Don't Be a YouTuber in Japan (ft. Abroad in Japan) | Trash Taste #5
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- Hello and welcome to another episode of Trash Taste. I am your host for today, Gig United Kingdom, Arizona. And with me today are my usual co-hosts, the 93% and the hentai boy. - That's me. - And today we also have our very first guest with us today. - Official guest. - Official guest.

- Who are you? - Do you want to introduce yourself? - I'm Chris and I make YouTube videos about Japan. - What's your channel name? - Abroad in Japan, it's a clever pun 'cause my surname is Broad. - Abroad. - Really clever. - That took me a long time to figure out actually 'cause when I heard that you were like, "Oh yeah, I'm Chris Broad." - Holy sh, I just fucking got that now.

- Are you serious? - No, no, I'm just like, holy shit, that's genius. Wait a minute, abroad. - I didn't realize that. - Because when you said that, right? Like you were like, oh, my name is Chris Broad. - I didn't say my name's Chris Broad. - I met you, did I? - No, but like, because I heard like the abroad in Japan thing and I was like, oh, it's probably a pun.

But I'm like, it's too good to be a pun. - Yeah. - It's that good. - It's very true. - I was like, Chris Broad can't be a real name.

How long did it take you to come up with that? Or was it just like, I think my first year, I've always hated the name broad, Chris Broad, it just sounds awful. I'm Chris Broad. We should have like a second name that's easy to pronounce. Broad. You can't fuck it up, can you? You can't fuck it up. But when I came to Japan, I thought, wait a minute, I can actually use my name for once in a pun that's clever. Oh my God. But I didn't tell people my name was Chris Broad until three years into doing YouTube. Oh,

- Oh really? - And then when I do it like Chris Broad, people are like, "Wow, that's clever." - Wow, that's clever. - Very clever. - How long is that joke for? - For three years. - I think that's more effort than either of us put into like our usernames combined. The Anime Man. How did you come up with that name, Joey? - I'm a man who likes anime. End of story.

- That's an interesting point actually, 'cause you've kind of like solidified yourself into anime. - I've really fucked myself in that aspect. I can't do anything else now, at least abroad in Japan, right? Like it's basic enough. - My point was gonna be, you know, that's kind of the same boat, right? Where like, do you feel like you could make, you could branch out with that name like that?

- Well, I brought in Taiwan. - Yeah, just like the second channel, brought in Kazakhstan, coming soon. - Before we get into that, do you wanna explain what kind of content you're, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Do you wanna explain what kind of content you do? - Just about Japan, innit? - I'm really bad at selling myself. - I feel like if anyone had watched a video about like life in Japan or an experience in Japan, odds are they've come across your channel.

- I hope so. - I mean, you are technically the biggest J vlogger right now, right? - Yeah. - I don't know. - Yeah, I think you are. - Yeah. - In terms of subsize, I'm pretty sure. - Yeah, all the comments are gonna be Phil, he's not, he's rubbish. There's this one and this one, but. - I mean, when, oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, 'cause whenever like, whenever I was,

watching videos about Japan, you would be the name that would always pop up. And this was like going back years ago. We'll get back to that in a bit, but for now, do you wanna open our beers, boys? - I was just eyeing this up for ages and I'm like, can we just open beers? - Let's get some ASMR going. - Smells good. - Kanpai. - Kanpai.

So like, I think a good topic for today. That's a good move, Joey. Joey chose pineapple strong zero. I didn't know Kirin had like a brand of strong zeros. It's called Kirin the strong. The strong. The strong. So it must be better than strong zero. Kirin's prime. If any of you ever come to Japan and there's one beverage you should try out, if you do drink beverages alcoholically, then strong zero. This is like what we call the,

- The Gaijin Killer is what you guys called it, right? - It's colloquially the Gaijin Killer.

because it tastes like juice, but then you realize it's just as strong as like a wine. So you just get fucked. - But like percentage wise is as strong as a wine. I don't know why it fucks me up way harder than any wine I've ever had. - It's just carbonated I think. - I think I've blacked out every time. When Strong Zero is involved in the night, I ended up normally like not remembering. - Strong Zero hangovers are easily the worst I reckon. - The last time we drank Strong Zero.

I don't remember half that night. And then I woke up with like the most searing headache. I was like, yeah, it's horrible. Do you guys remember your first strong zero experience? Yeah. No, I blacked out. When I was a teacher up in North Japan, we had like an end of year party every year. And that was like the one drink everyone drank. And I just woke up on a beach at 5am, like face down in the sand, surrounded by six cans of strong zero. Six cans is formidable.

One is like, you feel it. Two is like, whoa. Three is like, oh God, no. And after that, it's blackout phase. I need to take you, Connor. - I think it was like the very first time, I think it was like three or four. - Three or four. - For some reason, and I normally handle my alcohol pretty well. - It doesn't matter. It's something about Strong Zero, right? It doesn't matter how much you think you can hold alcohol. After three Strong Zeros, it's like,

inhumane territory, no one can handle it. - 'Cause we're like three Brits and an Aussie, we're very, very used to drinking, but for some, and here's the thing, every time I see someone you try Strong Zero, especially if they're from the UK, they're like, "This is, this 9%, this isn't gonna fuck me up, please." And then they have like two cans and they're like wasted already. And then third can is like, "I'm blackout, I cannot remember this night."

I don't know what it is about this particular drink. - Maybe it's because it's shochu. - Yeah. - It's the greatest prank you can pull on your friends though when you bring them to Japan. Like give them three, it's just like fizzy water, it's fine. And then things happen. - It's crazy that businessmen just drink them at like, I see them at like, I think 1:00 PM sometimes, just having one outside the Konbini. I'm like, damn.

- Well, if it's the PM, it's time to drink, isn't it? - Yeah, honestly. Seriously, they're not playing around here. I'm like, damn, okay. - Now they gotta optimize all the free time they have. You know what I mean? - Yeah, yeah. I could be back at work 20 minutes. I could slip one in. - So I guess a good topic to talk about today is basically just, I guess, our origin stories with YouTube and just our thoughts on YouTubers in general. 'Cause we're all three YouTubers. Normally we just have anime YouTubers on, but now we have someone else who does something a bit different. - Someone else.

- Who would have thought that the first official guest of this anime podcast is someone who has no idea about anime. - I've seen Satoshi Kon and- - In person? - In person, down the pub. Yeah, it's true. I'm in the church of anime, like three massive anime YouTubers. It feels like-

- I've committed a crime just by being here. It's a sacred holy ground. - No, it's really weird, right? 'Cause you've watched Satoshi Kon, which is more like cultured than a lot of anime fans who are very much into anime. - One of the priests hasn't watched any of them. - I haven't watched any Satoshi Kon. Yes, I know, I'm terrible. Look, he's laughing at me. - I'm laughing because you referred to as one of the priests. - I didn't refer to myself as one of the priests.

- If you ever need to rebrand this podcast, the priests of anime. - Family friendly priests of anime. - Well, that's perfect, right? So like hopefully by the end of it, we can hopefully like try and convince Chris to like maybe give a few of our recommendations to go and then Chris can hopefully pursue

and everybody who's watching or listening that doesn't know anything about Satoshi Kon to watch Satoshi Kon stuff. - I agree, that's a good challenge. - If you're up to that task, Chris. - I'm up for it. - I'm open-minded. Anime I watch is good. I never really got into it as a kid really apart from Pokemon or, I mean, I watched Digimon as we talked about Joe and just that put me off. I'm under the impression Digimon isn't the most respected anime. - I mean,

- It's got its diehard fan base, I think. - Are you part of that fan base? - No, no, but I know, I think I made a joke about it and there's like a new season, people got pissed at me when I said I'm not watching this. - It's 'cause it's like a lot of people's childhood, right? Because I grew up on Digimon. So I mean, I wouldn't say I'm a diehard fan, but I definitely enjoyed it as a kid. - I played the game. I don't know which ones I played. - Oh, I didn't even get that far, right? - I played their Smash Bros knockoff. That was pretty fun, I think. - It was a Smash Bros knockoff of a Digimon? - Yeah, Digimon Rumble Arena it was called. They made like three of them. - Wow.

- Were you aware of that? - I wasn't aware of that. The only thing I'm aware of now is just the theme chain stuck in my head. - It's not even the good one either, it's the English one. - At least like- - Bruh, bruh, the English one's the good one. What can I say? - If you listen to the Japanese opening, it's fucking epic. It's like, you've probably heard it. It's like the

- Oh, that's a song I heard at karaoke. - So it's completely different. - Yeah. - No, no, no. They pulled a Dragon Ball Z, right? Where like Dragon Ball Z Japanese opening was like actual proper songs. And then the English one was just dragon, dragon, dragon. - Boy, that was hype though. That was hype. Come on, come on. - It is hype opening. - But I just love how it's like, all right, we got a show called Dragon Ball Z. What am I going to be?

- How many times can we say the title of the show in the song? - Bro, that's like big brain mode though. - I think the only other lyric is come get me. - Yeah, exactly. - In the Dragon Ball opening. - I do not remember this at all. - You don't remember the English Dragon Ball opening? - No, I forgot that. - It's so epic. - It's so iconic though. How did you forget? - The guitar intro is like, "Darn it!"

- I think the one piece rap is like blocked out. Like English opening for me. - The one, see, I had the pleasure of not growing up with that. - What do you mean the pleasure? You had the dis-sabstitude. - The displeasure.

- So like question to you then Chris, because obviously in our circles, a lot of people we know came to Japan or moved to Japan, like based on somewhat based on their love for anime and that's us included. So like, why did you choose to move to Japan if anime wasn't like a big reason or any reason? - Yeah, that's asked a lot. I always feel like guilty by coming to Japan and not knowing anime or Otaku culture. - It's fine, it's not required.

I just, growing up, Japan was everything to me. It was such an amazing, mystical, wonderful country. Everything I used, everything I did, every craze was Japanese in some way, from Pokemon to Nintendo, Sony. My first camcorder that I often used was Sharp and Panasonic after that. Japan always felt like a country I wanted to try and visit.

and go to, but being British, if you look at a map of where Japan is, where the UK is, we're not going there. It's so far. To North American viewers, though, obviously, it's still pretty damn far. If you look at the map, it's like, oh, it's not that far, it's some water. But Japan's so damn far. And so I thought, I'm not going to go there. But then I thought about teaching English, and Japan came up as an option, and it was the only country I ever thought I'd want to teach English in, and actually immerse myself and learn about the culture.

So in a nutshell, that's kind of it. - So even before all of that, like you were already set on like leaving the UK at one point or? - Oh, absolutely. I always wanted to live overseas and travel somewhere in Asia. - Right. - So where would have been your second option if you'd never gone to Japan? - Yeah, I was gonna ask that. - Second option? - Yeah. - I don't know if there was a second option in Asia. It was kind of like Japan or nothing. - Oh, okay. - Oh, wow. - Just Japanese culture really excited me, like all the stuff I've seen about it.

- 'Cause I watched your first video last night. I was doing some research too. - And the vibe you gave off almost was like, "All right lads, I'm in Japan." - You know what I mean? Like I've just landed. - Lads on tour. - It was just kinda like, "Oh, I just ended up in Japan. Might fuck around and stay a little bit."

That's why I got the impression I just thought it was like a thing where you were like, all right, fuck it, might move to Japan. That's kind of like the vibe I got from the video, I guess. But obviously hearing that, I'm like kind of shocked. But then I could also see a British person not wanting to seem like obsessed with something because that's uncool in British culture. No, it's not that. I mean, the trouble is like, yeah, most people come to Japan are interested in the anime and stuff. And I remember doing a Japanese class at university on the side.

And I was like the only one in that class that didn't really watch anime. I was like, oh God. I'm like, I'm learning Japanese and I'm the only one who doesn't watch anime? I was the only one in the room. And I was like, oh God, am I going to work? Is this going to work? Do you need to know anime to live in Japan? You need to be into that sort of part of the culture. But no, I think I was just drawn to like how the culture is very different. One of the things I studied was,

cultural discourse, which is so boring that I never talk about it. And I was really into cultural discourse and language and Japan kept coming up in the studies and that was actually one reason. Well, I never talk about that just because it's so boring. That's what the podcast is for. Yeah, listen to this. I've never heard of social discourse. What does that entail? Well, just like how...

Everything in the culture is just so different, the way people communicate, right? So indirectly. There's such a different mindset in Japan that is so incomprehensibly different to most other countries. And I started learning about that and I really wanted to kind of immerse myself in that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely true, especially having moved here and lived here for a little bit. We discussed that like a bit on like our last podcast where we discussed Japan. So what was it that made you decide to make like YouTube videos about Japan? Or was it just you decided to like kind of vlog your experiences? Did you plan that before? Yeah. Or was that just like you turned up and you're like, this seems like a good idea? It was an idea at the back of my head, I think. I'd always been interested in filmmaking, but I kind of threw that dream away because it's quite hard to get into the film industry in the UK. Yeah, you guys.

might know and so I was like that's not going to happen

But then I got here and I was like, I might make a YouTube channel. And actually before I got to Japan, there wasn't many YouTubers in Japan. And I was like, I'm really excited. What's Japan like? And I went on YouTube and there wasn't a whole lot going on. No offense to the YouTubers in Japan pre then, pre 2012, but it wasn't much. And I was like, okay, maybe I can fill that void and take my hobby of filmmaking and my dream that I've forgotten and actually kind of use that and do something with it. So I hadn't watched a whole lot of YouTube up until that point. Right. And I kind of,

Draw a lot of my influences from British TV and...

rather than other kind of vloggers and other YouTubers. - Yeah. - Yeah, because like, I think anyone can agree that like, you watch any one of your videos and it definitely has more of like a TV vibe than like a traditional like, "Hey guys, I'm in Japan." - It doesn't feel like an iteration on YouTube, which a lot of channels that have come into it newer do feel like they're trying to emulate a style but build on it. Whereas I feel like maybe that is what is so unique about your take on the J vlogging. - I mean, yeah, I don't have anything against vlogging.

