00:00:01 John Daub: So the judgment came in on this case that we've been looking at for quite a while because it does impact the way I make content for this channel. I'm somebody who loves to just walk around Japan, in particular the countryside when I'm making a main channel episode. I like to go live and share things behind the scenes to give you a raw look at Japan, discuss issues like this. Anything can happen when you're live. That's the excitement, and also to have a lot of you watching. I can understand the attraction. I started in 2017. I was hitchhiking so I wouldn't feel alone on the road because anything can happen. It's nice to have witnesses out there, but that evolved into this channel. Over the last six years of doing this, everything has been pretty good with live streaming.

00:00:55 John Daub: There's been some issues because Japan has the strictest privacy laws maybe in the world. So it's really hard to do what I do. The judgment in this case and this individual—there's something fully wrong with you when your mugshot or shot of the police taking you away to jail shows a big smile. Honestly. Brad Chow Studio, how you doing? The judgment is in and we saw the writing on the wall for what the prosecutors asked for, which was ¥200,000 or about $1,350. He'll be deported or sent away and banned. One of the conditions is that he has to mark that he was convicted when he enters into this. So he might not be allowed back into the country, but it's a little bit of a gray area. This news was reported by Yahoo about 16 hours ago, and you can see that this is making big news here in Japan.

00:02:06 John Daub: And this is the reason why it's making a big impact on what I do. When you got somebody who is live streaming, even though we are totally different types of live streamers—I look at positive things, I want to share stories with you. He's trying to be a nuisance, disruptive, trying to shock people and get views in a country where this doesn't play very well here. There's a complete difference. But in the eyes of the majority of the people here in Japan—the majority, not everybody—it's totally the same thing. Here's the conditions of it. They lay it out pretty good. By the way, just a shout out to Jeffrey J. Hall on Twitter. This is the source where a lot of the other foreign YouTubers that are talking about this are getting their information. Jeffrey is a PhD at Kanda University, a specialist lecturer, knows a lot about this. He's been in Japan for a very long time—I can tell because he's recommending Second Harvest as one of the charities to donate to for the relief for the great Noto earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture.

00:03:11 John Daub: A fine of ¥200,000, about $1,381. Must leave Japan, possible deportation—we're just not sure yet. But this is a guy who's been here for over a year. He didn't get off scot-free. It's not just a fine. He's been in jail for three months, and that's not a good thing. Japan has a 99% conviction rate—it's infamously that high. Everyone talks about it. It's because when you're in prison, from people that I've talked to, they will try to extract a confession out of you. So I'm pretty sure the three months that he was there was not a happy time for him, and he might feel regret. We just don't know.

00:04:05 John Daub: A lot of people say three months is too short—so I'd say Johnny in Cleveland, which I'm assuming is Cleveland. Go Cavs. My feeling is his reputation is gone. In Japan, reputation is everything. He has to say he's a convict. His future's gone. But he's not Japanese, so he doesn't get this kind of a punishment. It doesn't hit him the same way that it would hit somebody who was Japanese—dishonoring your family, all this stuff. He's American. This is a slap on the wrist in those terms. Right? What did he really do? He didn't kill anybody. He didn't do a violent crime. Although words can lead to violence, as we all know. We all still believe that it's not a crime. It's not enough. But we just want to get him out of the country.

00:05:02 John Daub: Two things on this, and then I'm gonna move on because I really don't need to spend a lot of time on this. But as somebody in this community, when this happens in your community, you have to speak up. You have to put your words out there and tell others that are coming to Japan that this is not good. This is people in our community—other YouTube creators that live here in Japan. Because it impacts what we do here so badly. And when Logan Paul did the things that he did, like six, seven years ago, it hurt me very much in the way that I do business. I could not get access and permission to film at multiple locations for about a year because he had just damaged the reputation of YouTube in Japan for a solid year. And then eventually the good things that we do come back and repair the damage. But then here we go again. We've had the streamers last year do it, and I'm hoping that this year doesn't change.

