00:01 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Harajuku. It is super hot outside and it just so happens that I am in a gakuran (Japanese school uniform). How you doing? It's really unusual and weird. I thought I would just share with you the experience. I'm doing this not as a joke. This is serious. I really want to know what it's like for kids. And this is way too hot to be having this particular uniform. This might not be the longest live stream, but I wanted to understand because in America we don't wear uniforms in high school. Well, not some schools do, but it's not typical. Here it is very typical. So to wear this, I just kind of wanted to get a feeling for it. And it's really empowering. And I'm making a main channel episode on this that will be released right before school starts in the US, which is good timing, right?

01:01 John Daub: So let me show you what the whole thing looks like. Let me put this down here on the steps so you get an idea of this. I feel ridiculous a little bit. Okay, hold on. Someone's coming there. I always forget that Harajuku is such a crowded place. All right. What do you think? I guess it's in the shadows. We'll find another place here. This is a boy's uniform. They would wear this to about high school, but actually some university students do wear uniforms at their school. So it actually will follow you all the way through life. And then when you get to your job, you're probably going to have to wear a suit and tie, typically dark colors.

01:42 John Daub: But I got this uniform. Believe it or not, you can rent uniforms. And it's at the shop right here. And I wanted to introduce to you just a little bit in this live stream and then later on in the main channel episode. But it's called the Kanko Shop Harajuku Select. And they have copyright music on right now. So I'm just going to pan around inside for a second here. So the shop opens up at 12:30. Over here is the rental area. So this is the side that you can get the... It's still kind of funny. And you can rent them. Look at the different color skirts.

02:15 John Daub: What shocked me was a statistic that 80% of Japanese high school kids prefer to have uniforms than they do regular clothes, like have to dress up every day. And the reason why is not just because it's easier. It's like maybe I can't get my Western brain around it. But the reason why I think it really does feel stylish and makes you feel a part of something bigger when you're wearing a uniform. Now this gakuran is what it's called. This is modeled more after a military outfit. It sort of feels like that. So perhaps maybe that's part of it. But it's an interesting episode that I've been producing for the last three weeks I've been filming this. And it's just for me, it's a completely different way to look at Japan because through the uniforms, you can get an understanding of the culture, right?

03:25 John Daub: Sailor suits [?] in here looks like the uniform from up on Puppy Hill [?], where those are from the 50s. These are more of a classic style. I can't believe it fits almost perfectly. I'm almost tempted to buy it. Maybe for Halloween. But I'm already getting people staring at me, staring me down. You can feel it. And it's not from jealousy. It's like, it's way too hot to be wearing this. Oh, check it out. That's a popular ramen place. Harajuku, you know, it's not one of my favorite places, but this is right off of Cat Street. So it's always going to be a little bit more laid back to Takeshita Dori, which is just crowded with tourists.

04:49 John Daub: We're going to walk out here to Omotesando to the main street and then get a quick look here. Like all these shops are opening it up. Garrett's Popcorn. They used to have a line out the door at the Harajuku shop, but it looks like they've... oh, cold water. Whoa. I can't believe that the TGI Fridays is still in business here. The Fridays is still, they're still in business here. All right. So my high school friends, can I say that? Here's a picture that we took at the kanko shop for the film shooting. My high school friends are eating here. That doesn't sound right. Let's see if they're... all right. I don't see them. They ditched me. I don't know why. Why would they ditch me? Oh, they ditched me. Yeah.

06:03 John Daub: The Fridays manager was coming out to say hi. I'm like, no, it's okay. If they ditched me, I don't want to. This is new. This is a ramen place right on the corner. So this is also quite changed a lot in this area. Oh my gosh. Please get me to... are those vending machines I see behind me? Oh, I'm so hot. My friend Matt Alt is coming and he's going to be giving me an interview because he once created his own uniform for Japanology. So he's going to talk about that experience. And I think he's going to have a lot of fun seeing me sweating it out on the street here at my expense.

07:08 John Daub: I showed Kanae Daub and she said no comment. She just was, I think, embarrassed. All right, let's get some water here. Oh my gosh. I left my Suica in the... my other pants, but luckily I have some water here. All right. You guys can help me out. This has like every single machine that's known to man, every color. Look, I just said, yeah, I am. This low host looks just fine here. They have a peach flavored water and... let's just go with the regular water. Seriously. It's just... I'm absolutely this one. Oh, here it is. The water. Hundred yen coins. What? At least give me a five. There's some fifties in there. What? Oh, my pants just got heavier.

