00:00:01 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo. That right there is the Gundam Factory. We say Gundam in Japanese. It looks like Gundam. I'm not a huge fan of it, but this is one attraction that I was hoping would never go away. It's just in a position in Yokohama that is really unique and I'm sure they're going to be building something there.

00:00:21 John Daub: They actually extended this attraction by another year because of the pandemic. A lot of people didn't come to see it because of corona and everything that happened over the last couple of years. But this attraction is ending in just a couple of weeks, which is crazy to me.

00:00:39 John Daub: This is the website. I just wanted to go over this and show it to you because I'll change it to English. "Won't stop just yet" was their headline and they continued it to go on until this year, March 31st, which is coming up really quick. And if you are coming to Japan at this time, I would recommend stopping here. I'm not again, this is not a sponsored video or anything like this. It's just one of those unique attractions that if I didn't tell you about it to go and see it, you would miss. I'm sure they'll build something else because the demand for something like this is huge. But the event period and the time to get tickets and all of this, they might sell out in the last month. So that's another reason I think it's something you want to keep an eye on.

00:01:21 John Daub: If you are coming here, you can get the tickets online. If you are thinking of going to Yokohama, this is something that if your family is interested in, it's not going to be there past April 1st, which a lot of people are coming here for the Tokyo cherry blossoms. I thought it was a pretty unique experience and I'll talk about this as well. But the website is right here. It's got everything, including the tickets that you can buy there. Yeah, you know, I'm again like I'm not a huge fan of anime and manga and all this stuff. But some of you that are living in Japan or interested in Japan, I was like, are you crazy? Why are you even here at all? Because Japan is a country that's more than just subculture. Okay, there's a lot of other reasons why I'm here, which includes this neighborhood, which is just an amazing place.

00:01:51 John Daub: Let me show you again some of the things that I saw when I went to go see this mobile suit Gundam, which is so cool. The thing that separates this from the one in Odaiba is that it actually moves. It like goes in and out of its cage. And look, some people say that JAXA and the Japanese government is in on this. This is like one of the self-defense forces weapons. I can neither confirm nor deny it. All I know is that when it went there, it moved pretty darn good.

00:02:21 John Daub: All right. This is like one of these things. Here, let me bring it up full screen for you. It's like look at the steam coming out of it. First of all, like I don't know if that was generated by a steam machine or it's actually the robot. It's like a blaster is warming up. But if I look, I would say to Japan's enemies, do not attack. You would not survive these things. They're massive and they look like they have all sorts of things.

00:02:52 John Daub: On the right side, you see up on the upper deck. There's an upper deck ticket that you can get. I don't know if I recommend that or not. If you're a big fan of it, you can go and get that ticket. You can see like eye level with the mobile suit Gundam. You got to go up the steps. Maybe there's an elevator. I didn't do that. I didn't see the reason to want to go up there and get platform tickets. I think it was like another $30 or something like that. Here's a picture of it. You can see up there on the platform. There are people up there, which is kind of cool, right?

00:03:22 John Daub: I came in the morning. It wasn't very crowded. You can see there's not a lot of people around. Let me push the play button. It's on an isolated part of Yokohama. I say isolated because it's out on like a pier, but it's really close to Chinatown, which is another reason why like this is such a great location, but I guess we're going to be building something here. I'm not sure. Yeah, it's Japan's version of Iron Man, but like I don't want you guys to miss this if you're here just because it's kind of cool. You feel the Japanese subculture when you do go to something like this and you know, I don't know any other places that have built something like this either.

00:04:23 John Daub: You'd make something that's like people's fantasies come true kind of a thing. It's just kind of cool. I don't think I took this with the actual event. I took it with my other camera in case I make a video about robots in Japan. I wanted to make sure I had background video on it because before it's gone, who knows if this is ever going to come back.

00:04:54 John Daub: Again, right, but it's super cool. Look at that. It's like every detail of the parts on this thing is moving. Here's where it is. You can see it in relationship to Tokyo, which is on the top there. You see Chiba, Kawaguchi. That's Tokyo up there on the very north of the bay and then down south. Gundam Factory, Yokohama. Let me just show you the location. I'll just pull it in here.

