Speakers:

• John Daub (Only in Japan Go host)

00:00:01 John Daub: Good afternoon. Welcome to Tokyo. Well, actually, this isn't Tokyo. I'm in an undisclosed location in Japan, let's just say. Yesterday in the afternoon on March 11th, there was a live streamer — this is something that I do, pretty much walking around the streets in a similar fashion as I am right now. I was stabbed by a fan and was killed. And it is something that I've been thinking about since my wife told me last night. It's been all over the Japanese news over the last 24 hours now, almost 24 hours. And it's something that I'm quite concerned about as a result of like, there's just a lot of toxicity in this space right now, which is live streaming. I don't even consider this to be IRL.

00:00:52 John Daub: Streaming — I started this in 2017, sort of to connect with viewers. They didn't have monetization really of live streams. There was no Super Chats, there was no memberships, and all this other stuff. I just wanted company and to make episodes that I didn't have to edit to get content out quickly to people around Japan, introduce places that I normally wouldn't do. And it's turned into this thing now, in real — IRL streaming, in real life. I don't get the — I don't get why people watch it for hours and hours, but I do do this because I hope that there's some sort of theme or story behind it all. But let me go back to why I'm doing this here. When I heard about somebody having a view — it's always been in the back of my mind because my wife always tells me, you know, you got to be careful out there. There's always a bunch of weird people. But I know she's Japanese, so she always thinks about the negative. And I'm American — I probably think about the positive or the rewards more of it. And I — like, I get a chance to meet with people. People can come up and say hi. I feel a positive energy from people. That's what I mean by rewards. Where she sees the risks of it — somebody might attack you, or somebody might — that's just the way. Maybe it's the nationality or the way people think in general. I'm a pretty optimistic person, so I love it when people come to say hi.

00:02:15 John Daub: Let me just show you the story here in English so you get an idea. It's — Japanese streamers stabbed to death reportedly by hater on the IRL stream. There was money involved, I believe, which is something that makes this a very — I don't know. Maybe I think her Mogami — I was her name. I'd never heard of this particular streamer here, but she was a Japanese streamer. Um — stabbed multiple times by IRL, in real life streaming, to over 6,000 people in Tokyo. She was in Tokyo for a while. She was in Takadanobaba. I was not that far away from there yesterday. Mogami was walking the streets of Shinjuku at Shinjuku Ward while live streaming on the Japanese platform Who Watch — never heard of. Who Watch — um — on YouTube. And I noticed that the media — I guess these are older people — they just consider everything to be YouTube because it's the biggest platform. So it's interesting that they're naming Who Watch. I never heard of this platform. According to — need to know — the streamer suddenly began screaming uh for over a minute. I think Mogami spoke something — I'm trying to say before a man covered in blood and holding a knife appeared on screen.

00:03:19 John Daub: "Are you dead yet?" Asked an alleged attacker, described as a hater — anti-fan — in Japanese media. This happened live. This is awful. And this is the greatest nightmare of my wife. I think the broadcast continued with all going on with fans eagerly concerned about the well-being of Mogami, even as emergency sirens roared over the black screen. According to police, the suspect said he wanted his money back, leading to speculation that he may have been a viewer who donated. I — everybody should be following Jeffrey J. Hall, who's a professor here in Japan, news-based. He puts out — he translates a lot of the Japanese news and he gets it up pretty quickly. So Jeffrey Hall, I think a lot of you probably already do follow him. Gigi Press is reporting that a female voice actress was stabbed while live streaming near Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo. A middle-aged man has been arrested for the attempted murder. It was — it's basically murder. It is murder. So it's kind of a case that we're going to hear a little bit more about. But the most important thing about all of this — somebody lost their life doing this. That should never be something — shouldn't be an answer to anything. If you've been conned out of money or whatever, that's not the way to do it. But this — as I said in the beginning of this — this space is just so toxic right now because of IRL streamers. There is — in Japan — it's sickening. There is — it's all over the media. Just recently, we're all hearing about the Johnny Somali case in Korea right now. Legal Mindset — A Tozy — some of the other YouTubers are rightfully bringing attention to what they're doing. And trust me, I know my own moderators have told me — in the past, talking about him gives him more oxygen. It does — not talking about him. It kind of kills this, right? I really think that exposing these people really hurts their cause, lets people know that this is bad behavior. This is not everybody. And this is something that the community at large just absolutely is against. And I am as well. I like to think that I'm highlighting the positive aspects, the positive things of Japan. I want to do good through this. They — like — want to make money by doing things bad, which I don't understand why people support that. They're psychotic. And David T. I agree — these toxic people need to be exposed and shamed. Salty Apple writes. And I think that's — I don't have such a big platform, and I'm not the kind of person that does it. I'm — I'm a hopeless optimist in most senses. And I've — I've even said that Ice Poseidon, who is someone I might mention here, is really talented. And what — to have a following like that, you have to be pretty talented and pretty smart. But he's — he's one of the biggest problems. Right. He's one of the biggest problems with this space because people follow what he does. He's a charismatic person. He doesn't tell people to follow him. I don't know what he says. Actually, I don't watch it. But even — the Coast Guard — he's being tracked by the Japanese police and the Coast Guard kicked him off of a ferry. They — people reported what he was doing. Japanese viewers are watching him. And I think this is another reason why YouTubers or other people should be exposing it. Because I really want — the people around me in my community to understand that what I'm doing is different from what they're doing, because I'm looped in already this year as a result of Johnny Somali and a bunch of other stuff that happened up in Hokkaido over the last two years.

