00:00:02 John Daub: You can see our breath. It's minus three degrees here in Noboribetsu. Check out the weather forecast. It's supposed to get even colder as the week goes on, high of one. This is Celsius, so actually zero degrees Celsius is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which is freezing.

00:00:20 Matt Alt: This is Matt Alt, if you don't know. I've been on before. Once before.

00:00:25 John Daub: He's here for a specific episode that I'm filming for Only in Japan, which is sort of a Christmas-themed episode. Super excited about this. Tomorrow is going to be amazing. It's going to be a long day. It's already been a long day. We had to come all the way from Tokyo out here, and this is a pretty far-flung place. There's no restaurants open. Check it out. It's dead. Look at this street. There's not a soul on the street. In fact, we couldn't get any restaurants that were open. There's a 7-Eleven at the end of the street, but even that's several kilometers away.

00:01:00 Matt Alt: That's not that far. Isn't that the light that we saw? That's the 7-Eleven up ahead in the distance.

00:01:05 John Daub: I think it's now minus four degrees. This is freezing. It's been snowing, flurrying. We're from Tokyo. It's kind of a semi-tropical environment.

00:01:17 Matt Alt: It is, yeah. The flurries did accumulate here. It's not really sticking, but there was definitely snow as we arrived.

00:01:25 John Daub: We're staying at a guest house. I showed this place in a live stream three years ago before I did the Naked Man Festival. It's at the onsen town, about 7 kilometers in that direction. This is a really great guest house. It's about 4,000 yen a night with breakfast. It's right next to the train station, which is just over there. You sleep in a box. It's like a capsule hotel, but like a plywood coffin. It works for me.

00:01:43 Matt Alt: It is pretty much. You sleep in a box. It's actually up there. You can kind of see it. Can you see the boxes up there?

00:01:50 John Daub: Yeah, I can see it right there. It's like a curtain and a box.

00:01:58 Matt Alt: There's a reason why we're starting this live stream outside rather than inside. It's because it's a little bit more comfortable. They have an ice cream machine where the condensers—a soft serve ice cream machine is chilling down or something. It's negative out here. They could just bring the ice cream machine outside. I don't know why they need to freeze an ice cream machine. It's more than freezing here. It would taste better in the natural cold. It would save some energy. But the freezer started going da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

00:02:28 John Daub: Anyways, you're going to see right now because we're going to take you inside. Hopefully it stops.

00:02:32 Matt Alt: Wait, wait. I cannot take it out here. Do I have to punch in the number?

00:02:35 John Daub: You go punch in the number. I'll stay right here. The big symbol for Noboribetsu, which is where we are in Hokkaido, is the oni (Japanese demon), which is pretty cool and frightening. After a certain time, there's a punch code to get in.

00:02:53 Matt Alt: Okay, let's get in here. It's still going.

00:02:54 John Daub: All right, now you can hear the ice cream. Oh, man. Baby, it's cold outside.

00:03:10 Matt Alt: Did I crack the screen? Are you guys okay? I'm really sorry. Are you guys okay in there?

00:03:19 John Daub: We're not even drunk. What happened? I've been driving all day. Yeah, we're not even drunk.

00:03:26 Matt Alt: You've been drinking. I have not. I have been drinking a little bit, but not enough to knock this thing off its rocker. It's right off the end of the table here. I'm just glad you didn't break your screen. These things are indestructible until they aren't.

00:03:40 John Daub: I want to show you a little bit about our trip here to Hokkaido. This is at the airport. This is the first shot here. You can see Fuji. When the weather is clear in the winter, you get views like this very often. Anytime it's clear in the summer, you probably wouldn't be able to see this, but you have Mount Fuji in this parallax as the airplane is going to the takeoff to the runway. It's like an old Nintendo game, where the different layers are moving in front of the screen. That's what parallax is.

00:04:11 Matt Alt: It is really pretty, yeah. It's cool.

00:04:15 John Daub: This one is from the sky after we had taken off. You can see down into the city of Tokyo, and I particularly like this because you see the Skytree down there on the bottom of the screen. This is a really useful shot. I'm making an episode on the Skytree later. But on a clear winter day is when you really get... That was John just jumping out of the plane, by the way. That's the world's tallest freestanding tower. And you can see the Sumida River, Asakusa down there, from the airplane, which is so cool that we had such a clear sky. A really nice flight. Different angles here. This is also Tokyo from the takeoff. This is the man-made island. Odaiba, reclaimed land. Dinosaur bridge. You can't get that with a drone because drones are illegal in Tokyo Bay because of the flights going by.