No. But for me, the thing that excited me was the idea of making like a crappy low budget TV show rather than like a vlog about Japan. Yeah, it seems like... It gave off the impression of like a BBC, not a BBC show, but like a short you'd see like on a show or like a news broadcast about Japan or about a different culture. I think that's what like how I found your content at first. And you mentioned being one of the first people to do...

or not vlogs, but like videos about Japan. - High quality vlogs. - High quality vlogs. Do you remember the scene back then of what vlogs were like? It was like the shaky cam. - 2012? - Yeah, 2012, right? - Oh Jesus.

- FPS Russia and that's like all I remember. - I mean, FPS Russia was probably like the high. - Epic real time. - Those were good times. I feel like that was the golden era of YouTube in a sense. - I don't know. I feel like every year has its own thing to it. And I think it's easy to look back and be like, that was the best time. Forget about all those people filming their TV playing cards.

- How could we call that the golden age? - Stick a camcorder in a shoe to like prop it up. - Yeah, 'cause I think, was Sharla in Japan the only like vlogger really before? - There was a few, there was Mikaela. - Rachel and Jun. - Rachel and Jun actually. - Okay, okay, okay. - There was a Gimme A Break Man, Victor. There was Tokyo Cooney. Yeah. - Yeah, like I've come to like know

a lot of the J-Vloggers that live here. The J-Vlogging community is so small in a sense that once you know a few, you basically know everybody at that point eventually. And like, yeah, I mean, you know, meeting Chris and like meeting a bunch of other like newer and older vloggers, it's really interesting to see like just how big

how big it actually is because on the surface, I think if you don't know a lot of them, it does just seem like Chris and a few other people. Whereas like there's just so many J-Vloggers out there. - And that's how YouTube works though, isn't it? You can kind of easily stay in a bubble if you want to. - Yeah, exactly. - How do you feel about the current J-Vlogging scene though?

I don't know really I don't I'm friends with a lot of them but I don't I mean I don't watch that much I don't because I live in Japan you know I don't really want to watch other other Japan stuff I do my stuff I spend ages working on a video in a room I upload it and then I go off and drive around the mountains and go don't quote me on that I yeah no I've kind of felt like to be disconnected from it a little bit do you

- Do you ever like see a video made by another J-Vlog, you're like, "Fuck, I wanted to do that." - Yeah, sometimes. - Do you just scrap it if that happens or what's the game? - I remember I was thinking of doing a "Day in the Life" series and then a YouTuber called Paolo. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh yeah, yeah. - I was like, "Oh, he's done it. All right, fine." - You can't do a common copy right now. - Yeah, I can't. And that's fair enough. He's done it well. If he didn't do it well, then I think- - But you did something similar like with yourself.

- Did I? - You did like a day in the life of like abroad in Japan. - On a bicycle. - No, no, no, no, no, no. Like I think the thumbnail was like you in a Shinkansen. - Oh yeah, I did it once many years ago. Maybe he got the inspiration for his face. - We never know. - It's day definitely. - I feel like where it is maybe like a channel like Paolo,

I feel like it's more really a hundred percent based on what is happening in the video and what's being shown. But I feel like at least with your channel, there is a lot of your humor, which is kind of crucial to the style to the video. So I feel like maybe if you did do it, if you added your own humor into it, but then you don't wanna get in the way of the thing

I know if I did it, then loads of people would comment. Yeah, true. You don't want to deal with that. Yeah, so that's my main thinking. He's done it well. He's covered interesting people. When I say day in my life, I don't mean me. The day in my life is rubbish. It's like me sitting in a room matching up my socks. That's literally my life. That's reality. Matching up socks. Matching up socks and doing nothing. Because, yeah, I feel exactly the same where I...

- There was a point when I tried to watch like every other anime YouTuber or everyone in my sphere. And then it just got to a point when it just became like stressful. 'Cause you just watch other YouTubers and you're like, oh man, I want us to do that topic or I want us to do that topic. And now like pretty much I just keep up with what my mates are doing and some other people. But like, did you guys ever go through that phase as well? - I did, but then like very quickly I realized like just how, again, like same with J-Blogging, just how broad

of anime YouTube is and how many topics that were covered. So like, yeah, at that time I was like, oh man, I wanted to do that idea or I wanted to do that idea. But then after a while, I was just like, fuck it. People have already done this. I'll fucking do it. And like, I can put my own twist on it and I'm sure my audience will enjoy it. And if they're, you know, if they're so willing to be like, oh, this is just a copy of so-and-so and I'm just like. - I had a problem when I was doing a video earlier this year about things I'll never understand about Japan. And I was working on it. I was like, wait a minute.

"Someone's done this already and it's Joey." So yours was like, "12 things I'll never understand about Japan." Mine was gonna be like, "10." And I was like, "Shit, can't do that." - No, mine was just got two more. - 13 things about Japan I'll never understand. - Is that an extra one? - So in the end I just call it, "What I'll never understand." And that- - And it still did well. - Yeah. - I don't think I've ever rewatched many YouTubers, aside from you two, I think.

And I never really worried about overlapping at all. 'Cause I was pretty confident that I was doing the stupidest shit that was available. So I was like, no one's as willing to embarrass themselves as me. So I'm pretty sure I've got this shit. - You are kind of an anomaly in that. - I mean, you were called the 93% for a reason. - Do you know why I was called the 93%? - 'Cause he's a white male? - I don't know.

- At one point my audience was, well I'm not gonna say for some reason, I know why, was 93% female at some point. - Which in the energy world was unheard of. - Yeah, 'cause it was normally Lee. - 'Cause a massive sausage fest essentially. - It normally is. It's dudes arguing about which Naruto power up is the strongest. - Wow, that's quite impressive. Is it like that now? - No, it's like 60/40 now. So it's melt, but I mean, it's good. - Still quite impressive.

- I mean, at the time, yeah, I guess. I mean, 'cause I was covering mainly anime shows while doing stuff. I was doing like prank courses, anime characters from shows that were like more female oriented. - And that's the secret. - Doing the British, you know, like British Butler, you know, like Sebastian, yes, you know. I would like call up McDonald's and tell them, oh my gosh, no, it's not working.

- And I think like the reason why like Conan did excel on that is because again, he was tapping into an audience, like a female demographic that literally none of us were tapping into. - Yeah. - I feel like a lot of people on YouTube are really like unoriginal.

Like they don't, they never think outside of like, okay, if it's the anime community at that time, it was either talk about anime or make a show where you talk over anime and do make them say things they weren't saying. And no one was really trying to think like, what else can you do with this medium other than talk about shows and do that thing? And I was like, well, I kind of liked the abridging, which is like you re-dub anime, but make them say horrible things.

but I didn't like how that took like a month to make. So I was like, all right, I'll go in the middle. I'll take these characters and just prank call people with them and do the voices. And it kind of was like a happy medium of like messing around, but also I can interject a lot of my personality into it. Slowly built it up. So yeah, but I haven't done prank calls in so long though. - Yeah, I was about to say. - 'Cause for me, like,

do you guys remember how you started to find your style? 'Cause when I started YouTube, mine was completely, here's I'm gonna try and rip off zero punctuation. And this is just my style. - Do you remember your old Twitter bio? 'Cause I do. - I do not. - His old Twitter bio was like- - How do you remember this? - 'Cause I think I remember clicking on it for some reason. It was like, I'm that other fast talking British guy that- - Oh, was it actually? No way. - I think it was like, I'm the other- - Oh, that's so embarrassing. - It was like, not Yahtzee or something in your bio.

- Not yet. - 'Cause that was always my top comment. So I was just like, let's just refer to this in the bio. But like the more I did videos, I guess more than my own style evolved 'cause I started YouTube 2007. So like mine was out right, like near the beginning of YouTube. So there wasn't really anyone else to play off of. So I just kind of copied who I was watching at the time. And there wasn't many creators on the platform.

But in terms of you guys, how did you find your style? How did you start out, I guess? - I mean, I don't know really. - Do you almost feel that like YouTube style is like you just try a bunch of things and then one or two of them work and you just like iterate it. And then you try again with a bunch of iterations of like that thing that you did yourself. Not copying other people, but like,

So you have a success with one thing, then you're like, okay, what worked about that? How do I then try a bunch of new things? Then slowly you start to figure out, okay, this isn't working, this isn't working. I don't know, what do you think? Because yours is very different, because obviously ours are more comedy. Yeah, I mean, mine's more based off British TV, like Charlie Brooker, for example, the writer of Climbing Up.

I love Charlie Brooker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. I take inspiration from Scream White as well. In my year in reviews, year in reviews was directly influenced by Charlie Brooker. Fucking fantastic. And that is one of my key influences. So that's the sort of thing I would have watched. And then when I sat down in front of the camera, I thought, that's what I want to channel. And,

It's when I'm on camera, it's kind of not me. It's more like as kind of more obviously energetic, sarcastic bits individual. I'm not that monstrous off cap. Well, I feel like your style sometimes is almost like reminiscent of like David Mitchell.

in terms of that very like dry sarcasm, you know, that's like, that's just so beautiful. I love David Mitchell. - Yeah, I'd like that. - Without the like depressing look sometimes that David Mitchell has on his eyes. - I don't know man, I've been on a four day trip with this. It's pretty depressing like sad faces. - Oh God. - Yes.

Yeah, no, it's just British TV is my main influence. I wouldn't say actually I've been influenced by another YouTube channel as such as a result. But what I have found is over the years, I started off quite strong in that character and I lost it because I started going from commentating on things in a room to doing more travel stuff. Right, right, right. And you can't be a cynical, sarcastic dickhead with certain people like...

"Oh, this is your dinner." And I'm like, "Fuck off, love." "Oh, thank you very much. "Yeah, . "Like you have to be nicer "when you're out and about doing things." So I lost that. But this year by virtue of the virus, by virtue of being indoors more, I've kind of gone back to rediscovering that character and who I actually enjoy being on camera. - I think it's weird you say that 'cause I did a video in like, well, two videos I've done. Like I'm starting to try and do some videos outside in Japan, like out of my bedroom basically. I did a video in a host club

- Yeah, it's a good video. - Oh, okay, thank you, thank you. Yeah, and that was really difficult 'cause the back of my head was like, I wanna crack jokes at the dumb stuff that they're doing or the really cringy moments, but at the same time, I don't wanna offend them. So it's kind of striking that balance of like, I'm playing the fool where I'm like, oh, that's odd, isn't it? You know, where you're just like,

that's kind of strange, huh? But then just moving on, yeah. - It's a tough one. You can't, yeah, that sort of cynical, sarcastic side. - Trying to strike that balance, right? - In Japan. Yeah, you kind of gotta be like rhetorical in a sense and not just be like directly like, "What's up?" - 'Cause if you're in your bedroom and you're watching a video or you're commentating on something, you can really just go in and like make full on jokes, right? So it's trying to channel almost that British sense of like,

just doing a little like, you know, a little jab, but saying a point that's not a jab, right? Like, and it's like, oh, this is strange, isn't it? This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone. Most of the time, you'll probably be fine, but all it takes is one drop and you'll wish you spent those extra few dollars on a case. Did you know that your data is valuable? Yes, even you, your data is valuable. And hackers can make as much as $1,000 selling your personal information on the dark web.

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we all went there to scout it the day before, didn't we? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - We happened to be in Shinjuku and I was gonna film that the next day. And we were like, can we just like rock up to this host club and see what's up? And it like, it looks sketch, right? Like it was pretty fucking dirty. - They were very nice to me. They were very, very nice to me, but I won't, I will be honest and say that it was a little, you know. - No, I mean, I remember going to the area and I'm like, I'm normally, I don't fear for my safety in Japan. - It was in the really sketchy area of Shinjuku. - Kabukicho? - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's pretty shady. - Yeah.

- I mean, what do you wanna know about the whole thing? - What was the most awkward experience? - We were recording for four hours. - Okay. - So it was a four hour shoot. So we started before they opened up and then we went through the whole thing and they like, the whole point was that like, I wanted to actually try and talk to customers. 'Cause in my head, I wanted it to kind of be like Louis Thoreau-esque where he puts himself in the situation. So I really wanted to put myself in a situation that was really uncomfortable for me.

- Yeah, so I was introduced around by the main guy called Tizer and I'm very thankful he showed me around. I don't think many people in the comments liked him though. - Why?