00:07:00 John Daub: I've been getting — I usually, for my main channel, call and try to get permission or access to film a story or an idea that I have. And nine times out of ten, people are okay with it, which is great. But I'm having people — when I say YouTube — not allow me the access because I'm YouTube — because I said YouTube. They see social media as just a toxic, toxic place. And that's — they don't want whatever they're doing shown in that light, because they associate it with the worst possible things that are happening in this space. That is such a sad thing. It's really sad. And I'm trying my very best to try to — and there's a lot of other people too — try to do this in a way that is very optimistic and very encouraging to try to help Japan with over-tourism, try to spread out people from going into crowded areas, learn about new places, learn more about the culture, learn about how you know some of the things behind Japanese culture that makes your trip better for you. And it's better for the people that you're interacting with here in Japan — the locals. It's a really hard thing to do when you have people coming from abroad that are our nuisance streamers. And this all ties in with what happened yesterday. I know — apparently she took my — we just know, allegedly is the right word. She took money from, or was given money from, a fan who took out the money as loans. Who's probably wanting the money back from these loan officers. I don't know how it works. There's these places where you can get money — really expensive. Like the interest rates — like 25% or something. And they start taking money from your paycheck from work in order to pay it off. I mean, it's like basically a mortgage on your — on your life. And he took — took out one of these to give to a streamer. I'm not sure why. We don't know why. But he apparently was not happy about that. And he did something about it.

00:09:02 John Daub: We saw former Prime Minister Abe — where he was scammed out of money and he was — very — and somebody assassinated him. We've seen political violence. We've seen all sorts of odd on-the-street stuff like this now in Japan over the last couple few years. So it's something that's very concerning to me. I don't think I'm going to stop doing this, but I probably will do it a lot less in Tokyo. And I — as a — $2 million yen — I think it's about $13,000 according to Jeffrey Hall. Yeah. And the exchange rates I have here. I think Jeffrey Hall also shared the stream. Here, so you can — you can check it out. You could see that a lot of people — 6,000 people were watching this live stream. And look at the streams just going — going nuts, like everyone asking, "Are you okay? What happened?" The screen just went black. And then I think the police picked up the phone when it was discovered that she was — here. It is — the police picked it up. There's no audio — probably for a good thing here. But it's very concerning for people like me. Here's the police picked it up. You can see — I think it was a motorcycle on the side there. And whoever's battery died that was screen recording this. It's just an awful, awful thing.

00:10:29 John Daub: Takadanobaba is a really popular place for tourists too. It's not — there's so many people out there on the streets at Takadanobaba. It's on the Yamanote Line. It's just amazing — in broad daylight, this happened where somebody was murdered, and it's just not something that is normal in Japan. So it's — the whole country right now is talking about this. And this is the kind of incident — let me get down to brass tacks. This is the kind of incident where the industry or where Japan starts to take action when somebody dies or there's an injury, or — not — just you know, someone throwing a snowball — but doing this in real life, live streaming, when somebody dies. This is when legislation and lawmakers start to step in, right, and it gets really strict and there's a clamp down on stuff. Typically. I don't know if this is what's going to happen. But typically, this is what will happen in Japan where there's an action and there's a reaction from government, and I think it's about time.

