaido and this summer to some of the Tokyo Islands. Let's go underneath the highway, sorry, to get over to the other side.

00:19:43 John Daub: I've been right on YouTube since 2013, 2012, 2013. You can tell the people that have newly found me because they ask me like I've never heard before. You look like Ralph Macchio. Can you say, get him a body bag? Actually, Ralph Macchio didn't say that. That was that other guy. And yeah, it was really hard to go to school. I got bullied. People thought I knew the crane kick. I didn't know any karate. I should have learned karate. I had the same story as Daniel LaRusso in the movie because of Daniel LaRusso. Do you see the irony? Because I look somewhat similar to Daniel LaRusso, I had people bullying me. I didn't have any Mr. Miyagi. See the irony?

00:20:54 John Daub: Stream on, stream off. Yeah, we didn't have streaming back in the 80s either. All you had were bullies. Wedgie masters. Super wedgies. God, I had it all. You know, if I see Ralph Macchio on the street, I got a lot to say. I want to learn what he knows. Wasn't he one of the guys in The Outsiders? That's another really good movie with Tom Cruise was in that movie. He was one of the guys who got stabbed, wasn't he? Classic movie, The Outsiders.

00:21:42 John Daub: So here it is from the other side of Shiodome. This glass wasn't here. These buildings weren't here. In fact, the Nakagin Capsule Tower has seen a lot of change. This Shiodome wasn't finished until the year 2000. And Nakagin Capsule Tower was here 30 years before this whole site was made. The wind has picked up quite a bit. There's a rainstorm coming in here. They haven't removed many of the capsules except for a couple of them now at the base. But if you compare it to the first livestream I did a couple of weeks ago, you could start to see the evolution of it. And this stop here to say goodbye has a lot of meaning in that sense.

00:22:35 John Daub: Tokyo has more examples of the Metabolist Movement. Enough material to make a full episode. Indeed it does. There's some really cool buildings that are on display. Also on the chopping block that I've done on the livestream. The problem is you just can't get inside of some of these. That one used to be Dentsu, which is the world's largest advertising agency. I believe it still is. Dentsu's one of Dentsu's headquarters is based in Higashiginza. In fact, it's just, I think that's Brutalism. But there was a very interesting style to that building that they don't have anymore.

00:23:11 John Daub: And anyone who studied the history of architecture, even here in Tokyo during the late 1950s and early 1960s, as Tokyo was getting ready for the Olympics, they had all of these grand master schemes of how the city of Tokyo was going to look like in the future. And it looked very much like the Jetsons. It very much looked like the Jetsons. It looked like they had this image of what the future looked like. And I'm kind of glad they didn't go and do it. But they were going to build Tokyo into Tokyo. And they wanted only a grid pattern. Straight roads that went around into the sea. And you had the roads and then you'd have the sea between the blocks. So you'd be able to go from place to place. And these really not great concrete structures all over the area.

00:24:07 John Daub: In fact, if you just search it, you'll be able to see some of the blueprints, the creative blueprints that they had. They never came to fruition. But it's interesting to see what the image of Tokyo was. But I like the way that they make cities, though. They don't have the entire city go through the same process. The city evolves over decades in styles. And you can see the styles in the architecture of the buildings. And that's what makes cities so fascinating. But because of World War II and because of how flat the city of Tokyo was, it's hard to find any buildings from the Meiji era, from before even the Taisho era. Everything is from Showa on. And you do see a mix of it. But this one building you see in front of you is one of the great architectural designs of the 20th century. It's a bold statement.

00:25:17 John Daub: Daniel, I know about the Shimizu megacity pyramid, the 3,000-meter high looking like Mount Fuji. That's a very fascinating thing. It's a fascinating topic as well. One of the reasons they can't do some of these futuristic buildings is because they don't have yet the materials needed. It's a futuristic building because in order to make a building that high, they need a material that's not in existence yet. But will get there. And Tokyo, Japan has the blueprints to make these kinds of buildings. They just need to evolve the infrastructure and how it moves with the elevators and the systems and how to put a million people in one building. It's pretty fascinating.

00:25:55 John Daub: They've made, I don't know, Atlantis is here in Japan. All we need is one natural disaster to make it a real Atlantis, I guess. Fingers crossed that never happens. There's the monorail going between the buildings. Again, this Shiodome site is also really fascinating. That's going to Haneda Airport, I believe. A futuristic look of Tokyo is Shiodome. With the monorail going between the buildings there. That's from 20 years ago. And we're seeing what Tokyo is going to look like in the future. They're finding new materials to make more incredible buildings.