- He made a lot of jokes and we cut a lot of them. He was very, very insistent on like bashing my looks a lot. And I was rolling with it. I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm ugly. - Do you think he was trying to be funny and just failing or was it like- - I think there was some of that. I think he was also maybe a little like acting up for the camera. I think maybe he's like, oh, this new kid comes in. He's got subscribers. Let's show him like, you know, what's what. - He ain't shit. - Basically I think it was like, this kid thinks he's hot.

- Assert dominance. - It's just like the way that they like attract women I found was like so,

- Blatantly Japanese. You know what I mean? It's like, it was really opposite from like Western hitting on like, they would literally the moment this girl sat down, right? They were like, yo, you're hot, you're beautiful. What are you doing? Like, what do you do? They were like, the moment they sit down, they start heading forward. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And you know those girls are just like, - And the problem is, is that like, they wanted me to like sit down and immediately like start hitting on them. And I was like, so like, dude, I can't do that.

I like the slow game, you know, let's just talk, go out for a date or two. But it's really strange. So like the way the hosts work, at least these guys, like the whole thing was like, you know, butter them up, get them to buy you drinks, add them online, talk to them, take them out on dates afterwards. Be like, "Hey, you coming to the host club tonight?" Like, it was really like weird, I guess. - Superficial. - Yeah, it was very superficial. And I really,

I failed to understood how like a lot of these girls were really into them. Because there's one girl in the video who was like adamant that she was gonna marry the host. - Oh God. - And the host was like, obviously he was like, "Yeah, of course you are." You know what I mean? 'Cause she just spent $10,000 on a champagne bottle. So of course he's gonna be like, "Of course you're my future wife." - What does she do to be able to afford such frivolous expenditure? - What they told me off camera was that they tend to be in the same kind of industry.

So it's kind of like they're like the same five Tumblr artists just giving each other the same commission. - The circular economy. - She might be working at like a Kabakura. That guy might go to the Kabakura to go see her. - Most of them were working in soap lands. So a lot of them. - That makes so much more sense. - If you don't know is an underbought kind of, I mean, if you Google it, it literally says prostitution. It's legal prostitution actually. So a lot of them tended to be also

prostitutes themselves. - Oh, that makes sense, yeah. - And I guess that's why they were maybe okay with the superficiality of it all. - Right.

Have you ever been to a snack bar or a hostess club or anything before that? I'd went to like a maid cafe and that was about it. But I'd never been to like anything where it was like that. Cause they were like, from the moment these girls come in, they get eight or nine minutes each, each host for about an hour to just hit on these girls. So one goes in and then, you know, he does his thing. Immediately after he walks, the next host comes in, starts hitting on them.

And then after like an hour, right? She has to choose who she likes. - It's like speed dating. - It's literally speed dating. But a lot of the girls I think just come in for the, 'cause you get like two hours of free, like 10 bucks for all you can drink. - Right. - So a lot of people come in, do the two hours and then just never come back. - Yeah.

But yeah, no, I remember it was really, really, really painful to try and hit on these girls because also I was trying to hit on them through a translator. I don't know if you've ever tried to hit on someone. It's like, it's like this distance we're sitting next to them swirling. I'm like, you look really pretty. They would, they would say it, they would say it back. And then they'd be like, thanks. And I'm like,

- Just imagine being the translator and just like, that's a next level third wheel. - The whole thing is like, obviously I'm also drinking a lot of alcohol 'cause the main host was adamant on getting me smashed. And so it looked like we were drinking water, but it was just like- - Shot you. - In between the shots that you were constantly doing was Strong Zero. - Oh God. - And they would drink Strong Zero like water, right? - Oh my God.

Every time they'd have to go to a girl, they would have to finish all that drink that they would make as well. And these were always like 12% or higher spirits, right? They were pouring. And I remember they were telling me, the hosts in Japan, they were like,

like vomiting every single night from alcohol. - I mean, if you're mixing strong zero with like champagne and shots. - Yeah, 'cause they made me download like a half bottle of champagne. - Oh my God. - How much was that worth? How much was that? - On the menu it costs like, I think it was like 9,000 or something. - Were you sick after all of this? - No, I wasn't funny enough. I went to like Little Lamb right after and I had a great meal. I was like sobering up in a hot pot place.

But it was, yeah, so that was like $9,000 or something. - So you drank like $4,000 worth of champagne. - Yeah, and then a bunch of drinks in between that, the shots were like $30 each and then all the drinks were like $50 each. - Would you ever do a video like that, Chris?

- Well, I was thinking about doing it until I saw yours. I was like, I'm not gonna put myself. - That's what I thought. I wondered why no J-Vloggers had done it, but I felt like none of them would be willing to do the- - Yeah. - I'm not cutting like five years of my life expectancy for this video. - But that's the thing, right? They do it, but like they all owned like apartments in central Shinjuku 'cause they make like-

like $10,000 a night. And a lot of them send it to their families. So a lot of them are just like making the money while it's good, I guess. And then getting out. The coolest guy there was the vice president who like wasn't a host. And I thought he was like by far the hottest as well. He was like 34 and he looked like every like bishy anime character. - Oh really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was really nice. He was really open. He was giving us a whole tour, telling us everything about the club whilst the other guys just wanted to see me fail with the women.

'Cause I remember the main guy was like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're gonna be supporting me." And I turn, and so I go over and he's like, "Oh yeah, so now you have to do the, I'll support you." I'm like, "What? I was lied to." - Jesus. - Yeah, and we cut a lot of the stuff 'cause I got really fucking drunk. - What's like the craziest place you're like willing to like go film in Japan?

I don't know. I've always wanted to film the snack bar or hostess bar. Because you've done the... What are they? It's basically like what you've just described, but the other way around with girls and guys, right? Oh, okay. It's far less expensive. And where I used to live in Yamagata, it's like the only thing to do. You go to an Izakaya and the second place you always go for an Ijikai party is...

Hostess Club or a snack bar. Snack bar is kind of like a cheaper variant. - I've been to a snack bar before. - Yeah, and there's nothing seedy about them. There's nothing really seedy about Hostess Club. - I mean, it was a little bit seedy for me 'cause I was like 16 when I went there. - That's not just seedy but illegal. - I was like in the middle of nowhere in Hokkaido 'cause I was like working in the ski fields and my boss was like, "Hey, let's go to a snack bar." And I'm like,

four years underage to go. And it's like, nah, you'll be all right. So I went and this like 16 year old kid just like sitting there, just like sipping beer or whatever. And the mama who's like, that's the name that they give to like the main hostess of the snack bar. She just sat right next to me. She's like, so how old are you? And I was like, fuck, what should I say? I guess I'll just say 20. And my boss at the time was like shit faced already 'cause he couldn't hold his liquor. He's like, oh, he's 26.

And the moment he said that, I was like, I'm getting kicked out. There's no way she's gonna look at me and be like, yeah, you're a 26 year old. But no, the moment I just looked at him, he was like, oh,

- Oh, you look very young for a 26 year old. - In Japan, if you say you're over 20, they don't question it. They're like, all right, cool. - It's true. - No, no, 'cause like in Asia, especially like if you're, 'cause you're like half Australian as well. So they just assume you're fucking old as fuck. - It was the first time I was thankful for my gorgeous face. Like I was just like, thank God I look like five years older than I actually am. I would have been some deep shit otherwise. But no, but the snack bar is fun. Like it's way more chill than like,

what I assume a host club would be. - It is, I mean, you just sit down. I often take friends to one just to surprise them when they come to Japan for the first time. 'Cause they sit down and there's like two girls either side and they're like, pour their drinks, light their cigarettes. - That just sounds like fun though. - It does, but mostly my friends are awkward 'cause it's a concept that doesn't exist really outside Japan. - 'Cause yeah, I think if you had described that to someone in the UK, I think people would think that's kind of like, oh, you're like a sleazy old guy. - I mean, the closest thing I could think of in like the UK is probably like a strip club.

- I'm not saying that is, but it's like the closest experience I can think of just for like a very broad term. - But they're far better at hostess.

'cause they'll be really, you know, they'll talk to you so much. - Yeah, yeah. - They'll just be full on you. And then they'll make you sing karaoke songs. - Oh, that sounds like fun. - Yeah, it's all right. - They won't make you drink a disturbing amount of alcohol. - It's not quite as bad as what you do. - Yeah, they definitely seem really sleazy, the host clubs. And I believe there's like, a lot of them are owned by, you know, sketchy people. - Sketchy people. - You know, I'm not wanna say old name names. - Yeah, sketchy people, Connor. - You know, just some gangs.

- The why word? - Yeah, you know, the games by Sega, those people, I'm pretty sure.

- I'm pretty sure a lot of them are owned by that because they seem to just kind of like operate under their own kind of line. - Yeah, absolutely. - I mean, that's why I was so impressed that they would just wanna be like, "Yeah, come on in, film it all man." - I don't know how you got permission though that easily. - What happened was is that, yeah, I think our producer, Maylene, best producer, has every connection in Japan apparently, talk to a host.

Host was like, "Yeah, I wanna start my YouTube channel." - Oh, right. - And apparently if you're like the number one host in the club, you have a lot of like power.

But the thing is, that's constantly changing. So next week you could be like, I have no say. So this guy was like, oh yeah, I'm bringing this guy with a film crew, take care of him. And to be fair, everyone was really like nicely. They does film a lot of stuff like how they, when they were talking about earnings and stuff, they let us film, but we cut that. But they let us like in on listening to it and who was winning the earnings and stuff. And they take it really seriously. They compete against other host clubs to see who's getting the most money between them.

And we're talking like disturbing amounts of money. Like I think one guy for- - The one who gets the most is Roland, I think. You know, have you heard of Roland? - Right, yeah, I've heard of his Roland candy. - Number one host. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like $50,000 a month, I think. Maybe more. - No, it's a day. - A day. - A day. - Okay. - Because on one guy, for his birthday, they were telling me he got like $60,000 on his birthday day. - Wow. - Because on your birthday, everyone has to buy you drinks and stuff.

- We're in the wrong business. - And they asked me, you know, they asked me, they're like, "How much do you earn for like having a million subscribers?" I told them how much I earn in like a month and they were like, "Is that it?"

- They were like, why don't you be our host? - So in other words, if you're starting a YouTube channel for the money, don't bother, just be our host. - It was at that moment that I've never regretted not speaking Japanese more than any moment. I'm like, fuck, just come in here like part-time, you know what I mean? - They're like, oh, you earn $1 per subscriber, right? That's how it works. That's how the YouTube economy works, right? - I thought like I had a nice comfy earning until they like just fucking-

in front of all the hosts were like, wow, that's pathetic. - It's just like a collective like, ha ha. - That's cute, that's cute. - 'Cause I remember I watched your video where you went balls deep into a- - Balls deep. - Balls deep with Chris Broad. - Into a love hotel.

- Oh yeah, that was a great video. - Yeah, it was cool. The owner is like a friend of a friend and he was just the most hilarious man. He was like, I walked in the room and he's like, "Let's play sexy." That is the ultimate one line sales pitch for anything. - I mean, that's tend to be like the easiest time I've had recording in Japan is when you know the owner and he's totally chill with it. When you have to go through like seven companies and everyone has to approve. I did a video and say where, but there was like,

seven people watching me the whole time, like corporate people. - I know the feeling. - And I was just like, all right, can I make a joke? Like, am I allowed to do this? - When you know the owner of somewhere in Japan, it's just fast tracks everything. That was a really great guy, Shishto-san. - Oh, really cool. - Down to earth guy.

He gave me a goodie bag of various sex toys. And I was like, oh, thank you, Shishto-san. A dildo. He gave you a dildo? Also, and a porn magazine of prostitutes. Just various things. I thought, oh, great. You'll like that, right? Goodie bag. Is that the most fun you've had filming outside or in Japan? Certainly up there. It's like top three moment. And they did like, opening the video, he does these monkey bars across a bed. Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, oh.

- You're making some disturbing moans. - When I edited it, I had a shot of a bed, right? You can't see him doing the monkey bars. So it looks really dodgy.

And so the opening to the Love Hotel video, the first 10 seconds is, and a shot of a bed. And loads of people messaged me like, you bastard, I was playing this video in the library. I was playing it at my parents' house. These dodgy noises. How dare you? I've heard that so many times. Brilliant. What would you say is like your, like so far your favourite video you've filmed? Jesus, Joey. Wow, that's a really broad question. Oh, no.

- I hate myself, I'm so sorry. - It's the one with you in Joey, of course. - I was hoping you'd say that. - Did you see our tunnel video recently got featured? - You want chills, you want chills? - Oh yeah. - The Burger King foot lettuce guy. - When you messaged me about that, I was like, my dream has come true. - What was it? The most haunted YouTube channel chills, right? Five million. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was the video? It was like top five videos.