00:11:28 John Daub: I've been kind of planning for this. I actually have a green screen. I have lights. I have a microphone. I have everything set up to do podcasting if I need to take this channel — which is supposed to be live streaming on location to bring you with me to places in Japan — not just Tokyo. I might have to go into podcasting or do that for a while. If things get hotter, the law changes. And she died. She — she died. She was multiple, multiple times stabbed, and it's — it's my worst nightmare. But I've got green screens because I don't have a huge place to livestream, and so the green screen is kind of neat to have. But you know, I might have to go in and do that and do stuff from this side of it. I can do it to keep the channel going. Everybody knows I had to restart my channel in 2020 as a result of disputes. And this has been my main channel during the pandemic because I didn't have a lot — I couldn't go out to film the episodes for the main channel. So this was the main channel for quite a long time, and now I'm switching back this year. It seems to make a lot of sense to make the main channel the main channel for once. That's — there's a lot of edited stories there. I think most of you will enjoy it. This is the latest episode where I take you to a place in Japan. I think it's in Tokyo — where I think 50,000 of the 20-plus million tourists that come to Tokyo, only 50 to 100,000 visited, estimated between the two towns that I went out to Western Tokyo. It's a pretty good episode. You get to see my son as well, which is — in my family. We had a pretty good time. Thank you to the city of Tokyo for helping me to make that episode. They were like co-sponsor on there.

00:13:10 John Daub: But well, the point is, I really do think that these nuisance streamers — they really upset a lot of people in Japan. And as a result of that, Japanese netizens — and it doesn't take much. Let's just say — a hundred percent of the people — nobody would have ever stabbed somebody seeing somebody right now holding a phone on the street. But if you get enough bad press and bad publicity, and a lot — enough of the media saying how bad these people are — you're going to get looped in, and 99.999% of the people — there's that point zero zero one percent, which is like a hundred people in Japan who are now walking around looking for people. That — like me — who are doing this, and they're unpredictable, and you don't know what's going to happen. So it's — it's toxic, and the percentage of it happening to me — a lot less than if it was the United States, for example. I mean, any other country — but because of what's happening, it is something that I am worried about. I am worried about my safety. I don't — it's one reason why I don't give the location of where I'm streaming so far in advance, just because it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that. I don't actually like that. I don't actually list the livestream until maybe 15, 20 minutes in advance, because I found there was no increase in the amount of people watching by publicizing a livestream a day in advance. I didn't get more people watching as a result of that. Lloyd writes in here — be careful. Thank you, Lloyd. And Asian Dragon writes in here — it is toxic. It has become such toxic space.

00:14:42 John Daub: I don't know. I don't know how this happened. But just a couple of days ago, I was watching — and again, Jeffrey Hall is somebody I follow. He is one of the reasons why I still use X. I don't really use it that much — or Threads, or Blue Sky, or any of that stuff. But his stuff is really, really good for me to see and make sure I don't miss it. But this is Ice Poseidon's group stealing power in a restroom. And I know — you are saying, what's the big deal. I already did an episode on power theft in Japan. It is a big deal. Police came in. They came in. They saw what they were doing. They fled to Korea. This is like when lawmakers step in, because they see that there is no genuineness in it.

