00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Shibuya. Right there is the no Halloween symbol for Shibuya. I like how they've taken the first kanji in Shibuya and turned it into a jack-o'-lantern. It says here, no events for Halloween on the Shibuya streets, right in front of the station. How you doing everybody? In this episode I'm going to be talking about what exactly happened here. What does canceling Shibuya Halloween actually mean? Is anyone going to show up? What is the city of Shibuya doing to not promote this event and at the same time possibly promoting it? It's a little bit controversial.

00:42 John Daub: We're going to talk about this and look around the area because it's also a historical thing. Whenever you try to cancel an event that you've been doing for the last 12 years or so, it's a big deal. I'd say maybe 8 years they've been doing this every year. I'm looking across the street here at the street. Halloween is hard times. A lot of people are taking notice of the sign. Halloween apparently starts the last weekend in October. That's when people start to flood the streets here and I'm seeing no Halloween costumes. It's only October 25th but people are a little bit lively. I've been out here on the 25th where people were in costume.

01:22 John Daub: Now the Shibuya city has put out a video on Twitter or X as they call it. The video is well produced and it's like telling people not to come to Shibuya and it shows the areas of Shibuya where you shouldn't be going. When they make a video like this, you know they mean business. They took the Shibuya logo and put a jack-o'-lantern in there, but they have it professionally narrated in English and they don't want tourists or locals to come in. If you're a tourist it's much more complicated because you're not from around here, you're a guest and there is a desire to want to make sure you have a good experience. Just over the years it's not been a good experience because of a select few people and those few people really do a lot of damage in the city.

02:34 John Daub: Of course the mayor, it's a political thing and the mayor does have local politics to deal with and the majority of residents who actually live in Shibuya don't want people coming to Shibuya in the middle of the night to ruin their day so then you get signs like this behind you promoting no Halloween. Hello TikTok, YouTube. Yeah, oh thank you. What are you looking for? Oh okay, oh very good. The kid any thoughts on this? Yeah, I think in light of what happened in Korea last year people getting killed in a stampede and uncontrollable amount of people it makes sense to be cautious. Yeah that's right. Yeah just for Halloween. Oh hello. I'm streaming live here. Well nice to meet you.

04:01 John Daub: So the mayor has been out talking about this. Let me see if I can bring in an article. This was just released on NHK World. This is about the problem in the Shibuya district. You're here at the typical entrance when you walk out after the scramble crossing. Until November 1st, the day after Halloween, 30 stores won't be selling booze. There's the mayor holding up the sign for the promotion. But this is Haseba-san. The thing is though, he's got a smile on his face. They made a logo for it. It seems like when you tell people to stay away, they usually do the opposite. Many people including visitors from abroad are expected to converge in the district for the first Halloween since Japan downgraded the legal status of the pandemic to seasonal influenza recently.

05:33 John Daub: We're extremely concerned that accidents like the fatal tragedy in Seoul last October could happen anytime, said the mayor. 150 people lost their lives in Korea as a result. Let me show you one of the incidents that is the most concerning to people here in Shibuya. This happened when a family of three partygoers got inside of a truck. It started off somewhat innocent, but you're not allowed to get into somebody's car. Somebody's shaking their booty and tweaking. It was pretty popular back then apparently. And then they ended up flipping the car. This incident really put it over the top. I think they'd done stuff somewhat similar. There were arrests, but every single one of these people were arrested on December 5th, 2018. The police found them and arrested them. They thought they had carte blanche because the streets were so crowded. Yeah, not with social media around. Everybody has a camera and everybody's filming stupidity. So that's one of the reasons why they banned Halloween. They had this, and then they had Korea.

07:00 John Daub: What happened there, and Japan, despite having the tourists, it's not worth it, in particular to the local residents, because the next day it is really disgusting on the streets here. The crude and rude and nasty acts that are also going on with people drinking, and a lot of people loitering around the convenience stores. The reason why they're stopping the alcohol has not much to do with just drunk people. You can get drunk anywhere. You get drunk in Roppongi. You get drunk at your house and then come out here. It has to do with hundreds of people standing around a convenience store, drinking and causing trouble and everybody congregating around there like a bar on the streets. So that's basically the big reason behind why they're stopping the convenience stores and the places from selling alcohol. They might also be asking restaurants and izakaya (Japanese pubs) to stop sales of alcohol, but then the city would probably have to compensate the restaurants and izakaya for doing that, so I'm not sure on that 100%.