00:05:20 Matt Alt: And I couldn't get that because you were sitting in the window seat. That's true. I did purposely take the window seat. You can see the plane on the bottom of the screen there, but that's Tokyo, the city. So flying into Haneda gives you these kinds of views, which is kind of cool. And flying out of Haneda also gives you these kinds of views here. Very, very cool.

00:05:41 John Daub: So are you going to tease what we're doing tomorrow? I think a lot of you might even know. If you've been following the series for a while, I have a friend named Wakaki-san who has a toy museum here. I'm making a Christmas episode where I think—I'm somebody who absolutely loves Christmas. I absolutely adore the holiday. It's a time where, as I said a couple days ago with my son, we went out and looked at Christmas trees, just window shopping, Christmas trees and windows. And I always thought that Christmas brings out the best in people. Maybe it's It's a Wonderful Life and you see all the movies that make you just feel really good. It's a time when you should feel good because you can forget about the winter chill in the air, which there is a lot of tonight. But I wanted to make an episode that is focused on Japanese toys. And there isn't anybody better who knows more about this than this man right here.

00:06:34 Matt Alt: So I wrote a book and it's called Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World. Please check this out. And this is all about toys. It's about how Japanese toys made Japan and all of us.

00:06:52 John Daub: And so this is such an exciting thing for me because Mr. Wakaki's museum is just this amazing—we took a little peek in today. And there is stuff in there that is going to absolutely blow your mind. Whether you're a toy collector like me or whether you're just a normal person like the rest of humanity, I really think it's going to blow your mind. Like that generator chilling the ice cream over there. And it's blowing my mind about me. We're not on an airplane anymore. Literally, I don't know how bad it sounds to you, but it's pretty annoying to us. Like it happened one minute before we pushed—we were going to start this live stream. Yeah, literally it was quiet in here. Apologies. It was quiet.

00:07:27 Matt Alt: Yeah, we have some pictures here, Matt. What do you—maybe say a few things here. So let's look at some of these. Start from the... So why don't we start with this. Yeah, so this is right outside the museum. Look at these like awesome robot figures. I actually don't even know what series this is. I just love these. They're like, they look like oni, but they're like robots. You know, oni are like Japanese folkloric ogres. And these are, you know, this is the whole symbol of this town. So I guess that's why he did this. But I think it's really cool. But there's some characters in here you might know. This is Gigantor, known as Tetsujin 28-go. This is a mask. And this is a robot. This is a really, really cool mask. And these are like kind of plastic masks that were sold at matsuri (festivals) in Japan. He had like the original one too. These are kaiju soft vinyl figures. You can see Ultraman up there. That's Ultraman Ace, I think, up there at the left. Ultraman at the right. And kaiju, Japanese giant monsters. Like, you know, cousins of Godzilla in here. This one's awesome. This is a Macross Valkyrie. This was in Robotech in the United States. It transforms into like an F-14 fighter. It was sold as Jetfire in the United States as a Transformer. But this is the original version of it. And there's just so much, so much, so much great stuff at this museum. I can't even begin to tell you.

00:08:51 John Daub: I've already done a live stream here, which you can see on this channel. But what makes this really special is that I came back to film this really slowly. So today, you know, we talked quite a bit. And if there's no sunlight in here, it's really hard to film in there. So we're going back tomorrow morning and start really early and filming there for most of the day until there's no more daylight. And to get the story and basically inside of Wakaki-san's museum, which is his personal collection. You can see the history of Japan through the toys, which I thought was fascinating, which connects very much into the book that he wrote. So there's a lot of synergy. And Matt, I guess, is more of a fan. And I guess he's going to be the one taking over this episode. I'll just be the one editing it.

00:09:36 Matt Alt: No, no, no, no. This is just all you. I get a few things in. I'm just a helper. But no, it's true. Japanese toys made Japan. After World War II, they were the first products that were exported. And they rebuilt the economy here. We're going to be talking about this a lot more tomorrow. But it's like toys are so much more than just play things, right? They say a lot about the people who make them. The way they're consumed. The people who play with them. The toys we give our kids. They're stories.

