00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody and welcome to Shibuya's Hachiko Scramble. So many people crossing this every single day and what you see in front of us is the closed Tsutaya and Starbucks which has been famous since 1999, 2000 when it opened right before the millennium. We're going to be talking about the history of this building as well as what the future holds and why it closed and will it come back.

00:00:30 John Daub: What's going on? I miss it. How you doing everybody? So where are you going to go to get your coffee fix and take a look at the Scramble? This is a really popular place to come even for me. When I first came to Japan it didn't exist though. It was a completely different building. In fact the Lonely Planet book that I had when I came in 98 had the old Hachiko, the old layout of this building. Q-Front didn't come until 1999.

00:01:02 John Daub: A year after they started building it and then it wasn't a thing until the millennium had started. But it was due for a change and this building though before it was Q-Front was something that had no meaning at all to most of the people that walked through here. This neighborhood Shibuya has always been changing. It's always been a place of evolution. The buildings here, the businesses don't last for very long. The ones here probably are paying an extraordinary amount of money including that 109 building over there. That building is iconic from the bubble era, just a little bit before. You can see the architecture is very unique. Let's walk across the street now.

00:01:49 John Daub: So when I came to Japan it looked like, well it didn't look quite like this but I mean it was the Tokai Ginkō building to me. Ginkō meaning bank. Tokai was my bank at the time. This goes back to like 1989, 1990. You can see it just looks like a bank. This doesn't look the same. There's a Tokyu Hands in there as well. There was a theater I think in there. I think it was called the Minegishi building. And you know Hatsukoi Granba was still massive. Back in 1990 they were also building that building across the street which has now got a lot of digital signage but back then the signs and the digital stuff didn't really exist. They didn't come until the year 2000. So actually I think it might be 2005. They didn't have any digital signage for quite a long time but this building didn't come about until 2000 which is crazy. So it's been 23 years and it was due for renovation.

00:02:57 John Daub: Now the majority of the people that were inside, that were coming to Shibuya before they built this were high school girls. Alright, kids, youth. And that's what this whole area is famous for. You can see with the signs. It's a vibrant place. It draws a lot of people. But in the year 2000 they just said look nobody is coming to go to our bank. Nobody is coming really to... And even the front for Tokyu Hands, it really wasn't going... This photo is really nice. This comes from Matt Alt's Pure Invention. So go check out his book. It gives you a really good history on Shibuya and Japan in general. But you can see the front has changed quite a bit. But that Tokai Bank was... It was like yeah you know what kids don't really want to go into a bank. And they ended up becoming UFJ. And then eventually they became Mitsubishi UFJ. And now it's like MUFG or something. It's still my bank but it's certainly changed.

00:04:06 John Daub: Tokyu Hands is now down in this street. And you can see how much... Center Gai (pedestrian street) which is this alley really hasn't changed too much. But you can see even back then they had something different than these two round pillars which look kind of retro. But they didn't come until the millennium I believe. So they weren't here the first time I came to Shibuya. Which is crazy. That's how long I've been here. That's a long time. So we had some people stop and say hi. I was in the middle of starting the livestream. But if you do come and say hi that's cool. I'll just... You gotta give me a second. I have a YouFoundMe card for you.

00:04:50 John Daub: Now what we see with Shibuya... There is a lot of change. And it really doesn't look like the same place even three years ago. Even five years ago. Even last year. What am I saying? The Tōkyū Honten (department store) is gone. I didn't even notice that Q-Front had closed down for renovations. Because the Halloween stuff just kind of masked everything. So let's take a look at what happened here.

00:05:26 John Daub: So Time Out has an article just recently. And they talked about the popular Starbucks and the Tsutaya have closed down. A victim of livestreaming. Let's just be honest. Everyone is streaming video. You didn't need a video rental spot. And they needed to renovate it and get rid of all of that stuff. You could still rent VHS cassettes inside that Tsutaya. But it closed down on October 31st. And it's going to be improved. So you'll be able to get books and all sorts of media. But you're not going to be able to get VHS anymore. Which is probably a good thing.

00:06:10 John Daub: The article also talks about Shibuya which opened up here. I think it was like 2004, 2005. Starbucks wasn't the original tenant in there. I don't believe so. I think it was something called Wired Cafe. It was in there for the first couple of years. And then Starbucks ended up becoming part of it. In general, Starbucks didn't even open up until 1998. When I came to Japan, they had one shop in Japan. And it was located in Ginza. And then they opened up a second one which was at Shinjuku on the Shinjuku South exit in the West Terrace, they would call it. And then the third shop, I can't remember. But then it just like... It was everywhere. And then I believe it was around that time or just a few years after they had opened this. It came up here and opened. And they've been there ever since. But the iconic Shibuya sign is not there either. So there's some big changes.

00:07:10 John Daub: Now they have said that they're going to reopen this. And they're going to do it in the spring of 2024. So there's a lot of stuff that is going to be changing here. Let me show you what came off of the Shibuya Culture Club. Just kind of talk about it. So CCC is the owners of Tsutaya. Culture Convenience Club. They don't make their money through even live streaming. Because Netflix and Hulu and all those have taken all that business. Which is a shame. Basically that part of the business has gone the way of Blockbuster. But they still have something up their sleeves. Which is a huge business. Do you know what that is? They have information. And that information was in the form of what's called a T-Card.

00:08:04 John Daub: And I'll be honest with you. I used to have it. Because you get points and you can get some money back. But I just don't trust Tsutaya with my information or anybody. So I don't have a T-Card. Which is one of these point cards that they have. And Tsutaya just gets everybody. Or CCC gets everybody's information. And is able to sell that as trends. Or understand where consumers are going. And they also can possibly even see the future based on all of this information. Because I'd say the vast majority of people in Japan have T-Cards. It has a big T on it. And T stands for Tsutaya. It was a blue card with a yellow T on it. I don't have one. But that business is huge. Because now you're controlling everybody else's business. Because you own the power. So they didn't need the VHS rental stuff. And it's just very costly to renovate it all. To change the business too. So they were stuck. Because there were still people renting VHS. There's still people renting VHS in Japan. Just like there are people who have fax machines in Japan. Which is crazy when you think about it. But it's not really. Because it's Japan.

00:09:30 John Daub: There's a Tower Records just down the street here. I have to be honest. When you see that, you know Japan's a special place. It's just down the street there. And they still have more than just CDs. It's a place where people just like to go. And I think that having it around kind of makes me feel kind of connected to Japan. Kind of connected to my childhood. Because everybody born in the 70s and 80s probably were hanging out in the Tower Records at one time in their life. So kind of a big deal. What do you guys think about that?

00:10:27 John Daub: The last nugget of information I can give you is... Is Starbucks coming back? I don't know. Nobody really knows. And that's sort of the problem. I'm not getting any chats here. So I'm not even sure I'm doing a live stream. But that's the situation. So you won't get a chance to have the coffee up on the iconic Tsutaya building until they come back in the spring. And even then we're not sure what they're going to have here. I'm not sure how they're going to renovate it. What's going to happen with this building. We don't see it. Oh there's still kind of like a Wired Cafe on the seventh floor here. But right now Starbucks is closed here.

00:11:30 John Daub: All right everybody. I hope this was useful information. I might do another live stream walking down towards Omotesando and enjoying this beautiful warm sunny weather that we have here in Shibuya. Until then, mata ne (see you later).