07:58 John Daub: For me, all right, the first couple of days I thought it was really cool. I thought it was really neat that they could hold an event like this, and a lot of people were coming for it, but then after around 2017 or 2018, you started to see the mess afterwards. Nobody is really responsible when they're drinking, and in light of what's happening with IRL streamers on this platform called Kick, everybody knows about the guy who got arrested. I'm not going to add any oxygen to that. This has also become another reason, just fortifying the decision to cancel this. What's going to happen on the night of Halloween, though, here? I really can't tell you that. I don't know.

08:41 John Daub: Here's what NHK reported just yesterday. We know that the city of Shibuya is quite worried about this, so a lot of these are coming out. They're partnering with KDDI, one of the cell phone companies here, the big three, and they made this virtual reality thing, so people who want to come to Shibuya can virtually. That's not going to work. I'm just going to say right now I'm negative on this. People want the real thing. People aren't going to do it virtually. Oh, let's get, let's wear our costumes and do virtual Shibuya from home. What? No. But I give them effort for trying because you can't just do nothing. Arthur Vandalay, I saw that. Thank you very much. It's nice to see you here.

09:27 John Daub: Oh, look at this. I think we just passed it here. See the Mario Kart back. You can see them cruising in the distance. Somewhat annoyance, but you know, I live here, so it's different. I thought that lady in the really bright green outfit was in a Halloween costume. I'll admit it. I looked at her and was like, wait, someone's here for Halloween. No, that's just her fashion. I get nothing wrong with that. It's good at night so you don't get hit by cars. Although it's like 11 a.m. I want to take some of your questions and if you're watching this in playback, leave me your comments below because the day after Halloween, if I can, I'm going to try to come back here or the day of Halloween and just report on what happened in the morning.

10:25 John Daub: I think that this event, something's going to happen on Halloween. I'm not sure what. But they've employed 150 officers or security to help patrol the streets. Despite the fact that they called off the event and it's not an official event. People are still going to be coming here and causing trouble for the city and the city has to make sure they don't get injured. So it's a really tough position for the city because what do you do in a case like this? Yogi Mu writes in here they need 1500. Well, who's going to pay for that? If they called off the event, they're not making as much money. Although I don't think they made that much money to begin with. People were drinking beer from a convenience store, getting drunk. It's not like they're making big bucks off of this event. I think that's another reason why it had to end. It was just in the red. If it's a business decision, it's a no brainer.

11:28 John Daub: Do people actually come to Tokyo for just this Halloween? There might be a few. But let me be completely frank with you. I'm not a university graduate. Recently, I graduated from Ohio State back in 1997. It's a while ago. So I'm up there in years. The Halloween event probably pushed more people away from Japan that had money to spend here and brought in a lot of people that wanted to come to Japan to get drunk and hang out on the street. I'm OK if those people that want to get drunk and hang out on the streets don't come to Japan. I'm not OK if somebody wants to come here, experience Shibuya with their family and can't leave their hotel because there's a bunch of really drunk people out on the streets. I want you to think about it in a business sense like this. I know personally a lot of viewers are probably going to be really upset about this. Some viewers and me personally, I don't care. I feel like it's a good thing for Shibuya not to hold this event.

12:36 John Daub: I mean, look at this place. It's just such an active, busy place despite not having Shibuya Halloween. So what does this mean to you? Are you going to make the trip to Shibuya or not? I'm going to walk around a little bit. I know that the signal is not going to be that great. Let me know what you guys see and hear and feel in the comments. And if you're watching, you can let me know where you're watching from. It's always nice to hear from you. Shout out to the people that are watching this. Shout out to Susan in Chicago. Susan just signed up for the Postcard Club. This is an episode that's getting released tonight. This is on the way to you. This is a sample. So if you want to get a postcard, this is a samurai event that's been held for 700 years. I was there to film it, and that episode is coming tonight. So thank you, Susan, in Chicago.