00:05:14 John Daub: Yokohama in general is a place that I think a lot of international tourists do not schedule a day to come down here and I think that's a big mistake. Tokyo is really crowded. This is a place in particular if you look at it, it looks like there's nothing around it and it really is very much like this. Sandra writes in here, have you made Gundam model? No, I haven't made anything with Gundam. Okay, I'm not as I said, I'm not a huge fan. But when you go to something like this, you kind of can get interested into it. It's just really cool that Japan made something like this.

00:05:25 John Daub: I look, they have—I'm going to show you what the ones in Odaiba that will still be around. Look at it. It's like this open place they restricted. It was really popular when it first came out, but they restricted the amount of people that can go in there. It can house quite a bit of people, but I think there's times where it sells out. The tickets do, you might want to get there a little bit before the show, but you can go up the steps. You see them on the left side. I was up on the steps standing there or in the second platform, but it's kind of out of the way. You see there's Tokyo. Yeah, you know.

00:06:27 John Daub: Gundam is such another reason why it's very important for what I do to know about Gundam is that it's culturally significant. The space program here in Japan, JAXA, which is Japan's NASA—JAXA recently sent a robot to the moon. They name some of their projects after Gundam and you know, it's funny because it's the equivalency to like Star Wars. It's quite culturally important to Japanese. This is an anime and a manga that came out decades ago, but it's just so cool. It's so—I don't know, it like when you get it, when you watch it a little bit, it's kind of a neat thing, but it's still not my cup of tea. I got a lot of other stuff to do than to watch it.

00:07:28 John Daub: Is the microphone covered? I don't think so. I'm using the iPhone. So maybe it's not as good as the other microphones. Sorry about that. That's all I really had on this. I wanted to share with you my experience when I went there. Here's the Gundam at Diver City. This is going to still be there. But this is the first one. It's been there for well over a decade. I'd say maybe 15 years when Diver City opened up and it hasn't really—it doesn't really move that much. It's changed cosmetically or they've brought in other ones over the years. So I'm not sure this looks like the older one maybe but I remember when everybody was going there and going this is the coolest thing in the world and then they did what they did in Yokohama and it took it to a whole new level.

00:07:58 John Daub: So I'm guessing like it would be good to go see this one. But I got a feeling they'll probably do something now before 2030 that's even like more off the charts crazy cool. So if that's something you wanted to plan in your trip, just keep in mind, it's not going to be here past March 31. And I'm kind of sad about that. Any questions? If you have any in your mind, or you want to share a story about this, please do write in the comments below. This is social media. And I like hearing back from you all.

00:08:29 John Daub: What do you think they should try to extend it or just move it to another location? I would love to see them take it away from Yokohama and put it out in the countryside. Look, the Ghibli Museum is a good example where if you put something out there like Mitaka is like really kind of out there in Tokyo, it's not really central. But when you put something out, people go to it. And it really does help the local economy. And I'm sure that it also helps the price for the rent and everything is driven down. I'm not sure there's a young workforce out there in the countryside, but it would definitely make an impact. Put it someplace like Tochigi or someplace up in Ibaraki. I think that'd be pretty cool.

00:09:29 John Daub: The JAXA Museum, the space museum is up in Ibaraki, in Tsukuba, which is, guess it's Ibaraki, but it's like Tokyo Science City because it's so close to Tokyo. A lot of the scientific intellectuals go and study at the Tsukuba University up there, which is why they had this Tsukuba express train that leaves from Akihabara through Asakusa and you can go up to Tsukuba. It's like putting all the smart scientific people connected to the city and you know maybe they should put a Gundam mobile suit robot factory up there. I think it'd be pretty cool.