00:15:34 John Daub: And I — I have to — you know — I am so upset that Japan did not do more with the Johnny Somali thing. I am so upset that they only slapped him on the wrist and they let him go. I am so upset that they did not convict him. They did not make a statement. Because that's why you got this happening right now. That's why you got people that are coming to Japan — because it's such a — kind culture of non-confrontation. And here is the Coast Guard kicking Ice Poseidon and his group out of the country — off of a ferry, and eventually out of the country. You got it. You have to bring a case. You have to find them and arrest them. And this is what is inevitably going to happen. Inevitably, people are going to be — the Japanese authorities are going to have to start to step up and do what Korea is doing. We don't even know what they are going to do. I know Legal Mindset says — I am skeptical. Legal Mindset says that he is not going to get a slap on the wrist. He is going to get jail time. He better get jail time. Korea must do what Japan has not been able to do, which is to put this guy away and completely end this nuisance streamer. He should have been very strict from the start. I was very disappointed. When they released him after three months of holding — is nothing. All right. But all the apologies were BS. And they should not have let him go. After he did — he did — he was let go. This is Johnny Somali. He went on a world tour, giving the middle finger to the Japan authorities, the whole process. And he did — the legal process, talking about the slap on the wrist and letting it go — you cannot do that.

00:17:25 John Daub: A lot of people are saying who is Ice Poseidon. He's an IRL streamer. I think he's on Kick now. He used to be on Twitch. I think he got kicked off for that — I don't know. He used to be on YouTube. I think he had 700,000 subscribers there. I think he was kicked off of that. I really don't know. I don't follow him. But I know that a lot of some of you guys do follow, and — and Asian Dragon, I'll get to that in a second. I know some of you do follow me. And when Ice Poseidon was here in Japan, I was contacted by half a dozen of you guys telling me that he was in a location starting fires, and — and there's not a lot that I can do about this, all right? So all I could do is I had a friend in that town. I called him and I said, there's a livestream going on — you might want to talk with the authorities. And it was — um — where the scarecrows were — in the middle of Shikoku. And — you know — there was some vandalism, and he was starting a fire on private property and all of this other stuff. I'm not somebody who wants to get involved, because I know that not a lot's going to really happen, all right? Not a lot's going to really happen because there's no law. There's no — Japan is such a lenient country. There's a lot — and this is a good thing. This is a good thing. There's a lot of gray area in a lot of this stuff. A lot of gray area with public drinking. A lot of gray area with making noise on the street. A lot of gray area. And this is good because it gives people that make a mistake a chance to apologize and say, I'm sorry, and I've learned from the mistake, and shame themselves. And society says, okay, well, we know you've understood this, and we'll let you go. When you get rid of that gray area, then you make it hard on everybody. And there's no more apologies. There's no more of this stuff. It becomes sort of like what the Western cultures are. It's not enough to be shamed, because we know that Johnny Somali was very proud of — [inaudible] — and repentant — [inaudible] — Hale's favorite for beach — Corey, as you guys know. Just saw him — not for the screen. He's a very big — [inaudible]. Has been shamed by the gangsters. Even got him down — made him eat the dirt. All right, that he didn't care. And when we get into this, and you start to get rid of the gray area and make everything black and white, it's really, really not the kind of society that Japan is. The gray area — I live in — that gray area. I kind of test this stuff, even doing this. I really don't know exactly. But I just — I just want to do something really good. And when I started this, not a lot of people were doing it. Now they are. Ice Poseidon — and this is another problem. Muhammad, thank you so much — from Singapore. And Asian Dragon — have you got any contacts from Andrew from Legal Mindset? I — I might have. Let me double-check on that. But I know that with the trial going on, he's got a lot of stuff to cover. But after what happened with the murder yesterday, I'm going to dig into this a little bit more and see how the lawmakers feel, and maybe kind of do a pulse check on — live streaming, IRL streaming, and what the lawmakers think about this going forward. I really do think that something should happen. But if something does happen, that's when you start to get rid of that gray area. And then when you get rid of the gray area, it is really hard to live within black and white. Then eventually they loosen up the rules. They did this with drones. They did this with — you know — there's an action and then they react very harshly. I got a feeling that this murder is one thing that's going to cause a reaction. Because there's just not enough — on streaming — everywhere that I go, I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. But they — via — Mebron out around — Platinum predicting. Here's — all right. There's no way they're going to get us one of these. Last night — and so there were signs — with no cameras. No — including right over there — there's a Matsuya, which is a chain — that I believe Johnny Somali was livestreaming in one time in Osaka. No camera sign on the front there. So they don't want you bringing in cameras and doing this kind of stuff anymore. Not that you should have been doing it anyways. Japan is lenient. Someone ruins it for everyone. They say even the Buddha loses patience when insulted a third time. I could not have said it better myself. It's very true.