13:44 John Daub: Thanks for supporting the channel on Patreon. And thank you, Nightbot, for sharing the link. Wow, look at this guy. He's got like a Batman mobile. And there's another attraction. You just walk around Shibuya, and you'll see all sorts of really cool things. That is the Batmobile, right? So here's the signs. This is what they call Basketball Street these days. Shibuya Center Gai (Shibuya Center Street). And this sign will tell you all you need to know is right there. It's not a Batmobile. They have a lot of those in Florida. So there's a lot of Batman in Florida? As a kid that dressed up as Batman in underoos in the 1980s, I can tell you I can see the attraction a little bit. I understand that if you have a kid in heart. I can't understand why an adult would wear underoos. But I'm not sure why adults dress up for Halloween either. It's an event for kids. So for me personally, I don't get it.

15:16 John Daub: But what are your alternatives? One, you can go to parties. They have parties where you pay for tickets, and people dress up in costumes like masquerades. And you can go to those. They're indoors. But you don't have to come to the streets and do it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. And let me tell you right now, people are going to get arrested. Every year somebody gets arrested. And if you are in that group, you get arrested too. And if you want to know what it's like to be arrested, don't. It's not nice here. You'll be held for 23 days as they make a case against you, reviewing all the street footage just to make sure that you're not guilty. You really need to think about that. They're literally telling you not to come. So if you're around some people doing bad stuff, and you get arrested too, you have been warned not to come out to the streets and dress up in a costume, drunk. They'll probably take your alcohol level and ask you, why did you come? You were told not to come.

16:36 John Daub: So basically, if you are thinking of doing mischief, they've taken all the oxygen out, and there's no reason for you to be here in a costume. This is probably a good thing for the city, because they know that people are going to come. It's just inevitable. Yeah, guilt by association. How do you know who was involved in what? All you know is that you were there, you dressed up in a costume, you're drunk, you might not have touched anything, but the laws in Japan are not the same as the laws in your country. Please understand that, especially if you're an American, because apparently my countrymen are the ones that have the worst problem with understanding that America ends at its borders.

17:23 John Daub: Alright everybody, I'm going to cross over here. That's about all that I wanted to discuss with you. I know that these streets are going to be crowded one way or another as a result of the party. Is the mayor doing a good thing? Alright, you know what? I'm going to right now talk to the mayor, Haseba-san. Mr. Mayor, you've done a very bad job of telling people to stay away. Very bad job. By doing what you're doing, you're telling people to come. This is how you let people know in the West. What you should have done is you said people live in Shibuya. You should have gone out and talked to some of the older people that actually live in your city, sir, and shown their faces, and you should have had your face on the streets here telling people not to come. Instead, you're in an office telling people not to come, holding up a logo created that looks fun, telling people not to do something. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why you're doing the press releases at City Hall. You should be doing it here out on the street, and telling people around here, please don't come. For me, I can't take it too seriously.

18:56 John Daub: If I came to Japan for Halloween and I already made plans three months ago and I just heard this news, I'm still going to go out, because that was my purpose. So I think that the job that the mayor did was not good, and he deserves some criticism for it. The video that they made looks like an invitation to a lot of people. They should have had a more serious video showing the people's faces of Shibuya, people saying why they don't want it, having a local perspective, and show the damage afterwards. They didn't do that in the video either. They didn't show the fact that there's lots of alcohol bottles and cans all around after the event. They didn't talk about the smell that Shibuya has in the morning. They just wrote it on a sign and said, don't come. And that's a disaster. So I hope next year you hire me to help advise you on how to make a more impactful video that leaves an impression on people, because I'm going to be honest with you, sir. That symbol looks like it's a lot of fun. I mean, I know what it means here. Shibuya, don't come for Halloween. But when you take it and you put a jack-o'-lantern in it and you put an X on it with the youth vibe here, this is like going to be someone's tattoo, sir. Someone's going to get this tattoo.