- YouTube videos that went too far. - That went too far. - Do you know Chills? Have you heard his stuff before? - No, I hadn't. I thought, oh wow. I didn't even watch the video. They messaged me like, "Can we use your videos?" I was like, "Yes, you've got five million subscribers. "Do what you want. "Have your way with my videos." - He's really like an iconic meme. - I was like, why is his voice like that? I was like, wait a minute, have I missed something? - We'll show you a meme later. - I was so happy when like, there was nothing more invigorating when just in that voice,

- They say your name. - Number 10, Joey and Chris go to a hole. - Chris goes into a tunnel with his best friend Joey the anime man. I was like, "Yes!" - October 16th, 2018 is when Chris bikes with his friend Joey in search of an eerily abandoned tunnel that's rumored to be haunted. - I love Joey. - I made it. Life goes. Oh, it's the best. - I just got a flashback. After I did that host club video, I got an email from a prostitution website

in Japan. - Did you actually? - They were like, and they'd sent me videos of like on LiveLeak of people filming prostitutes undercover. They were like, this is what you can do if you want. - That doesn't sound legal. - I was on the train and I was like, yeah, I'll open this link for some reason. I opened this link, it was like, 18 plus. But yeah, they were like, if you want, we'll arrange escorts for you and you can film the whole thing. And I'm like,

- Film what? Film which process of this? - All, all processes. - Do I need to like get approval from Brazzers to use their logo? Is that something that I need? It was really strange. I should find the, I'll find the email if we take a break or whatever. But like, yeah, it was, they were basically like saying, "If you wanna order any prostitutes "and make a video about it in Japan,

- I don't know why I could totally see you doing a video where it's like, I tried escorts in Japan. - In the view, here with my prostitute. - Here in my garage with my prostitute. - That's like peak YouTuber clickbait, right? - I had a prostitute, not clickbait.

- I tried to be an escort gone wrong. No gone sexual. - Could you put me on the website? - Yeah and I looked at it and it was like, it was legit. There was like videos of like, someone had like a secret GoPro or something and they were filming it and it was really- - That doesn't sound cool. - It was very disturbing. And I quickly turned it off when they started talking about what acts they were gonna perform for what price.

And I just found it so odd that they watched my host club video and that they were like, "This seems like a natural evolution." I should ask him if he would like to hire an escort. - You've done an awful lot of seedy shit given your relatively short time in Japan. - I'm like the government, please leave me alone.

- Yeah, I did worry if like the host club would like raise any like suspicions or anything, but I was like, fuck it. I think it's a really interesting concept. And if I handle it well, it should be fine. - And I mean the video did well, right? - Yeah, that took forever to come edit, but yeah, enough about that anyway. - Yeah, I mean like, you know shit's gone real when you see the LiveLeak logo. - I didn't even see, it wasn't on LiveLeak. It was linked to a video with a LiveLeak logo. - Oh, okay. - I was like, oh.

- Oh no. - God. - So what'd you guys think of the state of YouTube right now then? - Right in there, God. - I'm just jumping right into it, okay? - Why can't I hire prostitutes on YouTube?

I mean, it depends what you're doing. I imagine you don't have any issues really with YouTube, right? - No, I've got a video coming out this week about why I hate Japanese TV and I've got clips from Japanese TV in it. And that's the first time my video could get buggered for years. - Do you even get like demonetized? - No, I did a few times. - Really? - Two, three years ago, yeah. - Oh yeah, I was gonna say, but not recently, right? - Maybe for swearing, if anything. - Swearing and just, you know, Fukushima documentary got a little bit buggered for being a sensitive topic.

Yeah, I remember you telling me about that. I spent two, three weeks on this amazing documentary. It was amazing. I watched it. And I was really proud of it. And then YouTube was like, no, we're not promoting that. And then it got no views. That's the worst feeling in the world. It's horrific. I'm really proud of that. Yeah. That was an amazing video, by the way. I do want to say that. But luckily, loads of people on Twitter seemed to push the video. And then I contacted YouTube. I was like, stop bringing shit. Yeah.

And they were like, okay. And they did something and it kind of released it and then views started going up. And so it's kind of doing right now. - Holy shit, that actually works? - It works. - YouTube, please fix this. - What? - And it worked. - That's the first story I've ever heard of someone contacting YouTube, especially about like getting demonetized or age restricted or something.

and getting that fixed. - And it works. - And it works. - Just gotta go in swearing. - They removed like 200 copyright claims from my channel twice. So that was nice of them. - Yeah, I mean, I was surprised. - That was a fucking miracle that happened. - Yeah. - My whole channel, I was using an outro song that I bought a license to. Turned out this guy who made it didn't have the license to do what he did.

So I had a bogus license and I had like 140 videos, all my revenues overnight just got taken. And I beat it the first time 'cause it was being copyright claimed by him. The second time it was being copyright claimed by Warner Brothers or someone and it was like a nightmare. So had to re-render all my videos out with a silent thing and YouTube did a thing where they like swap it with the live video, which they never do.

They rarely do it. And the only reason they did it was 'cause I talked shit about my partner manager in one of the videos. I was like, she's useless, she doesn't do anything. And I think she felt bad. That could have gone either way. That could have been like, fuck you then, right? - Delete channel. - At the time I was so frustrated. I was like, my God, like I just lost thousands of dollars every month, right? So, but they worked with me and we got it done. But that's the only time I've had like a positive experience

- 'Cause like the thing about YouTube is that it's just sometimes it's terrifying just to put your entire like livelihoods on someone in someone else's shoes or someone else's hands. 'Cause I remember the biggest heart attack I've ever got, which was like, I think it was last year where I logged onto YouTube and I just had this message that said, "Your account has been terminated." - What? - What? - You ever told me about that. - No, it got demonetized, right? The whole channel. - Did it?

I think, I don't know. - It got demonetized, I remember, 'cause like MrBeast. - Yeah, that was the one time where everyone got involved. Like, I don't think I could upload anything. I don't know if my videos were even up.

I can't remember exactly what happened because it was like a blur. 'Cause you know when you read the message and you're like, what do I do? Like, how did this happen? Like it wasn't like a copyright claim. It wasn't anything I'd seen before. It was just like, it just basically shut down my channel. - It just took everything, right? Yeah. - It just took everything. And do you know what sucks is that

Now to be like, to really get YouTube's attention, you just have to make as much noise as you can on Twitter. You know what I mean? - Yeah, yeah. - Twitch is the key. - It sucks though. They don't have a good support system. - I know, right? It sucks that you basically have to hope that you can make enough noise and you have enough of a following or social media presence on another platform aside from YouTube to make enough noise on Twitter to be able to- - Why did it happen? Why happened? Why happened?

- It was something wrong with the algorithm. - They had mistaken, why do I know more about this than you? They'd mistaken you because you use a lot of anime footage that he was reusing like content. And I think they demonetize channels that use too much footage from shows. And they've mistaken it for obviously not being fair use. I think is what happened.

- I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. - Yeah, yeah. - I don't know why I remember this so vividly. - I don't know why you remember it better than me. - I remember more of God's shit than him. I know his Twitter bio. - Yeah, I know, you're like a secret super fan of God. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I just remember things, I don't know. - It was just a blur for me 'cause it was just, that was the most stressful day 'cause it was like 24 hours before we got fixed, which, you know, that's fair enough, 24 hours, but 24 hours just like, logically, you know,

maybe this is probably gonna be fixed. This is gonna be a mistake. - It'll be fine by tomorrow. - Must be the longest 24 hours of your life. - Oh no, it was the longest 24 hours of my life. Because actually it was the second time that my channel had been deleted. So the first time my channel got deleted was in 2011, which is why if you go to my oldest video, it's from 2011 and that's because I had to re-upload everything.

And that was only back when I had 30,000 subscribers. - I mean at that time 30,000 probably felt like the world. - No, no, it was, it was. And that was the most, my heart sank lower than anyone had ever, I'd ever felt before. Just seeing years of your work just go down the drain and it's completely out of your control. So that's the one downside of being a YouTuber

The biggest downside I'd say for me. - That sense of it all being outside your control. Like 2017 was a bad year when they started demonetizing everything. - Oh my God, they went so trigger happy with that. - It went mental. I remember talking to you, Joey, you had loads of videos. - A third of my videos got demonetized. - A third. - About 20%. - Yeah, I had like over a thousand videos at that point and I think over 300 videos got demonetized. - It was like overnight. I remember they did it to everyone. It was absolutely chaos the next day. - What triggered it again? I can't remember.

- The Logan Paul suicide forest. - Was it? - Yeah. - No, it was 2018, wasn't it? - I thought it was the- - I thought it was PewDiePie. - It wasn't directly his fault, but I think that was the iceberg that- - I think so. It might've been a combination of the two, I don't know. - 'Cause it was right after the Wall Street Journal made the article on PewDiePie. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That triggered a ton of- - Oh, the Logan Paul thing that might've been- - That made it wave two. - Yeah, wave two. - Yeah, that was definitely wave two. I remember that. That was another thing.

you kind of shoot yourself actually I talk about that in the upcoming video because I was brought onto Japanese TV onto Mezumashi Terebi which is like the biggest morning TV show in Japan and they were like I was like forced to like defend all foreign YouTubers in the name of Logan Paul I was like what do you think of Logan Paul you're a YouTuber and you're foreign I was like oh it's terrible isn't it

- I literally just said that same line over there. What do you think? - Terrible, wasn't it? - American, American man. - Terrible, it was terrible, wasn't it? I just kept saying that and then they went home to Tokyo. I was like, I've done my bit. - Was this recent or? - No, that was in 2018. - I was gonna say. - Was that the, are you YouTuber? - Yes. - Oh my God. - Are you YouTuber? - It's my favorite fucking clip ever. It's like they just opened the door to your apartment and they're like, are you YouTuber? And you're just like, yes I am.

Like we had to do that three times because the first time I just went, um, yeah. And the final take went, yes, Chris Broad. And let them into my apartment and it was a bit surreal. Japanese TV. I mean, yeah, I've had some pretty late because I've been on Japanese TV twice right at this point. And, uh, man, I,

I don't know about you, like you've been on Japanese TV a few times too, right? - Yeah, six or seven. - Six or seven times. - Holy shit. - You're on TV that many times? - Quite a lot. - What for every time you're just talking about YouTube? - One was about Brexit. They interviewed me on Brexit. - Are you serious? - The day before and after the vote, they asked me like, "What do you think is gonna happen?" I was like, "It's not gonna happen." Never in a million years, never. And then it happened, obviously. - Yeah, yeah. - So tragic. - And they had me like pretend, I was disappointed, obviously.

and I was forced to set my laptop with my head like this going looking really emotional oh they made you do that yeah they made me look really sad like I'm like looking at the laptop at BBC website going right and then because they found out because obviously I'm a YouTuber they were like oh you're a YouTuber hold a camera as well while you're doing it oh my god

Delivering my verdicts on Brexit while holding a camera being like, "Yeah, it's terrible, isn't it? "This is the economy." - That's the one thing I fucking hate about the two times that I was on Japanese TV. It's just like- - It had to be very theatrical. - Right, like I knew Japanese TV was fucking scripted out of its ass. Just the extent to which it is scripted is just ridiculous. - Absolutely. - Like I remember one time I was on this, the first time I was on a TV program here in Japan was they did like a street interview

in Harajuku. And it was like one of those, it was a TV show. It was like a debate show, quote unquote, debate show where they would like gather like 30 different foreigners from like different countries. And they would put them in,

to a studio to basically like, there's like 30 gaijins and then there's like 30 like Japanese scholars. And we'd have to like debate on like really like controversial shit. I think one of the topics was like, should Japan legalize marijuana? - Oh God. - That was one of the topics. - Oh, okay. - And like, I got, you know, done on the street interview and I guess like the crew at the time really liked my answers that they were like, hey, we might call you back and like invite you to the actual studio.

because apparently I was like the only Australian that they ever interviewed. So I was like, you have to come in to represent Australia as a country. 'Cause like every guy you know was there, was representing a different like Western country. And like, I sat there, I did a whole video on this which went viral, but like I sat in the studio essentially. And they even like before the show started, they gave me like this full on like,

like 40 page script of the entire show. And they were like, okay, in this section, the host is gonna like call up and be like, hey, does anyone have an opinion? And you're the only one that's gonna put their hand up to like give an opinion. And I'm like, yeah. And they told me that five minutes before we started filming the goddamn show. So I'm just like, okay, I have to remember at our time.

Like one hour and 27 minutes, I have to put my hand up to give an opinion about the legalization of marijuana in Japan.

- At the end, they didn't even like get to that question. So literally it was like a two and a half hour recording. And the whole time I just sat there silently. - So you didn't even say anything. - I didn't say anything the whole time and they paid me 50 bucks for it. I sat in the studio silently for two and a half hours to just look pissed off because I'm hearing these other arguments about like why it shouldn't be legalized or why it should be legalized. And it's the most like,

rudimentary basic argument that I've ever heard. It's like anybody with a fucking brain. - It smells icky. - Yeah, it's like anybody with a fucking brain can come up with this discussion. And I'm just sitting there just angrily waiting for my cue and it's never coming. So I'm just like, I really wanna tell these people to shut the fuck up about their dumb ass opinions. And it's just not coming. So I'm just like, I even like turn to the guy in the show. You can actually see it in the show. I actually turn to the guy, I'm just like,

I'm supposed to say something in this part. And the guy's just like, yeah, I am too. I'm waiting. It just doesn't happen. - Who were you sitting next to? Like what country were they repping? - It was like, it was either American or Canadian. It was a Canadian guy. That's right. It was a Canadian guy. And he's like, yeah, yeah. Like I was for the legalization of marijuana. Cause obviously Canada is like all for that. And he's like, yeah. So I was gonna say something too. And after the show, we like bonded over that. We were just like, man,

- Fuck this show. They like brought us in, like they brought us in as well like two hours earlier. And I'm like, we didn't have to wait this long. - Jesus. - And it's like, I basically wasted an entire evening for me to just publicly humiliate myself by sitting on Japanese TV with just like the biggest resting bitch face. And what do I get for it? 50 bucks. - Nah, you got a video out of it. - He got a viral video out of it. - I got a viral video out of it. - He got peak.