00:10:04 John Daub: Japan was a manufacturing powerhouse after World War II, maybe in the 50s, 60s, 70s, to fuel the Japanese miracle. And you see that in the toys. Again, as you said, made in Japan for Japan and then made in Japan for the rest of the world, right? Because that's how most of us fell in love with Japan. It was through toys. You know, that was the first. I didn't fly to Japan as a five-year-old. I was given a Japanese robot toy as a five-year-old. And I was like, wow. This is amazing. And so, like, this is kind of like going to the heartland. Which is why this place is kind of special. Again, what I liked about this, there are other toy museums that are way better than this. But there's a personal connection to all the things in this museum back to, thank goodness.

00:10:52 Matt Alt: It stopped. That was so annoying.

00:10:56 John Daub: Yes. When's it going to stop? Whenever it's done. Because they take ice cream very seriously in this town. They take two things seriously in this town: ice cream and toys. It says here it is grass-fed milk ice cream. Bokujo (farm) milk. The dairy products here, the beer. Really good.

00:11:15 Matt Alt: How do you go from dairy straight to beer? Well, I mean, that's my two food groups.

00:11:20 John Daub: And the third food group is toys. My entire—if you dissected me, like, one-third is milk, one-third is beer, and one-third is toys. Silicone, die-cast, tin, plastic. It's like the elemental term. We get into this into the episode that I'm here to produce, which is really exciting. I'll be editing this as I go back home and get this out to you before Christmas. With all things willing, this will be out ASAP.

00:11:53 John Daub: But you know, going back to Wakaki-san, I met him 20 years ago before there was social media. I didn't really know the people who picked me up on a hitchhiking trip, but I did know that Wakaki-san was right outside here because he saw me hitchhiking in front of his shop in 2003. He came over and he goes, you know, what are you doing? I said, I'm hitchhiking. He goes, he's very direct. No one's going to stop for you here. And I go, well, I'm here and I'm just trying. Nobody stopped for me at the interchange either. So he said, okay, well, come inside. He made me a cup of coffee. His wife made me a cup of coffee. And the three of us sat down and we talked for about 30 minutes. And he said, I will take you to a better place. And he spent time and took me in his car and he drove me to another place. You know, 20 years ago when I did this trip in 2003, I didn't keep in touch with any of those other people except for Wakaki-san. Because you knew where he was. Because I knew exactly where he was. This was before social media. And since then, I've, you know, I think we all care about the people who have impacted our lives. And he's one of those people in that moment who really, you know, that trip is one of the reasons why I stayed in Japan. So I connect that feeling back then with him. So when I see him, you know, I... Warm feelings. Not just that, but it takes me back to when I was a young man. He was a younger man. And you know, we shared that memory together that was brought back like when I saw him again 14... When was it? 2003. And then I saw him again in 2017. So about 14, 15 years later, I saw him again. We were much older. But I kept in touch with him this time. And this is maybe my sixth time. He's already met Kanae and Leo before. He's 85 and still doing really well. Walking up and down the stairs despite the cigarettes. There's a lot of smoking going. There's more smoking than I would like. But you know, he's made it 85 years.

00:13:46 Matt Alt: So actually, I think the one thing you need to stress here is like Wakaki-san runs this really cool museum. But he also runs a real toy store. It's down the street, right? And so like... There's this toy store. And like some of the stuff in there is stock from his toy store. But it's just so cool to me that he's an actual like toy slinger. Do you know what I mean? He's a salesman. He runs a toy store. And he's been running it since 1968. It's pretty amazing.

00:14:17 John Daub: We both have a lot of questions for him in particular with his collection. It's pretty massive. And it's not just toys either. He's collected a bunch of stuff. He's got like the first players from like the turn of the century. The first Walkman. But he's vacuum tube radios, like old magazines. That's pretty crazy. He's got like military uniforms. The first PlayStation. The first Nintendo before it was Nintendo. The stuff before Nintendo was Nintendo that has marked Nintendo. Nintendo wasn't always a game manufacturer. They used to be a toy company. This is stuff that you don't even know about these companies. It's gonna blow you away. And I'm pretty excited about this. And we'll finish the production of it tomorrow. And I just come into the editing here.