20:25 John Daub: Alright, if you think that this is a cool tattoo, just write it in the comments because I know that there's going to be people, it just looks too cool, sir. And it fits in with the image of Shibuya. Let me show you. Look around it, sir. I mean, really? So, yeah, hire me. I do it for free. I just need your blessing because I love Tokyo, too. I need an official ambassadorship, sir. And I will help you. I will help dissuade people. People never listen to me anyway. Look at this madness. And then you have kids here. Look at them. They're just doing random fun stuff. Shibuya is a fun place. It just doesn't match. It's a place of smiles. It's a place of fun. It's a place where hijinks happen and people might hurl. Is that what he's doing? Right there? Looks like he had too much to drink.

21:47 John Daub: It's called anti-marketing. So my final thing is that I don't get it. They've anti-marketed the marketing, so they've told you to stay away. And obviously, the mayor is an educated person. By telling people to stay away, he's basically promoting the event. Spittasur3 writes in here, it's gonna be bigger than ever. Oh, my gosh, really? Look at the polite queue that they have when they get a picture with the Hachiko statue. That's very nice and very considerate. They've gotten rid of the smoking area, I believe. There used to be a smoking area here. So there's been some really good changes. They've torn down this Tokyo department store, and they're gonna be building a much bigger and more efficient skyscraper that will look the part. And the facade of Shibuya Station, I believe, is gonna be changing from this green marble thing from the 1980s. By the way, this is translucent. They've redone it. Whoa! I didn't know this. So they've redone the front. This used to be like a marble, but they've made it look like a marble with glass. So this is new. But this has been here for a very long time, of Hachiko, for I think 40 years, since the 70s. And that's kind of neat to see the art of Hachiko through the time. I think we should protect the art from the 1970s, don't you?

23:50 John Daub: There you go, everybody. Whether you agree or don't agree, it's a reality. No events for Halloween. None official. But yes, the rooftop soccer futsal place is gone. I'll be back tomorrow with another livestream talking about an issue in Japan. And this weekend, I'll be going to Niigata Prefecture. Again, I really want to take you out to the country. I know a lot of you aren't viewing it so much, but yesterday, two days ago, I had yakiniku A5 omigyu wagyu lunch with ninja. They really believe that they're ninja. One of the guys had a university degree in ninjutsu from Mie University, like a real thing. You're going to want to see this. This was two days ago on this channel. And I eat some amazing wagyu beef. Check it out. We talk a lot about it as well. And then about four days ago, I went to an event where ninja and samurai battled in a historical reenactment that takes place once a year that if you're in Kyoto at that time, you're probably going to want to take part in because it's just kind of one of a kind. And it makes a boring castle ruin come alive because they're holding that reenactment there. I thought that was really cool.

25:10 John Daub: Chan, John, if you were commissioned to do an anti-Halloween campaign, it might make you a target for those unhappy with it. Same for local businesses. I'm already a target. But the difference is when you're on the side of good, there's a lot more people that will show up for you than when you're on the side of bad. Just ask Mr. Somali who sits in a prison after being rearrested three days last week for again a crime he'd commit. By the way, he won't be going away for three years because they did not indict him after the 2020 election. He's got a 23-day holding period. So they held him for another 23 days. And I think they're going to keep on doing it. I think they probably have another charge to keep him in there for a good half a year if they wanted to, of just sitting in jail in limbo, wondering what to do as he just rots away and good riddance. But if you're bringing positivity and you're bringing a good message, I really do think that that resonates with people. I don't mind being a target. It's part of the job. I live here, you know. I love this place. Maybe not Shibuya so much, but I do love Tokyo. I do love Japan. I love the people here. I love it when it's clean. I love how efficient it operates.

