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Wtf, Japan?

A small bit of good news. It's slow progress but shows a change in thinking.

 
A worrying trend with some visitors to the country...



Now, love him or loath him, Broad is bang on about this. It's not a new thing, but it's on the increase.

Personally, have noticed more and more clickbaity videos about how "Japan is wild", "Tokyo is crazy" from attention seeking vloggers that may just add to the rise in people acting the eejit here. Of course such things are not exclusive to just this country, but it's becoming more noticeable. Witness the Johnny Somali debacle a few months ago.

Big problem being that it's giving migrants to Japan a bad name, resulting in the bans (you'll see in the video) and spoiling it for the tourists who want to experience the place, as opposed to tagging it.
 
A worrying trend with some visitors to the country...



Now, love him or loath him, Broad is bang on about this. It's not a new thing, but it's on the increase.

Personally, have noticed more and more clickbaity videos about how "Japan is wild", "Tokyo is crazy" from attention seeking vloggers that may just add to the rise in people acting the eejit here. Of course such things are not exclusive to just this country, but it's becoming more noticeable. Witness the Johnny Somali debacle a few months ago.

Big problem being that it's giving migrants to Japan a bad name, resulting in the bans (you'll see in the video) and spoiling it for the tourists who want to experience the place, as opposed to tagging it.


I like Broad, he always comes over as funny, intelligent, respectful of Japan and not some sort of foreigner dick. I have a lot of time for the effort he's put into his channel over the years, and that he's travelled to every prefecture in the country to give a sense of how varied and interesting Japan is to his audience.
 
I like Broad, he always comes over as funny, intelligent, respectful of Japan and not some sort of foreigner dick. I have a lot of time for the effort he's put into his channel over the years, and that he's travelled to every prefecture in the country to give a sense of how varied and interesting Japan is to his audience.
Yeah, same. He's entertaining and gives the right balance when talking about the ups and downs of living here.
 
I like Broad, he always comes over as funny, intelligent, respectful of Japan and not some sort of foreigner dick. I have a lot of time for the effort he's put into his channel over the years, and that he's travelled to every prefecture in the country to give a sense of how varied and interesting Japan is to his audience.


Hes a very slick marketing guy and works the algorithm but his content has dropped dramatically in quality since he spends the majority of his time now doing YouTube things with YouTube people (probably just after his bike across Japan) and he’s actually not that interesting a speaker.

Compared to Pete on his podcast you can really see the difference. I’d go for a beer with Pete and I don’t even drink.
 
I generally like Chris's content, but found it odd on one of his recent podcasts how he said he sometimes gets messages from his old students but never replies to them. Even Pete seemed slightly taken aback for a second.

It would also be interesting to see him occasionally veer away from his usual subject matter and cover some darker or more controversial stuff. There's certainly plenty of options in Japan, as there are in most countries.
 
Well, I'm just delighted himself and Sharla are engaged. Called it way before they revealed they were a couple.
Is that that other you tuber? I think he dropped off my radar after he built a studio like a ramen shop and got a girlfriend. I didn't make a conscious decision to stop watching. . . I guess it was the algorithm?

It did seem like it was getting all a bit boring. He wasn't really doing anything anymore.
 
Is that that other you tuber? I think he dropped off my radar after he built a studio like a ramen shop and got a girlfriend. I didn't make a conscious decision to stop watching. . . I guess it was the algorithm?
That's his partner, yup. The studio got damaged in a quake not long after its debut.

There's a fair few decent YouTubers over here, Norm on Tokyo Lens is quite good. Like his journeys across Tokyo after dark.
 
Sharla's stuff is very hit and miss. She'll occasionally turn out a decent video but a lot of her content is quite boring. I remember one video she did with Chris when he made some comment referring to his early days in Japan along the lines of 'you [Sharla] were one of the top YouTubers here at the time'. You could see from her reaction on her face for a couple of seconds that he might as well have carried on and added '...but not any more'.
 
That's his partner, yup. The studio got damaged in a quake not long after its debut.

There's a fair few decent YouTubers over here, Norm on Tokyo Lens is quite good. Like his journeys across Tokyo after dark.


Life Where I’m From is genuinely useful, mostly I tend to watch a lot of Japanese YouTube these days, a little bit generic as most of them are set to quiet music with captions about daily life but I can just zone out and take things in as I feel like it.
 
That's his partner, yup. The studio got damaged in a quake not long after its debut.

There's a fair few decent YouTubers over here, Norm on Tokyo Lens is quite good. Like his journeys across Tokyo after dark.
I did see the quake video. . . and 'maybe' when they had cleared up afterwards, but then that was it.
I'm not sure what content I would be interested in seeing about Japan. I did watch a few of those 'walking around' videos, but mostly in places I already knew.
I did think about making a few running videos, but my heart isn't really in it. . . . though I did cobble together a new years day 'music' video of a run I did from Shinjuku to Shinkoiwa a year or so ago.

Did I already post this? It's not a particularly exciting route / video / content.
 
Takashii from Japan is interesting. Fairly simple concept, just going round asking people for their views on a given subject.

Oh I had him come up quite a lot. Seemed to always be asking about what it is like to be half Japanese in Japan or living/staying in Japan but not being Japanese. I got a bit bored.

I was initially quite interested because my daughter wants to live and work in Japan for a couple of years.
 
I did see the quake video. . . and 'maybe' when they had cleared up afterwards, but then that was it.
I'm not sure what content I would be interested in seeing about Japan. I did watch a few of those 'walking around' videos, but mostly in places I already knew.
I did think about making a few running videos, but my heart isn't really in it. . . . though I did cobble together a new years day 'music' video of a run I did from Shinjuku to Shinkoiwa a year or so ago.

Did I already post this? It's not a particularly exciting route / video / content.

Thumbnail gives a Sonic Youth vibe 🙂
 
I prefer Paolo from Tokyo and his day in a life vids.


Haha I watch him too. He’s endearing enough even though it comes over a bit kiddy sometimes. But I do like how his videos show you into the lives, jobs and homes of regular Japanese people doing regular jobs.

I remember the one about school lunches being prepared, and omg how much more care and attention they pay to everything when it comes to food in schools. It puts our schools to shame.

 
Lawsuit against racist cops here and it's about time.


From the article:

Japan does not have any anti-discrimination law, nor any laws or guidelines aimed at preventing racial profiling, but the government and the police deny they discriminate and say they are just doing their jobs. They have yet to outline the specifics of their arguments, expected in the next session of court in July. A verdict is expected in about a year.

A 2022 Tokyo Bar Association survey of more than 2,000 people of foreign ancestry living in Japan found that 62.9% of respondents had been questioned by the police in the previous five years. Some said that police had made comments about “suspicious” hairstyles or clothing.
 
Obvs I don't live in Japan, but back in the early 2000s I literally couldn't cycle past a cop without getting stopped. It must have been a 'thing' because I was warned about it by my wife in advance of my first ever solo bike ride. It does feel that over the years that stopping every single gaijin on a bike became less of a thing, though I have only been back once since covid and I don't have a bike in tokyo anymore.
 
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