08:28 John Daub: Oh my gosh. I think going to the main street is a bad idea. Everybody's looking at me. I don't think it's a good idea to go to the main street. Welcome. This is your high school buddy, John. Oh my gosh. I'm melting. I'm going to have to go indoors. Oh my gosh. I don't actually don't do that. I was just kidding. I want to see if I can get some more shots of the kids. Um, I want to get their opinions. What questions do you actually... I'm really happy that we're talking. Cause I want to get your opinion on some things here. What questions do you have for high school kids and their uniforms in particular? This is a... I guess it could be either, but I would typically see the gakuran, this uniform for high school kids. So what questions would you have for them? Because I will ask them and it'll be in the main channel episode, which is coming pretty quickly, actually in August.

10:26 John Daub: You can see the sweat pouring down. Oh, this is karen crazy [?]. Unbutton the jacket. That's a good idea. Sorry. Microphone. Get some air in here. Oh yeah. I can feel it now. Do they wear hats? No, they don't. That's a good question. Anything else? That's it. Are the uniforms too hot? Too cold? They're too cold. It's too cold. So this is actually a fall or winter uniform. Typically, they wouldn't wear it at this time. I'm wearing it because they just happen to have it. And for me, I was a little bit surprised. But in the summer, they have uniforms that are much cooler. And typically, they would take off the jacket, which I should probably do.

11:01 John Daub: But do they like the uniforms means that they don't have to decide what to wear. Jason, that was my first impression. Like that's why they would probably like it. But actually, that's not it at all. There's something deeper. They feel a connection and a pride for their school when they wear the uniform. Because every school has a different style of the uniform. So actually, it's the pride of the school. Just like, I guess, a varsity jacket or something like that. So the uniform has that kind of impression. And they kind of like it. And the parents of the students have an input on the uniforms. Like the colors and everything. It's not the school. I was surprised about that information. The students want the uniforms.

11:52 John Daub: Do they take the uniforms off as soon as they leave the school? Yes and no. Actually, there are a lot of students that will go to the kanko shop and they rent or they buy uniforms for after school uniforms because they think it's cute. And these kids here, they're modeling for the company, but they also like to do this. They're part of this culture. Don't they wear shorts with the uniforms? I think that's more elementary. They're elementary school kids. But I could be wrong. I'm going to ask them. That's a good question. They have gym uniforms as well. It's not just the school uniforms. They have gym uniforms. They have their days off on Sundays, I believe. And they don't have to wear uniforms then. A lot of them just have one uniform. And they'll just wear it all the time. It's sweaty. It might stink a little bit. But these uniforms are made to be worn every day. For better or for worse. For me, for worse. It is like 38 degrees out there outside today.

12:56 John Daub: I don't know if they have mascots. But I'm not going to ask them about that. Don't they wear shorts? I'm looking for questions here. That's all you guys got? I'm surprised. Really? Are the uniforms expensive? Yeah. How much do the uniforms cost? They typically are not cheap. But I don't think that they're too expensive either. I know there was a shop that sold Armani suits. That was a school not far from where I live. It was in Yurakucho. And the parents had to pay over $1,500 for uniforms and stuff. These are not cheap though. Which is why most kids just have one. I think they're a couple hundred bucks. They're tailored. There's only four factories that make school uniforms in Japan. One of them is the one that I contacted. Which is the biggest one. And I filmed at their factory two weeks ago. And I'm editing the video now. It's so awesome.

13:54 John Daub: And I talked with a high schooler about why they like uniforms so much. The picture's on Instagram. But I want to get an idea now of why they want to wear school uniforms after school. What the heck is the deal? And the answers are like, it's just cute. They're used to it. Maybe they're institutionalized. I don't know. So I'm going to get this in the second half. So at 1 o'clock we're all moving to another location. So I'm just going to keep filming in this. The uniforms are machine washed. I found that that was really interesting. You don't have to dry clean them. They're machine washable. Which is really convenient. The parents like that. But the parents decide on the uniforms. So this is a big thing that they decided. Of course they want the uniforms to be washable. Because then it makes it a lot easier for the parents. So they can wash it and dry it.

15:04 John Daub: You know, Japanese homes didn't have a washer and dryer. Believe it or not. The mother would dry the clothes outside for the longest time. It wasn't only recently that they started making washer and dryers together in one unit. There's some challenges with that. Like the machines sometimes don't dry themselves out. So they stink a little bit. You have to clean them every couple of weeks. But they do a pretty good job of it. Do you think the young adult women wearing school uniforms as a fashion? Yeah. It is kind of a fashion to be wearing these uniforms. I'm going to ask them about the rules. Because I noticed that when I first came here, the girls in particular had really like mini skirts. And I don't think that's right for school. But I'm not in their school so I'm not sure. So there's a lot of questions about the rules I'm also quite curious about.