26:50 John Daub: I like the fact that tourists can come here and get an amazing deal, ¥150 to the dollar. Everything is cheaper. I like the fact that everything seems backwards, and it's not. It's new and unique to Westerners. I don't like violence. I don't like people getting drunk and vandalizing my city. I don't like using tax money to pay for it. Oh, hello. Nice to meet you. I'm actually live now. Is that okay? Oh, okay. Here, let me give you a card. You did find me, and I do carry these. Here you go. You found me. Yeah, here you go. Thank you. Thank you. Do you like your card too? Yeah? There you go. You're welcome. Yeah, have a good trip. Bye-bye. Oh, hey. We follow you on YouTube, and thanks to your guidance, we've been planning this trip for like three years now. Whoa, through the pandemic. We're going to come right before COVID. Oh, and you had to cancel your trip? We had April, and then of course everything happened in March. So we just made it three days ago, but I learned about you like only a month between. We're getting here, and we've watched all your videos. Oh, I have something. Well, here you go. You found me live out here. So much. Well, thank you. Where are you guys from? New York City. Awesome. Kanai and I are going back, because I'm from that area too. Yeah, my father was born in New York. I was born down in the East Coast, so we've got family all over the place there. Wow. It's just amazing, because we walked... We were just down in the Meiji Temple, right? Yeah. We were walking around the temple. And then we just got here. We literally were standing here, and I swear I heard your voice in my head. And I turned around, and your hat's such an obvious... I am slightly loud when I'm live streaming, but... No, we just happened to be standing that close. I overpowered the speakers around here. You can catch me. That makes me happy, so it's okay. No, thank you. So we love you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Yeah, have a good day. You too.

29:07 John Daub: That's right. When I'm ranting about no Halloween, I am loud. I can overpower you. I overpower these speakers. I have the power of being loud. John is the secret leader of the Shibuya party. He says, yeah, yeah, I'm not. Don't put those crazy thoughts into people's heads. I'm a man walking around yelling at a camera now. Look at me. Only slightly loud. Thank you, Johnny. I'll take that. Anyways, let me just put an end to this. I appreciate everybody watching and putting up with this. Let me know your thoughts below about what do you feel about Shibuya not having this. I mean, I really do like the logo. I do think this is going to be somebody's tattoo eventually, if not this one here. This is the Shibuya kanji, the first kanji for Shibuya with alcohol on the bottom. That's actually really creative. That's pretty creative. I have to be loud to talk over the loud speakers all around me. And when I speak, I want to be heard. Let's be honest. I don't mind when I speak on a platform. But once I turn this off, I talk like this. I think Halloween isn't Japanese.

30:34 John Daub: All right, so this is really good feedback here. Totally fine with no Halloween events in Shibuya. It's just drinking, crazy parties anyways. That's got to be rewarding when fans... It is, thank you. I think Beno writes in here, I think Halloween isn't Japanese culture. It's culture vandalism. What's been happening here is... The marketing company that came up with that logo kanji must have charged heaps. I reckon they probably did. It's good, right? You think that because it's good. Don't spend time in Gas Panic. Pretty sure he was up to shenanigans when he was younger. Yeah. I think he was. No. I did go to Gas Panic a lot. I don't know what a lot means. Maybe like four or five times in my life. Is that a lot? I didn't do any shenanigans. I never picked anybody up in a Tokyo bar because I'm bad at it. And if you see this face coming and you're of the opposite sex, most likely compared to the really attractive and other guys that did their hair and stuff, yeah, I was not... And dressed the part. I was not one of those people. And I did not go for the music either. It was usually an eclectic mix of Michael Jackson's Beat It and then with some Nirvana and then with some house music. It made no sense at a lot of these bars. The DJs back then were really not creative like they are now. They're quite good now. But now, I have zero success with women and when I found Kanae, I knew that this was it. And she does not know about all of my stuff. I know I have a lot of failures but that's better because I didn't fail because I wasn't trying.

32:35 John Daub: How much did they charge for this one then? I think this is so creative though. No smoking in Shibuya, which is true. So if you think that I was up to some shenanigans, you don't know me. I think the most vandalism that I ever did... When I started my company a really long time ago. I remember I passed out flyers to get people to sign up for what I was doing, this online English language thing. And I saw people had thrown the flyers on the ground at the crossing over there and indirectly I think I created littering and that made me upset. I cleaned it up. That's about as bad... I can't think of anything else I've done. And I'm not sure I would admit it. These people are the people that will not be going to Halloween. The livestream that convinced me to follow John was when he introduced... Really? When she danced? That's one of my favorite ones. I had my hat on backwards and she just... An impromptu unpracticed dance and it was stunning. And I don't know if she could do that today but... That was like 5 years ago now. Wow. More than 5 years ago.