- YouTuber click baits. - That's the thing, right? If you have a shitty situation, if you can get a video out of it, it's worth more than anything. - The most ironic thing is that that video pushed me to over a million subs. - Oh, actually, I got a good question for you guys.

- What's the one time you click baited that you're like, even you look at that video and you're like, oh man, I'm disappointed in myself for going for click baiting that hard. - Do you have that Chris? - Do you have that? Have you ever clicked baited? - I feel like you're too professional. - Yeah. - Probably my most successful video. 12 things not to do in Japan.

That is still to this day on my recommended, even though I've watched it already. - I'm joking. - It's like you really like this one. - I think that with that video, the reason why it did so well is not because of the clickbait, but when you released it. I released it by shit. I think I released it one week before Logan Paul did. - Oh my God. - And then all the comments are, "Don't be Logan Paul, ha ha ha. "Rule number 10, don't be Logan Paul, ha ha." And that's like,

20% of the many comments. - And it was so perfect as well because literally, I think it was like seven out of the 12 things you said, Logan Paul did. - Hit done. - Hit done, hit his balls. He didn't even have to make a statement, like a different statement. Like that video just spoke for itself. - Yeah. - Good old Logan Paul, he got me a viral hit and he got me a KV. What a great, great man. - A legend. - I don't know, like,

it's like, it just comes down to like, what even is clickbait anymore? Right. Cause like, I think as long as you deliver on the title, that is the main thing. Like my video I talked about earlier, what, what was it? Uh, what I, uh,

The one that you did that I did. What you hate about Japan. What you don't understand about Japan. What I'll never understand about Japan. That sounds quite clickbait. And the, you know, the thumbnail's me going, with some beer looking really shocked. And it's a bit vague. But as long as the subject, as long as the content delivers on the title, I think it's okay to have a provocative clickbait style title. I mean, yeah, it's such a good argument because like clickbait, what is clickbait in the end? There's like different levels in my eyes. You know what I mean? I think if you're like, it happened again and it's you going,

- I'm so sorry. And it's just him, his flight getting canceled. It's literally his flight getting canceled to the convention. - I think it was called like, no, it was called like, we're so angry. And then in brackets, I'm sorry. It's literally just like my flight got canceled. - And all it was was fucking like Elysian Airlines.

- I watched that video. - Yeah. - Like canceled our flight for no fucking reason and we missed our convention to Finland. - I watched that. - And that video has like 1.2 million views. - Yeah, I'm like this is a video, but it's not a 1.2 million. - I mean, you try a title, no doubt about that. But the content delivered, it had a story, people interested, you know, as long as the content delivers and gives viewers something, then I think it's fair game. - Yeah, I'm not a total, I mean, I knew what I was doing when I titled it that way.

but I don't know, like that's the thing, right? Like every year, like I feel like five years ago on YouTube, you could spot a clickbait title from a million miles away. Like you didn't have like, there was like a certain type of thumbnail, a certain structure to the title where it's like, yeah, I'm gonna get baited if I click on this. But nowadays, like I think people are just getting way smarter at titles

- But like, I think clickbait has been getting smarter as well. Or like how to like get people's attention with a really, really unique title or thumbnail. - Right, right, right. - I feel like part of being a YouTuber is just knowing the meta. The meta is what I'm calling it. You know what I mean? Like I remember if back a few years ago, if he had the word prank or gone wrong or gone fucking sexual, you'd get fucking millions of views easy, right?

But now that does shit. You know what I mean? - There's a great quote I remember from Philip DeFranco. When he was talking in a video of his where he's talking about click bait. 'Cause you know, like Philly D like back in the day was like the master of click bait. - Yeah. - And I think he's- - We should put tits in the thumbnail.

- Yeah, yeah, right? - No, no, I remember that phase. - I mean, it was genius back in the day, right? But like he said something along the lines of like, you know, with the title and thumbnail, as long as the content is good and there's at least some kind of like content that you can take away from it, it really doesn't matter what the title and thumbnail is because at the end of the day, you have to trick your kids into eating their vegetables.

And when he said that, I was like, wow, that actually makes a lot of sense. Because sometimes you might have a particular type of content where there's just no way you can like title it a thumbnail in a way that will get the attention of kids or like people with short attention spans. And so you have to be forced to click bait. But as long as the content is good and is at some level of quality, I really don't think there is anything wrong with

making like a really click baity title. - That's always been my kind of guiding philosophy as well. - Yeah, absolutely. - Because like it's on YouTube is all about you, 'cause there's so much competition, right? The fucking recommended feed or the fucking homepage, you gotta like immediately stand out. You can be making, what I hate about being a YouTuber is that you can have a great fucking video. You know this video is a gold mine. You have no idea how to get people to click on it.

- Yeah. - You know what I mean? And like sometimes you have a video you poured your heart and soul into and then you get to the title and thumbnail and you're like, "Oh, what do I do?" - Is that something you consider when you're like picking these places to visit? Are you thinking about like, how can I like, you know? - Yeah, when I'm making a video, the first thing I think about is what's the title gonna be? - Yeah. - I think that's just like a natural instinct with YouTubers nowadays. - I've only gotten into doing that recently.

before it was just make the video that had a good concept and figure it out. But I realized I was getting in situations where videos weren't doing too hot 'cause people weren't clicking on them. And then once I got into the habit of like get the title and make the video around it almost at times, right? It's horrible to say that, but you kind of have to do it. - Like yeah, title and thumbnail is by far the most important

about being a successful YouTuber. - It is. - It's sad that it's gotten to that point there where like you can't just have like a banger. Like if you get a low click through rate, YouTube's like, no, no, no, that's not getting recommended. You got 3% less click through rate than normal. - Like even the whole like some creators who like don't try, you know, with their like title and thumbnails as much as say other YouTubers, that's like a brand in and of itself, you know what I mean?

- There are just some YouTubers that can literally title and thumbnail a video anything. And they just built that trust that they'll click through. And I like to think that your channel is very much like that in a sense, because I don't really look at an Abroad in Japan video and think like, oh, that's click bait. I know from the get go what I'm gonna get into when I see the title and thumbnail. - That's true. Well, how long have you been doing YouTube? - Oh, I've been doing it,

Eight years as of August this year. 2012. Yeah. But I've only made 200 videos, I think, so far. So, yeah, I mean, I make far less videos than, like, you guys, right? So I have to make every video really count for something. It has to be that video. I think a lot of people...

- Would it say that they are? I mean, I know a lot of people who really speak really highly of your content. So it makes sense. But going on off that, do you feel like the quality bar raises each year with like content that's being made in Japan? Like the kind of vlog stuff or do you feel like you're already on top of that? - Yeah, I mean, I remember,

About four years in, there was a channel that popped up called Only in Japan run by John Dorb, cool guy. And he raised the bar. Like I used to just be a vlog, kind of vlogging style. Yeah, yeah. Had TV production quality and I was like, shit, that's the future. That's what you want to get. So I raised my bar to try and reach that kind of level of quality. Mm.

And I've noticed since then a lot of channels have also started slowly creeping up as well with the similar kind of production value. What I will say is production value isn't as important as people think it is. The main thing is just having content that people want to watch. I've made lots of videos out about travelling to interesting places, but the videos...

"They always do the best. "It's just me sitting in a room giving a commentary on something." - I mean, that's the thing at the end of the day, right? It's like, it doesn't matter how good of a camera you have, how good of a mic you have, how good your editing is. If you have a personality of a brick wall, no one's gonna fucking watch you. - Yeah, absolutely. - I mean, that's YouTube really, right? If you wanna get a sterilized document of a person,

the documentary, we can watch something else. But I mean, that's even like Louis Theroux, right? You watch him as well. - You love Louis Theroux, don't you? - I fucking love Louis Theroux. I would marry Louis Theroux. - He's the gold standard. - He is, he is there, right? 'Cause the way that he doesn't like obstruct, he doesn't judge, right? He doesn't get in the way of the documentary, but he gets just enough personality where like you want it to be his documentary. You know, like you wish you watch, sometimes you watch a documentary like, man, I wish Louis Theroux made this.

I made this, you know, it could have been good. You know what I mean? And like, I feel like you've like almost got a really good balance with that. Like, I feel like you interject your personality just enough where it's like, it's really cements that like, I really wish a broad in Japan covered this. You know what I mean? - I just feel, you know, with a good video, it should be entertaining and educational. There's a fine line to balance, right? And that's the most important thing I always try and focus on. - And that's what I found really interesting when I joined you for Journey Across Japan. - Right. - Because you,

brought up the whole thing of like- - Such quality content, strapping a pillow to a bicycle. - When you said, when you told me before the whole thing started, they're like, "Yeah, I'm gonna try and release a video every day." And I thought back to your production quality, I'm like, "Good fucking luck, dude." - When I found out that you were editing your own videos for that, I was like, "Is this guy insane?" - One time Joey met me one week, so I did the cyclic- - He was editing those videos and cycling.

I did this cycle across Japan for like two months and yeah, I was cycling, filming and editing it all at the same time because I'm a real control freaking idiot. Even though I had like two people who are willing to edit with me on the journey in the car. Right, right, right. Alongside me.

I was like, "No, I'll do it, don't worry." - Yeah, because I remember after the first day, I sat with you in your hotel room as you were like starting to edit on the thing. And I'm just like, "You gonna be able to get sleep after this?" I think you stayed up till like, I think we had to get up, I think the next day at like eight or 9:00 AM. It was really, really early.

- Fucking Chris had stayed up till like 5:00 AM. - What the fuck? - He had gotten maybe like four hours sleep at most. And he's like, "All right guys, about to do a 15 kilometer cycle now." - How many times did you do that on the trip?

- Most? - A lot, yeah, most of the first half. - How the fuck did you write that? - Originally the videos came out every day, then it was like every two days, then every four, and by the end it was like once a month. It just kept getting longer and longer, very stupid. - I think you would burn yourself. That just sounds like an absolute fast track

- By the time Joey was there and Joey had left, I was fucked. - I saw like the rapid decline of like mental health. - You know what broke my heart is when you, did you, was it with Emma that you recorded? - Tokidoki Travel. - Did you record a video with her that you?

Yeah she came along for three days And we filmed for the entire leg But I was like oh hi But at that point I've been cycling two months A thousand kilometres Oh yeah do you want to explain what Journey in Japan is Just in case someone Yeah Journey in Japan Cycle across Japan from Yamagata to Kagoshima About two thousand kilometres And the idea was to film every single day

and make a video and show people bits of Japan you don't normally see. But by the time Emma joined, he was the last guest in Kyushu. Oh, she's dead. Yeah. Oh, look, it's Emma. How you doing? I'm going to sleep now. And it was awful. It's such a shame as well because Emma's such a personality. It was a real shame. I feel guilty about that. I had to apologise to Emma yesterday when I met her for the first time.

- Oh really? - Yeah, I was like, sorry about that. - My heart broke 'cause I can only imagine like you must've been at your end of the road. - I was at the end of everything. - And like just having like that just unusable footage would just be like, all right, I'm done. - It was a real shame. But at the end of the day, it was mostly a success. We had 28 episodes by the end. And the videos with Joey, it was interesting 'cause in the second half of the journey, we went through like Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima.

And then Joey, when he joined, was like, "Nothing." - It was literally four episodes of Jack shit. - We know. The first video we filmed like the biggest nuclear power plant in the world. - Yeah, right, right. - That was what we did. And there was nothing, so we had to improvise and make like commercials about energy jelly. - I remember watching that and I was like, "Man, what's going on here?" - I was really excited, the idea of taking a place where there's nothing really going on and trying to infuse some sort of creative component.

It was like a creative challenge. We didn't plan that though. We had challenges every day. On top of everything else, I had challenges every day. And Joey joined and the challenge was make a commercial in a day. 24 hours, yeah. And we're like, how the fuck are we going to do that? There's nothing here. So we quickly have to be really creative. We find a train station where there's a real train carriage you can go in. And that was purely by chance, wasn't it? That was so lucky. That was so lucky. So lucky. Because we had no idea that this station had just a fucking...

an empty train carriage like as a thing. And we're just like, perfect. - And then the challenge we had to be about energy jelly, right? So we already had that. That was the only thing we had to go on. And then we just somehow pulled it off in a day. - So it was really fun. - And that came out really well. - It was like my favorite video from the trip. - So how did the idea of the travel across Japan like come up? - I was gonna ask the exact same question. I was like me and Connor on the same wavelength. - At what point was that like you like thought about it? At what point were you like, okay, I'm gonna actually start pursuing setting this up. And then how did that all go about?

about I had been doing a documentary about my friend Natsuki and that took months to film and edit and I was editing it's not my favourite video and I was editing for like two or three months in a room just like why am I doing this and by the end I was like I need to go out I need to do something I'd always wanted to travel across Japan by bicycle and I thought this could be fun and that's pretty much how it came about and that was it

- This sounds like even like Casey Neistat couldn't keep to this schedule, you know what I mean? - Oh yeah, that's kind of wild. - Yeah, 'cause like hearing that you still edit your own videos, do you still edit your own videos? - I do, I do, and I enjoy that. Like for me, the least favorite part of making a video is the presenting aspect.