00:15:00 John Daub: I wanna show you a little bit about Noboribetsu. Now, we were gonna do this outside at this town, but it's just too darn cold. It's freezing and it was scary on the roads. They're kind of freezing. Well, that's the reason why I don't wanna drive up there. Frozen. I don't wanna drive up there. The roads were pretty much frozen. We were kind of sliding. We actually saw a car accident. Fortunately, the people were okay, but the car isn't. The police had flares up and were showing... So, we're here on the... This is kind of the south side of Hokkaido, the island. This is right by the Noboribetsu Station. And I wanna show you where the onsen town is. So, the mountains, that's the Pacific Ocean. And the onsen town, the hot spring town, is about seven kilometers up into the hills. In Jigoku-dani (Hell Valley). And this is why we didn't wanna drive up there tonight, because it had snowed in and it is a little bit black icy up there. But I've taken you into this town before. And if you haven't, on my edited video channel, this is the live streaming channel, you can see me in the snow festival, which is a naked man festival. I'm in a thong in a...

00:16:12 Matt Alt: Don't laugh. This is a holy ritual that's been going on for decades. I just... It's a Shinto religious festival. I don't think of you in a thong, usually.

00:16:19 John Daub: Well, after you watch this episode, you will, a lot, because you can't avoid it. Although there were no close-ups of... I promise you, you'll never have to think of me in a thong. But you will have to think of me if you watch this episode, which is the first one on my edited channel. I like to not compete, but to participate in these things, because I do feel more connected to Japan when you do these things that might look silly, but you don't understand it until you do it sometimes. And they absolutely have a deeper meaning and reason. It does look silly to us, sometimes abroad, but there's absolutely a deeper cultural reason and a history to this stuff, and that's why it's really cool to...

00:16:59 Matt Alt: I envy you. I don't have the constitution to run around... You will not be saying that in minus 12 and I'm running around in underwear. You don't envy me. You envy me after I edit the video. No, I envy you in this big picture sense.

00:17:10 John Daub: I don't even know what that means. So here, I want to show you a couple of things. This is where we had dinner tonight. We couldn't find a restaurant that was open here in Noboribetsu. You can see the icy street. We really had to look. The Soda Shokudō, and it's basically a Japanese diner. Soda written in katakana, which is S-O-D-A, like cola. Look at the food we had, though. This is my nabe yaki udon.

00:17:42 Matt Alt: That looked really good. It was good. It looked too healthy for me.

00:17:46 John Daub: I was having beer with it, so... So what did I go for? I went for the katsu kari. It's always a good go-to, which is a deep-fried breaded pork cutlet with some spicy curry on top of some rice. And look at the ass-kicking. The menu thing is awesome. The only reason I ordered it was because of the English menu name to this. Are you guys ready? Hell ass-kicking hot zangi, which is karage. Zangy is what they call fried chicken up here in Noboribetsu. But this is hell ass-kicking hot. The English menu said hell ass-kicking. How can you not try that? It was pretty. But it wasn't spicy like American ghost pepper or like Cambodian or Vietnamese spicy. Yeah, it was shichimi spicy. It was a little tingly. I liked it. I actually thought it was very good.

00:18:56 Matt Alt: I think you didn't eat too much.

00:18:57 John Daub: You were last piece though. Didn't I? You left it... You took a bite and put it back. I saw that. I think I did finish it eventually and then we saw Santa Claus.

00:19:07 John Daub: The highlight was here in the Grand Noboribetsu Hotel and this is the lobby. This is a four or five star hotel and they had Santa Oni, which is the demons of Noboribetsu. And you can see... This is Santa. It's like Satan wearing a Santa hat. Totally. It's sacrilegious. Satan Claus. What the heck is going on here? You know, but actually, I asked Satan for a present, and I think I'm going to get that tomorrow. I'm going to the toy museum. You know what? Look at poor Santa on the left side there. Did you see him? It's like they only beat him down. The little tiny Santa. They beat down the real Santa on the left side there. You can't even see him. You know, everybody wants to sit on Oni Santa's lap. That's for sure. There's the real Santa put to the side here. I also sat down with Santa here. But unfortunately, you can see I made sure that the Oni knew I was a good boy.