34:12 John Daub: All right, all the comments are about my badness and my wedding... Now. I watched some of that Enter the Ninja. Yeah. That was a good episode. Lord Rash writes in here, New York meet up. We're not sure we're gonna be going to New York, but if we do, there's a possibility we're gonna do a meet up there because anytime we get a chance to meet up with our New York crew it's really cool. We haven't done in West Coast swing and in the US because we just don't have any family there not any direct family but we have all of you so I would come and see UFO Bob and see JKO adventures and go see hello hi a to one I bet that's almost worth renting a car and swinging up and down here to see you guys including a friend of mine who's here right now Dan from the channel what's inside he's here and I'll try to catch up with him at the end of the week which is like tomorrow maybe or Friday don't know. Shan writes in here simple solution hold an official event in an appropriate location with security and proper crowd control yes somebody paid Chan Chan can I reverse that super chat in the spirit of getting paid for good work I think for Shibuya to make this work they need to have an alternative event or offer something to the people who come and say no don't come here we've rented this center we're charging a thousand yen go there and you can drink and it'll be X and they'll be a free booze bus for people who pass out to get back to their hotel that sounds good to me.

36:03 John Daub: Roger Rio whoo hi John is it possible that a new restriction law might be emerging from now on because of that guy the same as the one that I was in the Metro in the early 1990s that's tomorrow's live stream I don't want to talk about it today that's tomorrow's live stream I have some developments on this so we'll get into it but what I do is not IRL it's not in real life I'm not walking around showing my life live I'm making an episode a bit even though they could be as long as an hour or 35 minutes right now I'm kind of sharing that with you and maybe that's one reason why this channel hasn't been as successful because I'm not doing that. But I guess for me, I don't watch IRL so I don't see the value in it. But I see the value in you guys joining me for a small bit and if it's good, you're going to want to watch it later. So, and I'm going to be maybe changing this format a little bit as a result of it. So tomorrow's live stream, we'll talk about that. I'm glad you brought it up. Guys, if you don't mind, this is one more week to get this postcard. It's really cool. You can see the samurai, descendants of samurai in a battle. And these two flags were shot with a fireworks cannon and there's a battle royale to grab one and it gets pretty heated. And on the back is Izumikawa-san and he's got an ancient samurai stare. It's hardcore. And that episode's getting released soon. It's already been uploaded. Thank you for the subtitle team. We've got some people adding in subtitles. Someone who does French, Spanish, I think. But if you can, help us out. We have a team on Discord. Thank you.

38:01 John Daub: But to answer your question, yes and no. The law is here. It's a cop car. It's a high possibility. Thank you for the question. I agree with you. I really prefer John's style. Three years of postcards. Really? Yeah, Jennifer, you would have. Because this is already three years? Wow. You can put them in a little collection. They do. What is this? Look on the other side. There's some sort of salaryman. Like a bunch of people in suits. There's always some sort of weird event happening here in Shibuya. But they also dissuade people from running into the middle and doing stupid things because this is an intersection. If you're a tourist, it doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. And just because Japanese are polite does not mean that you can run all over them because they will eventually get you and you'll pay the price. And if you do, it sucks.

39:27 John Daub: All right, everybody. That's all I have from Shibuya. I don't come here very often, but when I do, I am here. I don't know what else I'm supposed to say. That guy looked like Cameron, the movie director. And they turned around and he had a mustache. I see a lot of doppelgangers. Imagine if Ralph Macchio came here. I see a lot of people that could be famous, but they're not. Or they are? Like I saw that one guy. He looked like that guy, the mailman from Cheers back in the 1980s, but the younger version of him. It's really amazing. And you get to see people not just from the US, but all over the world, which is so awesome. That's what I like being an expat or somebody visiting Japan. I like being an expat. I'm surrounded by a very global group of people. And that's good. There's the police box right there, the kōban (police box). All right, everybody. Things are coming out. Those who came out to follow me, I will be back tomorrow. And then I'll be taking you this weekend to Niigata Prefecture, which is, I think, really close to Tokyo countryside. There's a festival going on over there. So I'll share with you a little bit of Japan's other parts. So don't forget to subscribe. And I'll see you next time. Bye. See you. See you. This is all going to be really amazing in about two years from now. But the construction here continues. See you.