00:06:03 John Daub: Already we're seeing around the city of Tokyo and in Osaka, in particular Osaka too. This was at the post office. And I'm not sure who would live stream at the post office besides maybe me. But by the way, I did ask permission to take this photo to tell people about this. And the manager of the post office who I know very well because I'm there like all the time said, sure, take a picture. But just don't take anybody's faces and be very polite about it. It says here, to protect the privacy and personal information of the customers and employees and to ensure the security, we strictly forbid photographing and recording in the post office premises without permission from the postmaster general. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. And I completely understand. I'm not going to be live streaming in the post office anyways. I do take pictures of people when I'm sending the postcards there, but I try to blur people's faces or do it with depth of field and try to be really respectful.

00:07:08 John Daub: People are still using their smartphones, people still take pictures and stuff that. But this changes a lot of stuff the way that I do things. There's signs like this inside of train stations. There's signs like this inside of convenience stores. I've always had a no camera thing. But now, even in a small town, people are looking at me live streaming because they know what I'm doing. It's very odd. But the reputation of what this is is not good in Japan right now. It might change over time, but it's not a great thing because it invades people's privacy. It makes them feel uncomfortable. And then when you have somebody like this creator do what he did, which is not good, it makes people think that you doing the same thing have malicious intent. And the judgment on this individual is that he had malicious intent. He didn't turn the sound down. He had lots of excuses, but the judgment came out that he had malicious intent. And that's really damaging to him, but also to me. I'm not the same person.

00:08:16 John Daub: Hopefully this can get Leo some snacks at Lawson's. You got it. Actually, today is Kanae Daub's birthday, and this week we bought her a cake. I put it on Instagram. It was a beautiful princess cake. And today I'm taking Kanae and Leo to Yokohama to stay at a hotel there overnight. Because one of the things that Kanae wanted was a hotel breakfast, like a really good one. So we're gonna go do that. I've been saving up points for this. It's a really nice hotel, and I'll tell you about it a little bit later. But back to the point. Thanks guys for asking about that. We have a wonderful community of people here. For those that aren't on Watch Only in Japan, this is my live streaming channel. Just wanted to wish you and the family a happy new year. All the family coverage and the friendly nature has been greatly appreciated throughout. Thank you, Austin.

00:09:07 John Daub: And this channel is supposed to be a beacon of positivity. But I do think that this is maybe the last stream, hopefully, on this. I know our moderators don't like it when we stray off the path of good and into the path of the wicked here. But we have some amazing moderators too. Thank you guys. There's an American trait that's as Christian as can be that goes back to the founding of our country. People can redeem themselves. You can have a second chance. And if you didn't have that, then there would be no hope. What would you live for? People make mistakes all the time. The mistakes that this guy did is pretty wicked. But then there's another side of me that says, look, maybe he'll change. We know that he probably won't, but maybe he will. And I've changed over the years. So that's one of the considerations that you have. There are people who have pity on this guy. I don't have any pity on him. But I do think that people can change. And I think that's a very American trait that is good. Because I know that one day I might make a massive mistake that could damage my reputation, and I would like to think that I could have a second chance.

00:10:46 John Daub: Not going to be the most virtuous person in the world and say that this guy's not gonna be. But he could change his name. He could get cosmetic surgery. I don't think that changing your name is gonna do much good, not with facial recognition and all this stuff that's probably gonna be coming in Japan in 2025 for the expo. I bet you're gonna have to have facial recognition to enter. So even if you changed your name and you get a new passport under a different name, I'm pretty sure that he's gonna have a pretty difficult time coming into Japan. You can't really lie your way out of it unless you have cosmetic surgery these days. I'm just trying to think outside the box here because he really wanted to come back to Japan and I don't think he's really gonna have that opportunity. But who knows? Again, people can redeem themselves. I don't think in this case. Aryo writes, no pity, no redemption. I've never heard of him. Good.