00:20:10 Matt Alt: Exactly. Because he's just going to punish you no matter what. Good boy, good boy. I don't want any trouble. Who is it? Is it the Germans? They have like Krampus. He's like the anti-Santa. This kind of reminds me of this. I don't know, but no trouble, please.

00:20:26 John Daub: So what else can we share? I'm trying to think like, you know, this is... I think this is a pretty solid preview of what's going to happen tomorrow. But this is an amazing place. I really recommend anybody who's visiting Japan to come up here. Yeah, Noboribetsu is a really interesting...

00:20:42 Matt Alt: I did have one quick video that I wanted to show you when we got into Noboribetsu. The snow that we had. Yeah, so we came from Tokyo, which was actually quite warm. And then you can see here. You can see the flurries that we had at Chitose Airport. Oh, there's an F-15. Yeah, there's the F-15, which is these booms in the distance from the super fast jets. But this is Chitose Airport in Hokkaido. And you can see we arrived into this. And that's what we had driving as well for part of it.

00:21:22 John Daub: But this is Hokkaido. So nothing... A little bit of snow is not going to stop them. No way. I mean, this is like... I don't even think this got reported in the weather. Do you know what I mean? It's just like... It said partly cloudy and sunny and we had snow. So it's hard to... It's been snowing all day. If this happened in Tokyo, it would be like apocalyptic. It would definitely stop traffic. There'd be lines of traffic going two miles an hour. Here people are, you know... Tokyo doesn't even... Hokkaido drifting. Tokyo doesn't have any snow plows. There's no snow plows in Tokyo. They're just not set up for it. It's like North Carolina or something. The weather very much like Virginia. Sendai is very equivalent to like Boston. Hokkaido is gotta be like... Canada? Toronto? Montreal. Something like that. Danny's up there. We have some good people up in Montreal. There's a lot of snow. They're ready for anything. Vermont or something. If you ever put like... Have you seen those maps where they put like the islands of Japan on the east coast of America and you're like, what? It's like so mind blowing. Because like Okinawa is down in like Florida. You know? Tokyo is... Tokyo is North Carolina. It's actually like Raleigh. Kyushu would be like South Carolina, I think. Latitude? About. But the weather that you have on the west coast and maybe even on the east coast is very similar to the way Japan is. But Japan, you know, I said this before, it actually goes east to west more than it goes north to south. You think of it like this, but it's actually like this. So we'd say east Japan and west Japan.

00:22:54 Matt Alt: We have a coupon for ice cream for tomorrow. I wonder if it's... I have it in my pocket. But I'm going to take a picture of it. We'll see if we can get it tomorrow. We have it. We got it. So we're going to get some ice cream. They had like a waffle cone, I think. Which is pretty cool. No, it looks really good. I was just... I was partaking of their gin, but the ice cream looks quite good too.

00:23:17 John Daub: This guest house, I guess we can take a nap. I don't think we can talk. There's people asleep up there. There's people already asleep. Okay, we better not do it. Yeah, this is... I mean, it's past 10. This is where I stayed when I filmed that Naked Man festival here, the Yu Matsuri, or the Onsen Matsuri here in Noboribetsu. Again, it's held in February in Hokkaido with a thong. It was crazy. First of all, I couldn't believe that they still had this. And I said, if I'm going to restart over my channel, I'm going to do it with an impactful episode. And that's as impactful as I think you could get.

00:23:53 Matt Alt: It's not a thong. It's a fundoshi (traditional Japanese loincloth).

00:23:54 John Daub: You know what? If you look at my rear end, it's a thong to everybody else for the rest of the world. A fundoshi is spelled F-U-N-D-O-S-H-I. F-U-N, no fun. Because it's basically inserted like a wedgie. They actually wedgie you at the end. It's like old-fashioned Japanese underwear, basically. I think so, but they actually do the wedgie to make sure it's tight and doesn't come out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's sort of the problem. It doesn't come out even after. Oh, man. I don't even want to be thinking about this. Now I'm going to be dreaming about this or something.

00:24:26 Matt Alt: That's a nightmare.