Really? That's my favorite part, I think. You guys are clearly really great presenters. You enjoy that. For me, I do enjoy it, but the bit that I enjoy is the filmmaking aspect. Right, right. The latest video about why I hate Japanese TV, I had to learn how to use a blue screen in a way that I'd never done before. Oh, okay. Superimpose myself into a miniature diorama. And I enjoy that. Every video is like a creative challenge. There's something new to be learned, something new to be discovered. I don't have the kind of...

to keep putting out regular content. - I think you do. I think you just, you just are. I think you have the personality for it. I think that maybe you just, you know. - I don't know. But I just enjoy that kind of- - Yeah, no, understandable. - The filmmaking process really. Whereas you guys probably like the kind of commentary aspect, right? Discussing, debating things. Anime, you have so many topics. - I think it's more, for us it's more just like we get on camera, we make a fool of ourselves. Our audience likes it and laughs at it. Moving on to the next one.

- I felt like a huge weight was lifted when I stopped editing my own videos. I felt like I actually had time to start planning more. 'Cause I'm uploading normally every five or six days. So it's like constant. - 'Cause I think for me, Garnt talked me into getting an editor. - No, I remember the exact conversation. 'Cause he was like when I first went to Japan and met him and I was like, "Wait, you still edit your own videos? "What the fuck are you doing?" - What are you, Paul?

- No, because like I had that same thing, right? Where I was like, I actually like quite enjoyed editing and like kind of taking what I had filmed and like making something completely different. - You still edit some of your own videos. - Yeah, I edit half of my videos. - Yeah, I haven't edited a video in like two years. - Yeah, I very much like, I still enjoy like editing my videos. And I think like every time I do go and edit my videos, it kind of like reinvigorates my love for like video making. 'Cause like as cool as it is to like hire Mudan, who is the editor for this podcast,

- MVP by the way. - Like as much as Mudan is fucking amazing at editing my videos, like there is like a little part that just can't be replaced no matter what. - I don't know. I feel like it's a job that you can pay someone to do and it speeds up your process. And because the thing is, right?

I'm not an editor, right? If I hire someone whose main job is being an editor, they can do the job way better than I ever did and like get a huge way off my shoulders. - But I feel like to me, a lot of your own personality can come through in the editing as well. - That's true, that's true. - Like for me, I still am very heavily involved in the editing of my own videos. But what I realized is that a lot of my time spent editing

is just like pure manpower. You know what I mean? It's like cutting up clips, just making the timeline usable. And then afterwards that there's that like 20 to 10% where you can really add your own personality. And what I did was like, let's see if I can work with an editor so he can take the workload off without making me lose my own personality. 'Cause that was,

my biggest concern when hiring an editor is like is my personality still gonna come through in the editing I feel that's a weakness for me to some extent I've never handled I did actually put out like an advert for an editor on Twitter in January and I got like 500 people and I was like well I could do but like

But then I was editing, I produced a documentary about the tsunami. Right. A tsunami documentary, about 20 minutes. And that's something that I just didn't want to cut corners. I didn't want to have to describe it with someone. I wanted to do it myself and dive in, you know. Yeah, yeah. And I think if I was, commentary videos are typically kind of set in one location, right? Yeah, yeah.

Whereas a lot of the videos I do are set over many different locations. The editing is much more intensive and much more complicated. I mean, it definitely took me like a long time for me to finally like give someone the reins. And like, at least with my videos, like I give my editor...

100% creative freedom. But that's because not only do I know that my editor knows my shit and like my style, but also because I myself am personally a fan of that person's work. And I see that person's work. Like I remember how I found like mood on my editor was like he had his own YouTube channel and I was like, this guy's fucking amazing. And like his sense of humor is exactly the same as mine. - That was like the biggest thing is finding an editor with a sense of humor.

Like, cause if you do comedy, you need someone who has timing. And also one big thing in at least my videos is that, especially with the host club, if I'd edited that, I'd have cut out so much of the cringy stuff, right? Cause I see me. If I'm editing- You wanna show the best of yourself, right? Right, but he'll leave that shit in and then I'll be like, all right,

- I look like an idiot, but it's funny. I look like a fool, but okay. - It's nice to get like a second opinion on that kind of content because it's like, oh, actually now that you did leave it in, it is actually kind of funny. And like, I would have otherwise cut it out myself. - I mean, Chris, your videos tend to be really like well-produced as we've discussed, but I'm wondering like, do you ever like scrap any videos that you've like filmed out like in areas? I'm really interested too. 'Cause I feel like you're a perfectionist almost.

I've filmed entire videos and been like, nope, and deleted it. Really? I've had videos I've made and gone, it just doesn't do well, and I've unlisted it. I did a video on Japanese mascots, wacky mascot characters. So you uploaded it and then took it down? It got 200,000 views, which is like...

- It's a lot of ease, but it's by the channel it was like half and I felt like something was wrong or people didn't watch it. I don't know. And I was like, that's not really. - So you just took it down. - Yeah, I missed it. - Oh my God. I could never do that. - I specifically remember that video and I'm like, oh, this is a little different from what it is. - I think I remember this. I think you were saying on Twitter, right? This was like not too long ago. - I think you could just see the desperation in my eyes. And I filmed that at a very bad time. Like the Fukushima documentary that I put a month into had bombed.

And then I had the mascot video and I was not happy and I wasn't funny and that bombed. And I was like, I'm fucked. My YouTube career is done. - It's always like that. It's always like that. - Two or three bad videos in a row, you're like, oh no. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm dying, I'm dying.

- I've had this conversation with Connor where you know the tool where they show you when you upload a video and it shows you the ranking based on the last 10 uploads that you've done. - You guys watch this won't know but YouTube makes you feel like shit. Your video does bad. The analytics are like your video is rubbish and like it goes all color red and it's like lots of arrows pointing down. - It's not even red, it's gray. You know what I mean? - It's gray if it's mediocre, it's red if it's bad.

- Oh, okay. - And you feel dead inside. - Yeah. - That's because the show you never have like an actual bad feeling. - No, no, no, because I just stopped checking it. Because I realized there is basically no winning when it comes to checking this tool, right? Because if, okay, the only time you feel good, if it's like number one or two or three- - If I feel good, I just feel content.

- No, no, yeah, you feel like, and if it's average, you feel like, oh, nice. - It's gotten to the point now with me where it's like my last video, as of the recording of this video, is like number four. And usually it's like, oh cool, it's in the top half, right? But when I saw number four, I was like, fuck it, it could have done better. - So like, it just fucks with like-

It just fucked with my mental health so much. - It does do that though. - No, it really does. And that's why like I just had to stop checking. Cause I'm like, yeah, no matter what I come out losing 90% of the time. - I remember when I was like fucking obsessed with the analytics, right? - I think every YouTuber goes through that point. - I think every YouTuber goes through that point where they just like constantly look through the analytics and they just see like just the most minor of changes and then like, oh man, this didn't do as well, this didn't do as well. And then the moment where I'm just like, you know what?

"Fuck it, I'm just gonna upload a video, fuck the analytics." As long as it's like, as long as I'm happy with it, fuck it. - I do find my mood is determined by how well or how a video is done. If it gets really well, then I'm like, "Oh." And this is because I do spend two weeks sometimes.

I guess the stakes are higher with you. The stakes are higher because I make less videos. It has to perform well. It has to be good. And so if it does well, I'm like, yes, I'm in a good mood until the next video. In that sense, I feel that like you and Garnt are probably a lot more similar. Because like my upload schedule is like one every two weeks. If that sometimes, you know, like I just went with a month of not uploading and that like killed me.

- I'm in that position right now as of filming, I haven't released a video in about one month. I've been working on it for two weeks on and off trying to make it perfect. - And you're like, if this video is not a banger, if it doesn't hit, then I've just taken a month off and I've got nothing to show for it. - Absolutely, and I feel that way. So it has to perform well. So if you're watching this, please go watch my video. Hit the like button. - We'll link to it. We'll have it in the cards. - Do something nice.

I feel that pressure though. By doing that sort of approach, you have to make sure every video delivers. - That's why I'm so scared to go to an upload schedule of you guys or if we're with JonTron or something like that where it's once a month or once every couple of months because I'm just so afraid of like,

like the situation of like, oh, what if I upload a video a month in between and it just fucking bombs. - I mean, I feel like when I moved to Japan, that's what I'm just trying to like get towards, like trying to get towards those big videos at the host club. But those videos take so long. - But it was like a scary transition for me because I've used to upload daily.

- I don't know how anyone uploads daily. - Honestly. - I think you have to be a psychopath. - My first three years, I uploaded daily. - I can see how you could kind of do that when you're like back in university or something. You know what I mean? - Gaming as well. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I did gaming in between. So that was fucking easy, right? But like- - Just what, play a game, seven parts, done for the week. - Yeah, like it got to the point where I realized I was doing more gaming videos than actual anime content. I'm like, okay, that needs to change.

And so I just scrapped all gaming content. And then I went from like a video daily to like once every two days, once every three days. Now I'm like once every week, essentially once every six days or so. And I feel okay now because I've like gradually put myself in that state, but I,

I guarantee that if I went from this current schedule of like once a week to like once a month, I'd be shitting myself. - Absolutely. - But like, did you guys feel really bad having to keep your schedule? 'Cause that stresses me out. Like knowing I have to upload on a certain time, like that's sometimes I hate having a deadline like that.

Because that fucks with like... Because I have to think, oh, do I have the creative freedom to try and do something else? You know what I mean? I mean, this month I've been working on a video, Why I Hate Japanese TV. Yeah. Yeah, I've almost finished it and I think, wait a minute, I want to do one more scene. No. Oh! But I mean, I've been wanting to do this video for years, right? Okay, okay. I've wanted to do a Japanese TV video for years, so this is a special event for me. Yeah. My catalyst for doing it was... Do you remember...

On Japanese TV recently, there was a clip of someone going, Koniwa Pender. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a pen. Pen.

And they did a comparison. They had a Japanese lady with a tissue in front of her face going, call her a pendous. And the tissue didn't move because the Japanese language is so eloquent and beautiful. And then she spoke in crude, disgusting, virus-spreading English. This is a pen! The tissue went like that and the spit went everywhere and the virus went everywhere. It was conclusive evidence the English language was...

- That's why the virus is more viral. - It wasn't an absence of mass testing or the widespread use of mask. It was Koryo appendes, British people, Americans speaking in bloody English. - 'Cause I made a sarcastic tweet after I saw that clip on Twitter. - I'm so frustrated. - Where I retweeted and said like, oh yes, because every foreigner in Japan goes around asking what a pen is. - Yeah, exactly right. - Speak for yourself, Joey, speak for yourself. - Is this a pen?

What is this? Is that a pen? A pen? So that was like, okay, I'm doing this video now. I've wanted it for years. I'm doing it now. That is the catalyst. So that was my main driver to do a video on why I hate Japanese TV and talk about my experiences being on TV. It's such a shame for me as well because I...

I said in episode three that like, you know, a lot of my Japanese and my appreciation for Japanese culture and the Japanese language came from Japanese TV. Like if I wasn't watching anime, I was watching, you know- - Takeshi's Castle. - Yeah, Takeshi's Castle. - We love that, we talked about it last time, yeah. - Variety shows and like, as I got older and like into my high school years, I watch a lot of like talk shows because I was just genuinely interested in like how talk shows work. And I started to like grow an appreciation for that.

But then that entire illusion just got completely shattered the moment I went onto one of those shows and I realized just how fucking fake that shit is. - I feel like in general, they're pretty very open about just like, kind of like softly anti-foreign.

not saying bad things about foreigners, but just like, you know, just like- - Yeah, no, you're right. - They like to like, just like, oh, just say it. You say pen rather loudly. I don't wanna- - With a hard P. - That's how it is, right? It's never direct. It's just like, we're not saying there's any difference, but they just happen to say the P sound. - Did you just say the P word? - There's undertones. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Nationalist exceptionalism on that. I actually did script a segment on that and I was like,

I don't want to open up Pandora's box. - That's like- - Nationalist exceptions. - I know what you mean, you don't want to get into that. - I scripted that and I talked about it, I was like, I want to keep it funny and on point and that is a dark turn. I mean, you don't want to cut that segment out. - It's an uncomfortable topic, right? People don't like that. - It is, yeah. There absolutely is there. Like Japan is special, right? Japan is better. They kind of hint at that.

in the rhetoric of Japanese television. But it was like, no, I don't want to open this box of shit. It's all worth it. I don't want to go down that path. Oh, so you hate Japan. Yeah, exactly. I'm a bit scared of this video because I think this is the first time I've been critical to some extent about Japanese culture and that's something you just don't do. Because why are you here? Why are you here? Why are you here?