15:59 John Daub: UFO Bob, that's a great question. The uniforms at some other schools sometimes are cooler. And there's a jealousy. So the next year the kids will decide the uniforms. And they'll try to make their uniforms cooler. Of course the school has to approve it. But in the end it's the parents all coming together as a collection and deciding on the uniforms. A lot of them, the older... the thing is that the kids have some say. Because they don't want to wear the uniforms that their parents wore because that's not cool, right? So they want to make sure that it's not a gakuran these days. They want to wear a style that their parents wear. Although these are kind of cool. So some styles might be classic. But they do grow up, kids do grow up with that. They grow up with more of a fashion sense as a result of the uniforms. They care about how they look.

16:48 John Daub: And I think when you go to American schools, you think about it, I think kids, a lot of them didn't care how they looked. They didn't have a self-esteem perhaps. Or maybe it was just a sense of belonging too. Because there's different socioeconomic groups within a high school. And this also creates issues. So the uniforms are good for many reasons. But I really didn't understand it until I put one on. How empowering it is. It makes you feel, you know, stronger. Like I could fly away. Superpowers. Yeah. Shorter uniforms are about being cool. I know that the pants are sometimes long. But they're doing some innovative things with the materials and stuff. So I think it's kind of an exciting episode. So I'm going to do this as a two-parter.

17:42 John Daub: So the first part, I actually went to a factory for the next part. I'm probably going to go more in depth. I'm going to go to the school and focus on that. And I want to see when the kids decide their uniforms, how do they pick the colors and stuff. So this will probably be an episode next year when they start to do it. But I'm glad that I made friends with the people at Kanko. So like it's not a sponsored video or anything. But it's such an amazing thing when you can make friends with people at a company. And you get access to tell a story. Because they've been doing this for decades. That company has been in business for 140 years, I believe. Doing military uniforms. And now school uniforms. So it's sort of a big deal here. And this is a part of Japanese culture. So I'm really excited about this.

18:27 John Daub: How sturdy are the book bags? Ah, that's another episode that I have coming up as well with cooperation with the factories. So we will get to the bottom of it. Alright guys, that's all I got from Harajuku. I just wanted to bring you here for a little bit. Thanks for the questions. If you're watching in playback, leave them in the comments below. And I'll take a look at it. This is a three-star gakuran uniform. What? Really? Do you foresee in the future when they transition out of non-uniforms? Like how the US schools have it? John, I do not. The kids don't want to do that. The majority of them prefer to have the uniforms. So I think that's going to be the way that they do things here.

19:17 John Daub: Alright, back I go. Off of the main street, thank goodness. I'm pretty sure those are the Olympic colors. All the kids got to be back before we leave. This ramen looks good. You know what? That would be the worst thing to eat because ramen is just going to make me sweat even more. Like double the sweat. That is interesting. TGI Fridays has a collaboration with Poki. So they have a... Do you see that? They have this dessert with Poki sticks coming out of it. That's interesting. I guess TGI Fridays really has to innovate to compete with the other restaurants in Japan.

20:02 John Daub: I'm a big fan of the Snow Peak as well. I think this is a Niigata company. It's a Japanese company, I believe. Oh, you have no idea. There used to be a really nice cafe here, but this building put it out of business. The Harajuku and Omotesando that I knew when I first came to Japan is so different. It has just continuously evolved. Oh my gosh. Shops do not last long here. I saw a new shop just open up at the entrance of Cat Street. That business is not going to be in business for more than three months. I think. No one is going to go there. The rent is so high. You have spaces like this available. You guys could rent this. But you don't want to know how high the rent is. Actually, you do. I'm kind of curious.

21:17 John Daub: All right. That's all I got. If you want to see the full uniform, you're going to have to come and watch the main channel episode in a couple of weeks. But you are here. No, I'm not doing it. I'll do it. How do we time out Peso? You try to comment now, Mr. Peso. It's not working because I'm using Prism app. I don't have moderation. You take the calories, Peso. All right. Because I don't have the mod features on the Prism app. Forget about that. I'll get you. Sounds like something from Scooby Doo when you know the bad guys are already handcuffed.

22:00 John Daub: I'm going to get something at the Family Mart for like an iced coffee or something to get me powered up. No, don't hashtag free Peso. He's not in jail yet. We'll do something later. We'll get him. You guys don't have to get him. All right, everybody. I'll see you later. Thanks for sharing this hot weather with me. I was in gakuran once. And you were here to witness it. See you, everybody. Jared's here. Jared. Hi, John and everyone. Came back from Japan today. Oh, you're in Yamanashi [?]. Oh, you came back already. I saw you just two days ago. Well, Jared was here. He gave me some macadamia nuts again. Thank you, Jared. We miss you, buddy. I'm glad I got a chance to see you. And I'm glad that you don't get a chance to see me like this except on the other side of the screen. Stay cool, everybody. No, for real. Stay cool. It's hot. Matane.