00:02 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Kameari in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward up in the north here. This is just a small little station, but it's got a very interesting story to it. In this episode I'm going to take you down and show you KochiKame, the Tokyo Beat Cops, which is an anime that they've been doing here for quite a while. For about 20 years it ran, and in 2016 that anime stopped. That's where we are. Alright, let's go downstairs and get out of here. This is on the Joban Line, and I'm here for a job. But it might be nice to stop for a little bit and check out KochiKame, which is the anime series that was in Shonen Jump for such a long time.

01:24 John Daub: Alright, we're going to go to the south entrance and then walk up the north entrance here. Oh, it's already right in front of the station there! Check it out! No, this is not a real life character. Or was it? It's very confusing. This is crazy. I don't know if this was even here when I came 20 years ago. I know they were running the anime series. And they have a bunch of statues. I think there's 14 of them in total. And you can walk around and check them all out. Good morning everybody! Good morning for real! Check it out, it's really cool. I'm just going to kneel down. You can see here. That's cool that they do this here. A lot of Japanese stations have these kinds of statues in front of them, in particular if they're famous for something. And this anime made this town quite famous: Kameari. The kanji in the first one means turtle, and I guess ari means "here." Aru. It's like there's a turtle here. It's an unusual station name. Maybe I got it wrong.

02:49 John Daub: Here's another one. Oh, there's like a Gachapon Center right inside the station. Alright, in anime form, a little bit creepy. It's animated, but that's anime. I have not watched this anime very much, but I do know that it gave you kind of an idea of what the beat cop life was like back in the Showa era—like really long time ago. And it's unique to see that they have statues. It's still here, even though the series ended a long time ago. You can see the statue with me. That's kind of a cool photo.

03:52 John Daub: Alright, before we go, I wanted to take you through the town here and show you the park. Let's go take a look. They do have a koban (police box) here. I don't know, is this the one that was in the anime? You see, this is called a koban. These police boxes are where if you need help or you got something lost or you're in trouble, you can go there, and they will usually help you in Japanese. Not so sure about in English. Alright, let me show you where I am on the map here. So Kameari is in the north of Tokyo, in the Katsushika Ward area. There's 23 wards in Tokyo. This is one in the north. It's kind of old school up here. Things haven't changed a lot. There's an Ito-Yokado. I think that's on the other side. But I wanted to take you to Kameari Park. And I think that's over in this direction here. It's kind of a neat little station. If you're in the area, it might be worth checking out. It's really worth stopping by because you do get a vibe of being in the Showa era.

05:02 John Daub: And here's a little bit on the anime: KochiKame, the Tokyo Beat Cops. It was an anime series by Osamu Akimoto. It takes place in the present day, which is in the past. It started in 1976 and went on until 2016. 1,960 chapters were collected. It's pretty incredible. I know that they did have an anime series on TV as well that was replayed for quite a long time. But the manga appeared in Shonen Jump at Shueisha, which is where I worked many years ago. Very cool place. And it's the eighth best-selling manga series in history. That's a big deal. Very big deal.

05:45 John Daub: And if you walk in this direction, boom. There's the park. I like the way the roads are made of bricks. It feels like 1986 here. It's got like a 1986 vibe. Very cool. Alright, let me go check out this park. I believe there's another statue I can show you. The Quiet Player's favorite character is Ai Asato. Manga is one of the things that I didn't read a lot. I just never was able to get into it. So I don't have as much information on it. So I usually have friends like Patrick Galbraith or Matt Alt or my friend Kai. They are big otaku fans and they have so much knowledge. And so when there's a topic that I don't know a lot about, I will usually enlist the help of my friends. And there are so many that know a lot about manga and anime. And I'm always going to be a beginner. Oh, there it is over there. There are 14 characters. So walking around the town just going to try to find them is kind of fun. Look at that. It's just like, how you doing? This is funny.

07:09 John Daub: Alright, let's walk over across the street, across the park. This is one that I wanted to go in. I'm going to say hi to before we sign off here. Yeah, I'm not too familiar. I'm familiar with this because it was always on TV. Alright, look, there it is. This is one of my favorite ones that I saw on the internet I wanted to come to see. I don't think they had this when I first came 20-some years ago. He's taking over the whole bench, man. I love that. And the sign looks like it's from a train station here. I believe they are really bronze. Yeah, if that answers your question, they're made of real bronze here.

08:04 John Daub: I'm here in Kameari to do a job. I'm going to be filming here on a top secret project. I don't want to reveal it to you yet. But I'm going to be doing a factory today. And then the day after tomorrow, I'm going to rent a car and go up to Ibaraki. And I will be filming up there as well. I'll be filming the day after tomorrow for an episode. And I don't know. I've got so much editing to do. This didn't come up at the right time. I scheduled this about three months ago. So I'm kind of looking forward to this as well. But I want to get back and start to edit. But I don't come out to this area very often. To Katsushika. I used to live in Edogawa Ward. A lot of you know I lived in Shinozaki. It's a town on the Toei-Shinjuku subway line. It's not too far away. I used to ride my bicycle up in this direction, along the Edogawa River and then come in a little bit. It's quite a ways though. I would also run. I believe I ran through here when I was marathon training. And that was like a good 30-some kilometer run. I did some massive marathon training runs back in the day. Not so much these days because I never get into the marathon. It's too crowded.

09:36 John Daub: One thing you'll notice is that everything is way cheaper out here. Way cheaper. It's just got this rugged feel to it. Let me just show you down the street here. Slice of Japanese life. You don't get more local than this. This is pretty darn local. You got a McDonald's, a bank, a convenience store. Okay, here's an interesting vending machine over here. Couple ATMs. This is a dashi vending machine. Don't try to drink this if you find this really unique vending machine. This is for like soup and stuff. But it's got to be pretty good. There's two kinds of dashi. This one's 750 yen. Wow. And this one's 550 yen. So I think there's two different kinds. Maybe one is kombu and the other one has something else in there. It's used for making miso soup. There was a video of tourists that bought this and were downing it. And I think they knew what it was but it's a little bit too salty.

11:03 John Daub: Here's the station up here. Let me take you back. I want to see if I can grab a coffee somewhere. And over there is the koban. You see that green sign? Koban is... you're going to want to remember this. If you ever get in trouble, head to a koban. Chukagari-ya (Chinese cuisine) here. Always the cheapest. Always pretty darn good too. So there you have it. I just wanted to give you a little bit of slice of life here in Kameari. It is far away. But it's kind of cool. The Joban Line will run from Hibiya Park is where I got the connection. And then you just take it all the way up until you arrive at the station. I think I'm going to grab a coffee now.

12:20 John Daub: Hey, Kamen Rider Rogue is here. Fun fact, there are a lot of people going around Japan to take pictures of special statues of anime characters like you have shown and the places of manga or anime series. The one down in Kamakura has been disturbing the peace and making the locals really stressed out. And there's a train crossing there from Jump, I believe it's what it's called. And yeah, I don't know too much about it, but makes for a pretty cool photo. There's a statue on the bus side there and the front of the station. So you don't have to walk too far to start to see the statues. And they really do celebrate KochiKame or Tokyo Beat Cops. Right there you see the sign welcoming you to Kameari. It says, "Yokoso Kameari." And yeah, welcome. And now I got to get back to work. This is Only in Japan Go. Have a good day everybody. I'll see you in another one tomorrow as I bring you to another corner of probably Tokyo. But who knows? Matane.