00:26:40 John Daub: In fact, there's a building across the street from Tokyo Station that's going to be the tallest building in Japan. I think it's called the Torch Tower. So the Torch Tower is partially made of wood. This is a skyscraper. Like the special skyscraper that has a special kind of wood that's been treated to be able to last for a very long time and take the stress that happens during a very large earthquake. And that's kind of fascinating to see. Now it's not going to be all wood, at least I don't think it is. But they're finding new materials and new ways to innovate. And for Japan, there's the Shinkansen going by in the center of your screen there. Another futuristic train launched right before the 1964 Olympics.

00:27:49 John Daub: That's Shimbashi Station on the left side or on the other side of this building here. But we're seeing some of the new architectural designs. This one from the 1970s. And then when you all can come back to Tokyo, and I don't know when that's going to be, hopefully this summer. Hey, just a little asterisk here. Families of foreign residents can come to Japan, I heard. They can apply for a visa. If you know somebody who lives here and you're related, I've heard that you can get the visa. They're doing it like this stealth reopening. So just something you might want to call the consulate and ask about. Tourism is the last thing to open up. But if you have a connection to Japan in one way or another, you could get a special exemptions visa and be able to come and visit.

00:29:09 John Daub: See the small man on scaffolding. Randall, it's not corruption. It's a top secret information you only learn by subscribing to Only in Japan Go. What are the reasons why you watch? I think because it's fun, sort of. Is that Nero or nerd? Not sure. It's up to debate. Every time a guy goes by on a motorcycle, Kanae goes, there's Peter. Chan writes in here, Andre family. Yeah, we sort of are. You can use that on your application to see if that works. Not by blood. Although we've spilled some blood on this series with lousy episodes sometimes. Bad signals. There's some blood spilled there.

00:30:27 John Daub: Jody writes in, nope, that's a scooter. Peter von Gomm does have a scooter, by the way. No, that's a bicycle. It's an interesting point of view. You can see the cars going by. Tokyo's traffic is, it's not that bad. It's on the weekends that it's when people are coming home that I've seen on the holidays. And I like this right turn that just loops around. Just follow this car around. As he passes the capsule tower. If they've got a helmet on and they're riding a bicycle, or riding a motorcycle, yes, Peter von Gomm is everywhere.

00:31:34 John Daub: So I'm going to be making a day trip to Fukushima. Very close to the Dai-ni reactor, which isn't the one that melted down. For a project that I'm doing to, for an episode I hope to release next week. It's the final scene of it. And it's a project I want to always. So whenever I make an episode of Only in Japan, the edited video, I want to make a story that leaves an impression with you that you learn from. And you have a feeling about. And this next story is about a creator, a man who 40 years ago came up with this crazy idea. And he is really bad at business. He told me admittedly so. So am I. It's hard to protect his intellectual property. But people still contact him to make his kind of art. And he's making one as a crowdfunding project right near the community near the Fukushima reactor. And it's something that brings a lot of cheer and smiles to people's faces when they experience this art. It's pretty unique art. I think it's art. But it also has practical applications. Which I'll go over in the video. It's going to be a really good video.

00:33:01 John Daub: And I drove to the very far east of Hokkaido just to meet him. And he was so gracious enough to meet me and spend the day with me. And then he invited me to the Fukushima thing to his business meeting. Where he's going to be talking about how they make this art. So I get the chance to do that. But right near the reactor. Which is kind of, I was a little worried but it's fine over there. Walter Street. Very excited to come back to Japan after two years my wife and I are planning to come to California to visit Japan in January 2023. It is going to be pretty exciting.

00:33:38 John Daub: So let's walk past the building one more time. Again I told you this is going to be kind of a long live stream because you don't get the notifications for 30 minutes. So I'm going to put the postcards in the mailbox in Ginza. And we can get one last look. I'm hoping to catch them disassembling one of the capsules. But I'll come back here in a week to 10 days. I think after the scaffolding has been set up. And they're going to start to take those capsules down. So if you're interested in this, do subscribe and you'll get the notifications. Because it's kind of neat to see it live. So if something were to happen you would be live. But we really hope that that would never happen. They're very good at their job.