00:21:23 John Daub: And the moment that we start to lose — it's starting to rain now — the moment we start to lose that gray area and Japan enacts laws, that's when we start to get rid of the society that all of you — this is why this is so relevant. All these people in the United States and in the Western world want to come and buy Akiya and live and move to Japan. That's a great idea. But when these people who represent us — whether you like it or not — they're seen as internationals, even if they come from Germany or Africa, India, America, Canada — it doesn't matter. They're foreigners here. This is an island. The laws change. And I think it's nice — the murder was a Japanese thing. So it was a Japanese viewer and a Japanese live streamer. I just think that this is going to really narrow that gray area where it becomes black and white. But this isn't just about that. It's about everything. When it turns into black and white, that's when you get a really more oppressive society. You get Singapore. And I would like — hey, you know what, Mr. Poseidon? See — I'm too respectful. Mr. Somali, why don't you do this in Singapore? Huh? Why don't you do this in Malaysia? Why don't you go to a country that is a little bit stricter and see if your behavior is acceptable there? No — they come to Japan because they know that they can take advantage of the situation. At least they thought that they could, until real soon. And that's the part that scares me. It's not that I'm doing something. I'm not doing anything bad — that, you know, I'm not doing anything that would warrant scrutiny. But because I get looped into this, I can feel it. I can feel it. When I was on the street yesterday in Shinjuku, I can feel it. People are like, is he a nuisance streamer or not? I've never seen him before. Sometimes being infamous is not a good thing.

00:23:19 John Daub: Give a shout out to Mom and Thrill YouTube channel. They're helping to — and reacting to — common sense — that nuisance streamers, essentially. For Johnson — Only in Japan — not a promotion, but I want to help out. Thank you so much. And yeah, you know what? I think — I'm sorry. Shout out to Mom. Always shout out to Mom. The thing is, I'm kind of lucky in a way because I am on Japanese TV from time to time. I'm in the newspaper, interviewing when something happens. Usually good stuff with tourism. When tourism numbers increase, when something good happens in Japan, the Japanese media contacts me for reaction. I love that. That's great. But that helps me out, because I do have something of a voice here to be able to get out in front of this. People do say hi to me on the street. Yeah. Because of my TV appearances, for example. So I'm not unknown here, but I'm not the hugest YouTuber in the world. So — like — in this sense, I can kind of get over the hump with this. And on the street, people sort of — you know — they know I'm not doing something that's harmful, but not everybody watches the channel. It's in English. So, and I'm sorry for the dubbing too, if you don't — the call is getting a little freaky here. Sorry for the dubbing too. It's not always the best on the main channel. Sorry.

00:24:35 John Daub: But I do think, though, that there's — as a result of the murder that happened yesterday — my God, that's such a — that's — all. I never thought I would say that, you know, we all knew that something like this was going to happen eventually, but it's — I do think that the laws — there should be some laws that change. And as a result of this, there's going to be reaction. I don't know what lawmakers are going to do, but the Japanese public is fed up with it. They're so fed up with it. They're fed up with these — idiots that come in here dressed up in wacky costumes with — with cameras, putting it in people's faces. You know, did you ever notice — I'm here alone by myself here. Did you ever notice that most of these nuisance streamers are in packs of idiots? Did you ever notice that? Nobody's alone out here. They're always with a group of other idiots, because it's more interesting content. I — it's not that hard to make a list and just — went and not allow them into the country. Put them back on the flight and turn them around. Japan has every right to do that. By God, I hope that they — oh, there's a donkey. Hold it. They're always in these — these packs. Why? It's like a mega donkey. Hold it. Don't give up that protection — in packs, protection from who? Cause you're doing the wrong thing, man. That's why. Because you're doing something stupid. That's why you gotta be in packs, because you're doing something stupid. You know that there's people out for you because you're doing something really bad.