Leave! If you don't like it, leave! Leave! Do you find that you can't really be openly critical about Japan on your channel then? I can, but I feel like I don't have that many criticisms. The thing is, I have had...

a very positive experience in Japan. I've never felt I've suffered any racism in my daily life here in eight years. If I had some openly racist, unpleasant experience, make no mistake, I would comment on that and I'd make a video about that. And I've been very lucky and my time here has been very positive. So, yeah, I mean, I really don't have much to draw from in terms of bad experiences. If I did though, I would be the first to comment on that.

- Because we all know there are a lot of J-Vloggers who are very quick to make a video on the whole xenophobic, like, "Oh, I experienced a racist thing." - Right. - Yeah. - And sometimes I kind of wish that they would show some restraint when they do, 'cause sometimes you watch it and it's like, "That wasn't really worth talking about." You know what I mean? It's like, "They looked funny in the supermarket." - Well, I mean, on the train here, it was the busiest train ever, but the seat next to me was empty.

- That's how it is, right? - Is that racism? - Yeah. - Debate. - I've noticed that. Just start coughing if you wanna see real facts. It's rush hour, I'm sorry, I can't take any chances. - There's things like that. But I've never felt uncomfortable to some extent. - No, no, same, same, same. - Which is rare, right? Because you don't live in Tokyo. - I don't live in Tokyo, I live in North Japan. And I've traveled Japan extensively, like so much. And I honestly can't think of an experience where someone has been,

openly racist towards me or done something which made me feel uncomfortable but I've kept an eye out for it make no mistake free content I want that content but people mess with me going is Japan racist you know what am I going to expect and those bars where foreigners aren't welcome they're

few and far between and they're often in tourist areas where there's a bar that has regular customers and they probably just don't want foreign customers coming in because they can't communicate in English with their media. They don't have that respect. Hitting on that point, I watched a video of yours again last night. Again, I went, I did a deep dive in your channel. I really, I wanted to be prepared. You are so good at that. You went really deep in your research. I did, I did. In 2018 of October. Yeah.

- You uploaded the video where you were like, "How long will I live in Japan for?" And in that video you were like, "Maybe like another three years." We're getting close to that point, Chris. And I was wondering like, what are your thoughts about that now?

Oh yeah. Or is this going to be something you discuss in a video in the future? No, there's no, again, there's still no plans to be honest. Like before I leave, the one thing I always want to do is to film a short film, to make a film, an actual like. Yeah, yeah. I think you could pull it off. And everything I've been doing all these years has been building up to that moment. And recently in my free time, I've been studying cinematography and stuff and,

That is the one thing I wanna do. So I feel like once I've done that, maybe. - Well, if you did ever leave Japan, how do you think like, I mean, how would that affect your channel, right? - It's a broad in the UK. - It would just be abroad. - Do you almost feel at times that like, maybe you're like, not to say like hostage to Japan, but like that you're kind of like, you're like, well, my job is Japan. Like, can I leave? - To some extent.

Not really. You'd think so, but not necessarily, no. Yeah, I mean, my channel is, let's face it, the reason the channel's so successful is because most of my viewers are interested in Japan. Right, right, right. And I'm fine with that. I do have a second channel called A Broad Perspective. Right, right. Clever. Maybe.

- But I mean, you upload a lot of videos where you just chat shit to the comments that you get, right? And it's fantastic, right? And you clearly have the charisma for it. - Oh, they're replying to hate comments video? - You have a lot of comments where you, a lot of videos where you just reply to comments and those get just as many views sometimes as your- - They do. - So I feel like, even if you did leave,

you could easily transition. Yeah. I mean, I do think if I had to leave Japan, God forbid, there would be a future. I would be able to do something. That's good. Pivot and create a channel that's focused on comedy or commentating or something. But really I've always seen my YouTube channel as a YouTube channel and also a stepping stone as a stepping stone to getting into the film industry and doing something in the world of film. So is that like your ultimate goal after YouTube? That is my ultimate goal. And 2020 is supposed to be, was supposed to be the year that I did that. Oh,

- Oh, okay. - Wow. - That's kind of been a bit delayed. - Even what's going on. - These things move slowly, right? - Yeah. - So you have like no interest in like staying for the foreseeable future?

- I think I'll be here at least another three years. I don't have it like, it's time to go now, end goal, I have to leave Japan. - I did say three years. - More realistically, I'll probably be here permanently another few years. And then maybe I'll transition to the UK and I'll come back to Japan. - But could you see yourself, if you did stay in Japan, eventually, you've done so much content in and around Japan, could you ever see yourself at a point where it's like, I've literally run out of,

every idea that I can think of that's like interesting enough in Japan because you know like as you think so as diverse and as like interesting as all sorts of places in Japan are if you cover also all the interesting stuff eventually you think you're gonna run out right so like could you ever see yourself like getting to that point or

Or would you probably bail before that happens? It's a good question. People ask that a lot. Like, oh, you're fed up of covering Japan. And I think there's always a new angle, a new story to be found. Like recently, I've been working on a series about business owners in Japan. So I've made a series about a guy that owns a sushi restaurant and what's it like. And he's a good friend of mine in Sendai. He owns the biggest sushi restaurant chain in Sendai. I've got another friend who owns a Wagyu restaurant. I've been chatting with him and we're going to make a video on that.

So focusing on people is another option, right? I've never really done that and it's something I've always wanted to do. So focusing on different people. So I always think there's another angle, there's another story to be told. I don't think, you know, I've got 20, 30, 40 ideas at the back of my mind or written down a document that I can go with.

So there's no absence of content. - Yeah, because I feel like as a YouTuber, especially if you're on the platform for like a very long time, you eventually have to think about evolving your content, right? Because like anyone, like if you pay attention to the world of YouTube, anyone who's successful in here or has been for a very long time, their content has to like slowly change over time where you have to try to explore new things. And I feel like one of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out what you can kind of get away with, right? 'Cause what,

what I fear most is getting pigeonholed into like one type of content. I mean, I love anime, right? But like, have you ever felt like you wanted to make content outside of anime or like something that's not about Japan itself? - I mean, that's like what this podcast is for. I can finally talk about shit that's not like specifically about anime or whatever, right? Because I do have so many

so many other like interesting, like things that I do want to talk about. Like I love anime, don't get me wrong, but like, I also like a lot of other things. And unfortunately I can't really talk about that kind of stuff without it being very unnatural. - Well, she love.

- What do you love? - The meaning of love. - Before anime, I was in four different bands. - Yeah, you make a lot of music. - I make a lot of music on the sidelines. So I've always been very passionate about music. I've always wanted to talk about music. And I did that a little bit on my second channel, but obviously,

didn't really pop off all that much. - It's time to make a new channel, Joey's song. - Joey's song. - The music man. - Just the one song. - The music man. - That's a comment I got a lot. It's like, if you talk, like I had a bunch of my audience, which was like, if you ever like start talking about music, just call the music man. And I was,

- I was that close to making a channel called The Music Man. - I was the one. - Yeah, the eye's gotta be the one. - You're the genius of your brand. You just need to have the man and then something in between. - Yeah, exactly. - And a one. - As long as there's a one in there somewhere. - I mean, you have to bear in mind, I was literally doing like Sebastian. My whole channel was impersonating a black guy.

- I'm honestly surprised you managed to escape that pigeon hole. - I don't know how I did it. I took so many tries. I remember so many videos that I did that weren't that fail, but I was like, no, I know this is good. I'm gonna make it work. And then like, well, like five years later, I'm making host club videos that pull them way more. You know what I mean? Like you have to be persistent and it's hard 'cause you're gonna get discouraged when you're doing something that isn't normal or what people are used to. 'Cause people don't like what, you know,

they aren't comfortable with. And the thing is, I'm sure you guys will have this. So you've asked your viewers for suggestions. - That never works. - They give you, they're like, "Do the same thing again, but slightly different please." And it's just like, all right, well, you clearly don't know what you want. - Yeah, exactly. They don't know what they want a lot of the times. - And you just have to be like, like you said, right?

You found a story. You found the people to talk about. You're like, maybe people wouldn't click on, you know, when you started, why would someone click on Natsuki the documentary, right? But you've built it up to the point where, okay, people trust you and they understand that you go into that kind of thing. I think that's the end game with any successful YouTube channel is to build it around your personality. That's true. That's true. I learned very quickly on and I spent years getting out of. Yeah.

And I think you've done an amazing job at doing that. I mean, I watched Natsuki documentary and I don't know, like if you'd have pitched that to me before I watched your channel, I'd have been like, yeah, no, I'm okay. - I didn't know Sid Vicious' grave was in New York. - That whole was amazing. It's so funny. I was like, okay, very good stangent. But yeah, I mean, it's that kind of evolution that you really like strive for, right? That you hope you can make an hour documentary on your mate.

- Who's just fucking around in Europe. - Falling over in a wind tunnel. - Right, that's like, and that's, I think that's like a testament to how well you've built your, you and your brand, right? - And that's the, I mean, yeah, that's the end game. You want to build it around yourself. You want to build it around your friends, you know, and find the right people to put in front of the camera, like that ski. - Exactly. - He's ridiculous, but. - Yeah. You can tell you're careful with it.

Like, I feel like you're not just like, I mean, I'm sure if there's people around you and you're happy to film, you put them on, but it seems very like selective the way you, who you show and how you show them on screen. I don't know if you think about that much, but.

- I mean, I've met Natsuki before and like. - Are you very like selective about what you show? - Well, you have to be Natsuki. Natsuki has come down with so much ridiculous stuff. You have to be very careful where. What was his nickname for me again? It was Jelly, right? We did an event last year after Journey Across Japan, after the cycle where all the guests came to one room in Shibuya and Joey was like, "Oh, it's Jelly." And he thought Joey's name was genuinely Jelly 'cause he'd seen Dr. Jelly.

and just thought oh maybe because his name's Jelly and he didn't understand it was a pun because of the jelly and everything he just thought oh it's Jelly Jelly innit and that should be your new name Jelly Jelly yeah I mean it is on your channel Jelly the anime man

That's the new podcasting name for Joe. Is Natsuki genuine like a really good mate in real life? You guys hold him out? Yeah, he's like one of my best friends. Okay, okay, yeah. I mean, that comes off that way, definitely. Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, I've been shocked if you're like, nah, we just fucking fuck. Yeah, fuck off. I hire him. He's a good lad, yeah. Those genuine relationships are really important. And yeah, that's the best bit, you know.

It's been really fun as well taking Natsuki along for the ride as a guy that lives randomly in this kind of backwater of Japan that no one knows about and then he's been thrust into the global, just thrust into the world of the internet with millions of views. It's kind of been quite interesting living vicariously through his experience. Right.

- I feel like we've all done a pretty good job in like building our own personal brands. I mean, I'm sure if we look at our content like five years ago, it's completely different. - I don't wanna look at my content for five years. - I mean, the fact that we can make a podcast like this and people are happy to tune in when it's completely different to our normal stuff, I'm saying a lot, right? - I mean, I remember when I stopped having to do like anime reviews

It was like a conscious choice. There was a point when I just, I kind of realized that anime reviews just didn't really have a future on YouTube. Like remember the back in the day where like anime content was just reviewing anime shows and you needed to give it a score or anything like that. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - Chris, you remember, right? You remember. - You remember. - I remember the gilgamesh.

- I loved it, Satoshi Kon one out of 10. - Yeah, but like it was really scary just to like have to like stop doing that 'cause when you do new content and all your audience is like, why aren't you doing this kind of old content anymore? You kind of like, you kind of just have to trust yourself that you know the best direction for your channel even if a lot of your audience is like, yo, I miss you for that old stuff. - I think I kind of got blessed in that aspect because I came into the YouTube world when the reviewing scene was slowly dying.

'Cause like when you were around back in like before 2010, that was anime content. Like all of anime content was like, if you're not making a review on a certain show, it's not anime content. - Again, this is what I said earlier, right? It's like people just don't think outside the box. They think what's in there and they think that's all I can do. - Because like I would watch those like kinds of reviews and I'm like, I could very much do that.

But I knew that like, I wasn't gonna be as good as like Gigguk or like some other like OGs in the community. So I'm like, okay, I've got to come in with like a different twist. And I think in terms of like my inspirations for like my early content, I definitely took inspiration from like just general vloggers like Ryan Higa or like, you know, Smosh back in the day where they would just like fucking turn on the camera and they would just talk about whatever the fuck was on their mind. And like-

I don't know, like, 'cause like my first video wasn't even an anime review, weirdly enough. It was just like, I was fucking complaining about the dub of Samurai Champloo. That was my fucking, that was my first review. It was like sub versus dub, which is better. So I really came out the gate with like the most controversial shit. - It's a good dub, what do you mean? - Yeah, yeah. - We're not getting into that. - But in that video, I trashed it.

'Cause I was like, nah, I didn't like dub whatsoever. But like, I think like- - Chris knows. - Yeah, he knows too. - But like bottom line is like, I would look at these anime reviews and I really enjoyed them because I was like, I would genuinely get like good recommendations. - Did you guys watch each other back then?