00:34:34 John Daub: Hey Johnny Quest here. Right, Joy just shared the Discord server. You can also get updates there. There's a notification alert system on the Discord server. So you can get the notifications on the Discord for the live streams and that's free to do. But if you do join on the Patreon. I do put the videos up there first. So you get notifications through the Patreon app. And it helps us support the series and the travel. Which is going to be massive this year. PVG and I are already planning a motorcycle trip up in Hokkaido. So that's going to be pretty epic.

00:35:41 John Daub: It's not going to be the same to see that building leave us. I got to walk back that way after I put the letters in the mailbox. Join me as I run an errand right now. So these are the Patreon postcard club. I send these every month. I always try to find the most unique stamps as well. So you can see these are from modern day Tokyo in an Edo style. So the stamps are pretty cool. Hope you like that. So this postmark should say Ginza on it. I try to take them to Tokyo Central Post. I go to the post office each time. There you go. It's off. Next month's postcard might be the capsule tower. What do you think? I got some pretty cool photos from Hokkaido that I could use. It's always really tough to pick what the design is going to be for each month's postcards. But I try to find the best image from the series that encapsulates something that I'm doing. With showing you Japan from all over the country. And East Hokkaido is a place that I don't think a lot of people go to, including Japanese. Nemuro. I'll be back in Nemuro in May to finish off the episode I'm making there.

00:37:39 John Daub: It's hard. You just walk by this building and you're like, what? Jeff wants a Pitou guy. That's one of my favorite live streams that only a few thousand people watched. I'm surprised. I think there were just too many live streams on that day. But if you haven't seen the Begota Station episode, it is one of the most remote stations in Hokkaido. I stopped off. You have to get there by car. Or else if you go there by train, the next train is like six hours later. But the station itself is literally a train car. An old train car that was converted into a station. It's kind of cool.

00:38:31 John Daub: Alright, any questions? I'll be going back to Hokkaido in the middle of May. And I'll be going to Shizuoka around Golden Week for an episode. I'm filming there on the green tea harvest. And a couple of other. That's the plan. I haven't gotten 100% permission to film yet. But I'm working with a green tea grower. We've had a couple of meetings to film that process. An episode I wanted to do a couple of years ago, but COVID. I do have plans to go back to the U.S. this year sometime. We're just not quite sure when.

00:39:24 John Daub: Eddie writes in here, that's a great question. What will replace this building? The answer is I don't know yet. I haven't seen on the news. I've been looking at this all the time. Nothing has really been decided yet. I believe they're just going to redevelop it. And probably it's going to be a much bigger building. But the way that the apartment buildings work, if you buy it, I believe you buy a part of that land. So they probably are getting something back from it. I don't know if you get a spot in the new apartment building. Which would be pretty cool, because you had this 50 year old capsule that was run down and now you get a spot in a new apartment building. I don't know how exactly it works. I bet you over the next few months we'll start to see some of the plans of what's going to replace this. But I would hate for that to overshadow what this is. Unless it was another building that looked just like this. And then in that case it would be okay.

00:40:32 John Daub: Could you live in one of these? I think I could. I could see myself with a couple of computers and making this my editing room. There was a live streamer. A Japanese live streamer who was doing live music shows from inside there. So there was lots of practical reasons to have these capsules. It wasn't just for living. I could see this as my second home, my getaway. Present to Leo on his 13th birthday. Son, you get your own apartment. Capsule number 1303. Instead Leo has a tub of Ginga-like blocks. Large enough that he can't eat them. And perhaps we'll draw circles on the ends and make our own capsule tower.

00:41:47 John Daub: There goes a truck in there to take some of the debris. Alright, there you have it everybody. Thanks so much for watching for 40 minutes. I do appreciate it. Yeah, I know this isn't the most exciting live stream in the world. But I do sometimes these live streams because in 10 years it will be really interesting. And in 720p, which in 10 years will be like 1950s TV signals. Black and white and red all over. I'd love to see what was in that capsule with the special windows on the side. But we'll never get a chance. So if you want to see this building at home, just go to your local laundromat. And you can see something similar.

00:42:39 John Daub: Alright everybody. That's a good question too. We do plan to go to Okinawa this year. I've been to Iwakuni. I used to live in Hiroshima. So I've been to Iwakuni so many times. But no plans at the current moment to go back to Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Stay cool everybody. Thanks Mike Da Silva. Thanks for hanging out for a little bit of time. I'll see you in another live stream. Probably tomorrow. As I take you to another area. And then the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow in Fukushima. I'll show you some cool places out in the countryside of Fukushima. In a couple of days. Thanks for sticking with Only in Japan Go. See you.