00:11:49 John Daub: Alright everybody, that's all that I really have today. Thank you Mr. Clayton. Appreciate that. I wanted to keep this really positive but I want to mention that what you do in Japan impacts the way foreign... the perception that Japanese have of all non-Japanese. What you do in this country as a tourist impacts the way people see me as someone who lives here for 25 years. And I'm happy, I'm fine if no one thinks that I'm Japanese. I've been here 25 years. I probably have more Japanese traits than I have American traits, believe it or not. I'm somewhere in the gray world here. But when stuff like this happens and makes the news, it hurts me. It hurts Japan. It hurts the people around me. But it hurts the perception that people have of me that don't know me. And my reputation, somewhat wide, also doesn't translate so well out here where people don't know who the heck I am. They just see me as another non-Japanese person with a camera doing something that could be malicious because another guy did it. Actually, it was more than another guy. There were a lot of people who did it. And what you do matters.

00:13:11 John Daub: So this doesn't impact anybody in our community that is watching this because everybody who I know in this community is really good. In fact, people ask questions on how they can avoid offending other people. Which I think is not the point. You don't have to worry about offending other people. You can be a guest here in Japan. But there's a limit to where you can and cannot be a guest. And I think that limit, with common sense, is pretty clear how far you can go. So with that said, I don't think I'm going to be doing as many live streams. I'm still going to do live streams out here, especially to show you new places. Like we were just in Fukushima, maybe about three or four kilometers away from the meltdown. We were in Fukushima just two or three days ago. And then I caught a cold and now I'm okay again. Right now, I'm okay. I'm probably going to be doing some podcasting on this channel. I bought a mic, all the equipment, audio stuff, attachments for the desk. And we'll be able to talk about these issues in the comfort of a somewhat studio, which is a safer environment. Because I have to change along with the situation. And it's just more and more uncomfortable to be live streaming in Tokyo and the big cities. Because I really do care about people's privacy. I do want to do things the right way. It's getting harder and harder to do that. But I also need to keep this channel going, to answer some of your questions as well as share some of the things I know about this amazing country. And I think it's important that I keep doing that too because a lot of places need a light shined on them.

00:14:56 John Daub: Yeah, what has happened with this has impacted me greatly. That's why I'm covering this right now. I'm not blaming—there's no blame except for this guy. Yeah, you can blame this guy because all these signs are reaction. You have to know how Japan works. Japan is a very reactive country. I use this example quite a bit. When the drones came out like 10 years ago, a dude flew the drone and it landed on the prime minister's roof. Like within a week all drones were banned. You could not fly a drone. And then they made decisions and relaxed the rules, like only licensed pilots. And there was no association to give people the certification or licenses at the time. It was like the wild west of drones. But this is what Japan does. They're very reactive to this. And it'll get better, but they clamp down hard. And I can feel it. And that's the point. I'm hoping that with him leaving, more people being perhaps more careful when they come here to Japan and just having general respect, everything will be okay again in 2024.

00:16:24 John Daub: See, look, we have this exchange of information. I love it. That's really good. All right, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. I'm taking Kanae to Yokohama. Perhaps I'll share some things with you. On Saturday, I have a live stream from the U.S. I think we're going to cut open a fish. It's going to be really interesting. I think they're going to carve like a $100,000 tuna for me and let me live stream it at the Yokohama fish market, which is the best alternative to Tsukiji market and Toyosu market, which is really crowded and kind of strict with all the rules there. Yokohama's fish market is pretty darn good, the central fish market there. So I'll definitely be doing that on Saturday. All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I look forward to hearing your comments and reading it over the next few hours. Because it seems like this ordeal is over. It was a slap on the wrist. Could more be done? Do you think this will dissuade people from doing it again? Do you think it's going to happen again? Love to hear from you. Matane.

00:17:31 John Daub: Oh, I'm still here. It's like a little Ferris Bueller moment. Thank you, David Kimura. And thank you, Austin and everybody else. I appreciate it. Off I go.