00:26:23 John Daub: So — um — to — I — I believe that — um — Ai Mogami's fans are going to be holding — and she had a lot of fans. She was a voice artist, apparently. They're going to be doing a memorial for her. And — it — that never should have happened. I don't know what she was into. I don't know — you know — the details of it, but murder is murder, man. That's — should never have happened. And — I'm — last night I was really, really impacted by the news of this and watching it on the media. There's — There's not a lot of information. They're still investigating. There's a lot of — The reason I'm doing this livestream to talk about it — it might seem like I'm all over the place. But yesterday, here's just some news footage. There was an IRL streamer who was Japanese. And she was murdered by one of her fans that became an anti-fan because of money. And there's a lot of police who came out to investigate. And it just started. But they've got a lot of material to work with, including the livestream. So we're probably going to hear more about this in the coming days. And I know that the country is still reeling from it, because when something happens in broad daylight in the center of Tokyo and it is because of IRL streaming, it's just become such a toxic thing. It is just so toxic right now.

00:27:51 John Daub: I don't know. I'm not using an external microphone, so I hope — massive changes in this space. And I think it's about time. But I really don't know what it's going to be. I think there's going to be restrictions on it. I don't know. What level they do. But the fact that they were so lenient on Johnny Somali — the fact that they let Ice Poseidon go, despite him — I'm fairly certain he committed enough crimes to warrant being held a lot longer. It doesn't — you can be held for 22 days, I believe, without any crime as they investigate. They didn't do that. This is not his first time here. He came here for 100 days, causing all this trouble. I just think that there's going to be a list, or there's going to be something that's got to be done in order to — to — clamp down on this. And it's — if you have a — again, my gimbal's gone. If you have four or five people that are coming here, they could do so much harm in this — nuisance streaming space. And you got a lot of people here. Somebody — apparently there was a — huge — a — in-real-life streamer who raped a Japanese woman on the street — who was incapacitated. These are allegations. But they're so hideous. You don't hear this kind of stuff in Japan.

00:29:13 John Daub: Yeah, I suppose I didn't have to leave Japan. And this is the thing that worries me the most. And this is the thing I've been talking about — I've been talking about this in past livestreams. And there was some disagreement on it. One of the things that he said in his livestreams that was highlighted by another streamer — because — like what Legal Mindset — what Andrew is doing is so great. He's — and I want to — I got some questions for him too. But — A Ice Poseidon said that he made millions of dollars off of streaming in Japan. He said, "I made millions of dollars off of you." Like he literally just says it. This is probably the dumbest thing. And he wants to come back here. He made a lot of money streaming in Japan. In my opinion, this is against the law. This is working in Japan without a visa. This is enough — he should pay taxes in Japan as a result. Right? He should pay the cost of it. He was in Japan for a significant amount of time. That 100 days is about as long as your passport can go. He probably had to leave Japan because he only gets what — three months or something? So — SNS is being regulated from April 1st, right? In — A — I'd be — there's a level of freedom of speech. But there is an aspect where it becomes so dangerous and so toxic. I don't know what that is. And I don't know if government is in a position to judge that either. But it's pretty obvious that you can't have these people nuisance streaming here — where they are making millions of dollars. Making money off of destroying Japan. It's — [inaudible].

00:30:51 John Daub: Richard in Japan writes — exactly. It's — it's grey. So my feeling is that the grey area is going to start to become black and white. And that's when society in Japan gets not as wonderful. I'll talk about it later. Anyways, just a little bit of a note from today. Because after what happened yesterday — a lot of strong feelings going on. A lot of strong feelings. All right, everybody, have a good day. I'll be back with another livestream. Talk about this in more detail later on. Hopefully a lot of better stuff. I'll be going to Nagasaki next week. So until then — AZN Dragon, you gotta do a crossover interview. We'll see what we can do. I think because there's — with what's happening with IRL streaming in Japan, Korea and Japan are very similar. There's a lot of things going on. I'm extremely disappointed in the way that they handled this situation. I'm not — I don't know all the facts. That's why I can't be more critical than that. But I think I'm not the only one that was very disappointed in the fact that there were no charges. And they just held him for three months. He should have gone to jail. It should have been a lot harsher. Because that kind of behavior just brings in more people. Because now you can turn this into a playground, right? Japan's not a playground. Not for that kind of behavior. It's a wonderful place to come as a tourist. It's not a wonderful place to destroy the culture and destroy people and act like an idiot. Even in your own country, that is — nobody acts like that normally.

00:32:28 John Daub: All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. And take care. I'll see you in another episode soon. See you.