00:24:28 John Daub: It's a dream come true for who? Not that fundoshi. Oh, man. I think Peso, which is one of our moderators, also put in some of those animated gifs of the wedgie. Peso, did you do that? You know, I don't know. A little bit too far. Take it too far. I'm actually, you know... It's really in there. I turn to the camera. I look down like this and I go up. It's really in there. And you know what? You made that into an animated gif and you could see me mouthing it. You can't put it on yourself. Somebody else has to put it on you? I mean, I don't know how to tie it. No, you can. Some people could do it. Well, sure. I mean, if you're used to it. But you need like someone to give you the ending. The wedgie. The end. Don't say that. It's true. I've had to wear fundoshi a little bit too much over the last 10 years of making the show.

00:25:22 John Daub: Matt, do you have anything you want to say to the people?

00:25:24 Matt Alt: We got here, Jason's ready to hear Matt Alt cameo. Thank you for even recognizing me.

00:25:29 John Daub: Matt Alt's world famous.

00:25:30 Matt Alt: Not as famous as you. Maybe like one tiny little bit as famous. It's really cool to get back on the saddle. I haven't been doing TV in a while. I've been busy with like writing and other stuff. So this is really, thank you for inviting me.

00:25:43 John Daub: Oh, not at all. Thank you for giving me this opportunity because it's really a, A, it's cool to come up to Hokkaido. It's just cool to come up here. B, it's really cool to go and see the toy museum. And then it's always cool to go to the Toy Museum. It's really cool to be on Only in Japan. So it's a trifecta.

00:25:59 Matt Alt: It's going to be a fun episode and this will be like our Christmas episode.

00:26:03 John Daub: I'll put it, like last year had speed wrapping. How fast could you wrap a package? In Japan, it's part of the service, the omotenashi (hospitality). They did it like 10 seconds, 12 seconds. It's ridiculous. And this time, you know, the meaning of Japanese toys, I think the stories behind it in particular for somebody that I care about, somebody who's my friend. He's a great guy. He's super interesting. He's funny as hell.

00:26:28 Matt Alt: And also, I have to say, your viewership, the stuff I was seeing going by in the comments, like people were saying Takatoku and Clover and like they know all the toy companies. They know this stuff. So like you guys and gals are primed for this amazing experience we're going to have tomorrow. And Wakaki-san, like you say, he's great. He was really dropping some like philosophical stuff on us today and I hope to pull that out of him. What was the one thing he said about Buddha?

00:26:51 John Daub: Well, I asked him. I'm like, you know, there's basically two types of things. There's two types of collectors in this world, right? There's like the completists and then the people who just kind of collect what they like. And none is higher or lower or better or worse or anything like that. But I said to him, I'm like, you're obviously not a completist. And he's like, what? Do I look like I'm Buddha? You know, he's like, the only one complete is the enlightened one. You know, we're not enlightened. We're people. We're like we make mistakes and we're imperfect. So our collections are imperfect. They should be imperfect. You can't strive for perfection.

00:27:22 Matt Alt: I want to be friends with that guy.

00:27:24 John Daub: But what am I? A Buddha? He said this. He basically said this. No. But yeah, that kind of mentality is so true. Well, you know, I mean, it's, collecting is kind of like, it's fun. You know, I'm a collector. But you're kind of like always one kind of fine line between going crazy. Because it's like if you start really going down the rabbit hole, get everything, you know. And then like you're not really doing what you like. You're doing what an obsession is.

00:27:55 Matt Alt: And one of the great things about Wakaki-san is he's not obsessed. That's, which is why I'm so centered and balanced and interesting. Like, it's like he couldn't get the toy to complete the set. And he's like, all right, I'm pretty content with what I have. Or he ordered toys to sell with the intention, like if it doesn't sell, that's okay. He's not an investor. That's the other thing. I'm just going to collect them. It's okay. He doesn't care. It's like most people who like spend a lot of money on a toy, they're like, well, in the future this will appreciate and I can sell for like, you know, this is great. This is going to be my stock. You know what I mean? My mutual fund. Not even, he's just, he's just into it because he loves it.

00:28:30 John Daub: You're going to love this episode. So this will be out in, in around the 19th of December. So we got, also I got to do the thumbnail. The eternal thumbnail. Wakaki-san holding up his precious treasure. Something, you know, it's his story. And then maybe me and Matt will be behind him or something holding up Godzilla or whatever. The good thing is he, he is generous in letting us touch his collection. He's not freaky about that. There's like some toy collectors, they have their Star Wars things in the original packaging. Don't touch. You know. The 40 year old version. You remember that? Like those people, come on, let me be honest with you. Well, they're not really fun. I'm not sure I want to be your friend. Right. No, but I mean, this, you know, if you're a collector, you know. I want to play with the toys. I'm the kid, you know. That's a different level of collecting, I guess. That's like a lifestyle. That's adult, are toys made for kids or adults?