00:09:45 John Daub: Originally Yokohama Gundam Factory was supposed to open from 2019 to 2020. Yeah it was only supposed to be for a year. It was gonna be like this pop-up thing and then they kept it around and I didn't go the whole time because of the pandemic and everything and it wasn't until last month that I got a chance to go there for a couple of hours. I walked there from the hotel. I was staying at Minato Mirai at the Pier 8 area which is a brand new hotel complex. I thought it was a pretty interesting couple of hours to walk over there, get some exercise, get some sun. It was a much warmer day like today. Yesterday was freezing. We had some snow and now the sun is out and it's kind of warm. So it's weird. It feels like spring is starting to break.

00:10:35 John Daub: Yes, Leo is speaking. That's another thing. We'll see if we can get him on the live stream, but we're not really putting him on social media too much every now and then. And actually, it's sort of like our home videos when we do that. Jesse, thank you for asking about that. We do put Leo in some of the videos because it's also a good memory for us. It's also like our home video sometimes. We can always watch Leo's growth on the show just like you can by replaying what we see. But we're also very sensitive that the fact that he's just a little kid and anybody who gets on social media, it's not a good idea to put your kids on social media so much.

00:11:13 John Daub: I'm kind of like a lot of you parents that might be in there. I'm an older parent. Maybe I'm 50 now, but perhaps I just see like maybe some more risks of putting your kids up on social media than someone who might be 20 years younger than me. Maybe. I don't know. But every parent's different. Kimono mom, her daughter, which is so cute, is always in their social media. And I just I don't think I could do that with Leo. I don't know. But who knows? You know, times change and he grows up and then perhaps he'll be speaking more and want to do it. I'll let him decide if he wants to or not.

00:12:00 John Daub: Right. Thanks again. Oh, Nightbot, thanks for plugging the postcard club. That's all. That's all I really have for you today. But I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think about these attractions. Should the Gundam Mobile Suit Factory be in Yokohama? Should it be in Tokyo? Should they move it out to the countryside? Should they do something different? What are your ideas? I'd love to hear because there's a lot of really big fans of the series and I would love to get your idea.

00:12:34 John Daub: I'm seeing some of the comments coming here. So many kids are going to sue their influencer parents. I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking about that, too. But I think for kids, it's really hard. You have to think about that. You have to really consider it. You know, I understand if you're a family, it's hard to separate the social media. But I think it's really something to consider. And honestly, we just think it should be reportable media if there's anything on our red tape that is bad. The focus on this is a family driven thing. I leave it up to them.

00:13:10 John Daub: I follow in Greg Lamb's footsteps. He's a good friend of mine. He has kids that are older and you know, sometimes they wanna be in it and sometimes they don't. And he respects that and I like that too. So it's up to each parent in the parental behavior that is needed. Parents and the parent knowledge can get here, too. Style I suppose yeah and you know I'm kind of sad because this is the kind of attraction that Leo would just absolutely love right. Leo would absolutely love something like this but he's just not old enough to really appreciate the magnitude or the story yet.

00:13:33 John Daub: But hopefully if I make a video about robots this will help to inspire him. Um there's a lot of cool things with this robot that I filmed with my 8K camera actually so you'll probably see this again in a robot episode coming on Only in Japan soon. Yeah all right everybody thanks so much for bearing with me on this. Uh again it's not like something that's sponsored or anything like that I just think that this is an opportunity that I don't want y'all to miss if you know about it and this channel gives you news it kind of gives you updates on what's going on around here.

00:14:26 John Daub: All right everybody matane. I'll leave you with some Gundam images. Let me see what's my favorite one here. Oh here's one of Yokohama there you go. This is just the view just from the Gundam the pier there and there's the Landmark Tower which used to be Japan's tallest building. It's got some earthquake proofing structures on the top of it, a ball that swings against the earthquake to help balance the building. It's a really unique view I thought just from here going out onto the pier and there's the Ferris wheel at Minato Mirai. It's Yokohama such a beautiful strolling city along the harbor. You can walk all the way from Gundam and Chinatown all the way to Minato Mirai where the Ferris wheel is. That's a pretty cool experience. Matane.