00:29:23 Matt Alt: Well, they're made by adults. For who? For kids, theoretically. Although now it's interesting with the birth rate declining in Japan, the most expensive and elaborate toys are all made for adults. But a lot of these toys are, some of them are still made in Japan. Oh, many. But Japan is not the biggest manufacturer of them anymore. Well, Japan is what you call kind of a post-industrial society, right? Like it has moved beyond being the manufacturer of things and now it's more of a disseminator of ideas. And it's more of a consumer of concepts. You know, anime is a thing, manga is a thing, but it's really kind of software. You know, it's content. So Japan has moved toward a more content production sort of thing and you see this a lot in advanced societies, especially aged ones because they don't have a lot of young people who work in factories anymore.

00:30:14 John Daub: I always, this is a topic for another day, but you know, now that you're here, because we always talk about these kinds of stuff, like I look at Japanese cinema and how bad the stories are with that. How bad the acting and the stories are with Japanese. Some of them. Well, Japanese cinema in general is not even comparable to Korean cinema, for example. It's like, I think Japanese cinema is on maybe. I think Korea is wrestling with more existential problems than Japan is. That's part of it. Perhaps. And also. The stories are more dynamic. But my point is this. When you have, when you watch anime, the stories are so good. They reverberate so well with the viewers. Japan's great at stylizing stuff. Like super stylizing it. And I don't think that stylization conveys as well in, because their live action stuff is very stylized too. I mean, look at Japanese stage. It's like kabuki (traditional theater). Right. It's like the most stylized thing in the world to the point where kabuki is like an idiom now. You know? I'm not into this kabuki or political kabuki, you know? But it's stylization is the name of the game here. And when you do it as an illustration, I don't know, it just has more power. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, because anime is just so darn good and well thought out and planned. And if you, like writing for TV movies in the US is so good for the dramas. Television is now much better than Hollywood in the US. For sure, for sure. Streaming series and whatever. And then you see Japanese cinema versus Japanese anime. Right. And it's like the anime, the story lines and everything is just so darn good. It hits a sweet spot. It does. And you don't get that in the cinema very often. Anime is more aimed at adolescents. It's like a kind of adolescent angst. Is that the word? You know, it's all about that kind of stew of emotions. That ripples to adults? No, but I think it's, most anime is not made for adults. I think it's made for teenagers. And that's why so much of it is set in schools. You know, like Jujutsu Kaisen is set in a school. Like the Demon Slayer, they're all school kids basically. Like the most of the, Akira, they're all school kids. They're high school kids. You know, so most. But these are adults telling the story. But they're adults of course telling the story and using the kids. You know, but that's the thing. It's like, you know, it appeals to the young person in all of us. And also, young people are the most dynamic. I feel I'm a pretty dynamic person. But of course, the most dynamic thing in this room is the ice cream maker.

00:32:39 Matt Alt: It's back on.

00:32:41 John Daub: I think that's our cue because now I'm like, I'm melting. I smell like the onsen back too. I took a shower but like it was an amazing onsen. They had minerals on it. This is probably has the best water for onsen in Japan so they say. But Wakaki-san said the service, eh.

00:32:58 Matt Alt: The best water but the service, eh.

00:33:01 John Daub: But he's a local so he's probably feels that way. I don't know. We were a little bit taken aback like what? But that's what we love about. I think the service is great. He tells it like it is. He's dead on honest. Yes. He does not sugarcoat anything which is what makes it pretty cool to be here.

00:33:16 John Daub: Well, it's nice to be here. And thanks Matt for coming and for all of you for watching. If you have a question, you can leave it in the comments below. And we'll do another live stream tomorrow. We go back to Tokyo tomorrow. This is just a one day trip. One night. To film this. But I think one day is all it really takes for this specifically on the toys. And just be excited. When this episode comes out. Just mind blowing.

00:33:40 Matt Alt: Totally mind blowing.

00:33:41 John Daub: Good night.

00:33:53 Matt Alt: Good night.