- 'Cause you'd have been going back at the same time. - Kind of. - Yes and no. - Yes and no. - They were like, "No, I don't watch." - Yeah, so, okay. This actually transitions nicely to the next question then. The next topic I think we can talk about, which is, so I took two years off YouTube, right?

- BBC, right? - Yeah, I worked at the BBC. Oh shit. - Wow, did this really? - You know your geeky, geeky more. - I read the Wikia page. - Oh, damn. - But you told me about Gantt. We talked about Gantt like years ago. - What did I say? - This fucking Gantt. But no, like, yeah, because I had the point when I needed to make the decision, okay, 'cause I did YouTube when I was 17 and then I did it throughout uni basically.

I graduated and I was like, okay, do I pursue this as a job or do I do a normal job and do a nine to five job? And I remember when I finished uni, like it was unheard of to basically make money off anime content. You know what I mean? Anime was like, I was at the top of basically like the AniTube sphere at that point. And I had like barely a hundred thousand subscribers. And like, I wasn't monetized.

- Really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - What year was this, 2007? - This was like 2011. - 2011. - Oh, 2011 time. - You weren't monetized. - No, because monetization back then was like a really- - MCN only, right? - Yeah, it was MCN, it was like a really new thing. And me being an AniTuber, like who the fuck gets monetized on YouTube for anime, right? So it was like,

I had basically no revenue streams that I could basically point to because I saw vloggers and other people making money, but I was like, I have nowhere near the numbers that are capable of generating income. So I made the conscious decision to just quit YouTube and do a full-time job. And in that time, Jerry rose up so quickly. - Bastard. - So quickly. - This man. - And I'm like,

Holy, what the fuck? He's getting over like 500K viewers? What, subscribers? What is this? What is this world? - It's his swanky hair. - It's like bird nest of a hair. That's what it is, yeah. - I know he's knew he'd promote protein. - He was made for it. He's got a face for protein, jelly. - I'm kidding. - Get old jelly. - Get old jelly.

And basically it was in that two years or like two and a half years that I was gone that I already saw an audience in the anime sphere that I'd never had seen before. And I was like, holy shit, maybe I could make something out of this. And I remember it was Sydney that actually convinced me to be like, go on, just shut up. You've been talking about this for too fucking long. Quit your job and just do YouTube. And I was like-

I'll give it a go, but- - You went from a good job at the BBC to doing anime. That's quite a big leap, right? Most people aren't in that position where they've done a good job and then they moved to anime. - I mean, did you enjoy your job at the BBC? - No. I was going to quit either way.

So the reasoning was I was like looking for a new job anyway. So I was like, this is the perfect chance to do something risky with my life. And basically because I had this thing on YouTube ages ago, like I didn't even know if anyone still watched me or whatever. So it was nerve wracking coming back to YouTube, right? 'Cause I went to the, you know, like I said, like the top of the AniTube game, which wasn't really that big looking back, but it was still like gone from that to almost completely irrelevant.

So I didn't know if anyone still remembered me or anything like that. Two years is a long fucking time in YouTube terms. And so it was so fucking nerve wracking having to choose to come back to YouTube. I remember the conversation with my parents when I said, I'm gonna quit the BBC and do YouTube to talk about anime. They were not happy. They were not happy at all.

- At all. They tried everything to convince me to like, "Okay, you wanna quit the BBC? "That's fine, we understand. "Just find another job, please." - That degree gone. - And basically the only way I was able to convince them was I had like,

I made the decision like half a year before. So I had saved up all this money in that time. I'd done nothing. Didn't really go out or do anything. I just put it onto my savings. I'm like, look, mom and dad, I've got all this money in my savings. Just let me do this for half a year. If it doesn't work out, I will quit YouTube straight away. - I remember the video when you came back, 'cause it was like pretty big news in the amateur world where it's like,

who's like super OG in the energy community, everybody knows who he is, even with the two year break. He's coming back, right? Like when that happened and your video where you were like, I'm gonna do YouTube for a year and if it doesn't work out during that time, I'm disappearing again.

- I remember you said that in your video. And people were like, well, we don't want him to disappear. So fuck it, let's give him this attention. And sure enough, there you are. Now you're number one. - That's a great me. - You're like my video, you're good. - I'm deleting all of them if you don't support me directly through a direct deposit to this account. - 'Cause like the biggest thing that allowed me to come back to YouTube was Patreon. Did you guys experience the same thing where when Patreon first launched, it was like, if you had a Patreon, you're like the devil.

Like I can't believe you are trying to make money off YouTube. - That's why it took me so long to launch a Patreon. - Yeah. - I was late to it as well. I had the idea in 2015, but I didn't do it till 2016. - Yeah. - And now it's become an accepted thing. And I, you know, I pay, Broad Japan pays a heavy debt to Patreon and the folks that support the channel. - Ah, same. - Yeah, yeah.

It's enabled me to not just think, I need to put out videos every day. I can actually think creatively still. I don't have to put Squarespace in every video or Audible. I can turn those down and focus on doing what I enjoy doing. And I think it's a great model. It is. Your own view is actually believing you and do something with it. Because like...

it would be impossible for so many people to do what they do, including me when I started without Patreon. And it just changed the game so much in terms of people who could do YouTube for a job, which leads me onto my next question is like, when did you guys realize or made the decision to be like, this is gonna be my job. This is gonna be my livelihood. - Well, for me,

When I was teaching English, I did YouTube as a side hobby, right? Right. And about the second year, I had about 20,000, 30,000 subscribers, which I was like, wow, that's a lot of people. But I said to myself, look, I'll consider doing it full time

if I hit 100,000 because I think from 100,000 you've got a strong support base there to actually build up from. And so that was the turning point for me, 100,000. But I didn't make much money from it and I had to take out a bank loan of like, I think it must have been like 10,000. I was like, this is it. It's like make or break. And I took that. And I

Yeah, so I had to pay that off. But that worked because I was able to create content that created ad revenue. From those videos, I built up more subscribers. From those subscribers, I was able to launch Patreon. You have to invest in the channel. So there was a strategy there underpinning it all. And that's how the channels worked, really. Did you get any pushback from any family or friends when they found out you're going to stay in Japan and keep doing YouTube? No. No? My family's been...

Pretty supportive. And also just, they just don't mind. They just still have been like, "You have to do this." You know, my British parents are kind of just like, "You don't have Asian parents." - Telling to an Asian parent after their son has just gone through four years of university to get a master's degree and then get a job at the BBC, that they're gonna quit that to talk about anime titties. - If you were my son, I would be angry. I'd be very angry.

- Like I remember my dad just telling me, I can't believe you're just like wasting four years of my life. - I can't believe you've done this. - I was, 'cause I was doing, that was my third year of uni and I fucking hated it. And I was really like- - I didn't enjoy uni either. - But it was because at that point I had really found like voiceover and I'd found a bit, I was dabbling in YouTube and I really felt like for the first time in my life, I found something that I enjoyed doing, right?

And I was terrified to tell my parents. I was like, oh my God, like, 'cause I was gonna do a master's in engineering. But I was like, all right, I'll just do the bachelor's in my head and I'll get out. But I was terrified to tell my parents 'cause you know, my brother, he absolutely killed it. He was the model son, right?

Did engineering, did aeronautical engineering, went into an amazing job and is doing great, right? Perfect British son, right? Did the track. And I was like, I kind of want to just fuck around in London and make videos, you know? Like do some commercials and stuff. And to their support, they were like, okay, we'll see. - I guess that's the pressure that comes with like not being the first born, right? - Yeah, true. I think my parents, they haven't said this, but they were like, if he fucks up, he'll deal with it.

We'll help him out, right? But if you know, we'll let him do it. We'll let him fuck around. He's 20, 21 I think. - I think my family didn't even believe I was moving to Japan. I was like, I'm gonna get you to Japan. Yeah, sure you are. And then like a week out, I was like, I'm off to Japan next week. Okay. I was like literally at Heathrow airport. I'm going to get the verge Atlantic flight now. They were like, yeah, sure you are. I'm in Japan though. Oh yeah.

- They just didn't believe what was happening. - They were like, "This is so weird, why is he moving to Japan?" - What do your parents say about that? - They're just like, "Oh, all right, well, good luck with that." - How old were you when you moved to Japan? - I was 22. - Ah, okay. - Just after university. - You were the same age as me then. - Same age, yeah. - And they were just like, "All right, nice." - "Have a good one, son." - "Have a nice fight." - "I'll be at the pub when you're back."

- What about you, Joey? 'Cause I mean, you were doing YouTube videos throughout university as well. - I mean, I started in my first year of uni and then thank God in my third year of uni, I went from like 50K to like half a mil. - Oh, so you can use it. - That was like, fuck you money to like- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - My God, that must've been the best uni experience I could ever think of. - I remember getting like 400 pounds of ad rev and I was like, yeah guys.

I'm gonna buy this round. - That's like 12 instant ramen. - No, it was like, 'cause you know, it's like one pound shots, right? You're like, five shots, boys, I got this. I got this. Everyone was like, really? 'Cause in uni, it's like 30 quid for an hour. I was like, yeah, that's a price, isn't it? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- My loan's not gonna pay for this. Where the fuck are you getting your money from? - I mean, at least for me, it wasn't so much like the aspect of like, oh, do you have enough money? Where it's more like, because I have family here and I've spent like literally half my life here. My parents knew just from how much I loved and respected Japanese culture and the language that I was going to move here eventually. And I was like, if YouTube knew

never like went off for me. I was gonna move here and do some fun kind of fucking IT job here. Because I even interned at an IT job here when I had like 30,000 subs or something. So like, and during that intern as well, every day I would like just be like, "Oh, do you wanna go out for a drink intern?" And I'm like, "No, thanks. I gotta record a YouTube video."

And I would do that. Like I would go back to my cousin's place. I was staying at my cousin's place at the time and I would fucking come back and fucking record a YouTube video because I knew that like, if I kept going with this shit, it was eventually gonna lead somewhere. And thank God it did. So by the time I graduated uni, my parents knew, like it wasn't a secret to my parents that I wasn't doing YouTube. And they were like, you know,

silently following me on my whole YouTube thing. So they saw like how much I blew up in my last year of uni. Where, when I said to them, "Hey, I'm thinking to move to Japan to be a YouTuber." My parents are just like,

Yeah, I mean, it seems like you're making enough money. You're fucking going for it. And like, I made a promise to my mom. She's like, because typical Asian parents, she's like, okay, I see you're being super successful and you're probably making more money than most uni graduates right now. I'll make you a deal. If you're able to continue this by the time you're 24 years old,

then I'll let you do it for the foreseeable future. - I'll let you do it. - Yeah, I'll just drag you home. - But if not, you have to go and get a real job at the age of 24. And I'm almost 26 now, still doing it baby. - Because the biggest thing I had to like explain to my parents, one of the biggest thing my parents were worried about was like the concept of being a YouTuber as a career, right? As opposed to be like, okay, you're making money, you know, you can keep doing it. But like when I quit my job, I was like,

How old was I? Fuck, I was like 25-ish, 20. I can't remember exactly when I came back. I'm sure someone in the YouTube comments will know, but it was like, you know, I was in like mid, my mid twenties and like the concept of quitting my career job to do a YouTube thing, even if I was making money was just so alien. - Absolutely.

Even to me, like I didn't even know if YouTube could be a career that I could do for years down the line. Like has that been ever like a worry for you guys? Like how long you can basically do this for? - I've always thought to myself because it's really hard with YouTube, right? Because as of right now, there is no,

of someone being able to do this for like 50 years. It's not like every other entertainment industry, like the movie industry or the music industry where there are examples of people who have been able to do it their entire career from like their twenties to their seventies. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Because YouTube is like, what? Not even 15 years old at this point. We don't know if it's gonna be the next TV or if it's just a fad.

- Yeah. - Right? - Get ready for TikTok. - Yeah, right? - We're last year's news. - You never know, honestly. So like, that's what's like the scariest thing about it. And I think that's why I've slowly come to the realization that like, I can't put all my eggs into the YouTube basket because you really don't know if it's one day it's just gonna fucking disappear. - Yeah. - Right?

- Do you have a plan or anything? If YouTube fell through, do you have like a backup for what you might do? - I mean, I guess for you it'd be the film industry, right? - Right. - That'll teach English again. - Back to teaching Japanese students how to pronounce the word salmon. Salmon, children, salmon, repeat after me, salmon. - How to say pen without pronouncing the P. - This is a pen.

no no no teaching a high school achiever that's my backup plan no my backup plan yeah it's just like i haven't thought about it i believe that it'll be all right yeah yes i think youtube will be okay youtube we've talked about the turmoil of youtube how dodgy it is but at the end of the day youtube is fairly stable and it is fairly okay yeah it's more sustainable than i think youtubers like to make out it is it is yeah we like to play devil's advocate definitely and i've got a

podcast I do as well occasionally I do sponsor stuff got patrons so I have lots of different avenues yeah if YouTube falls then hopefully I can bounce back somehow yeah make my transition to the film industry but that's why I do have my eye always on the future yeah the film moving to TV doing something like that yeah it's a backup but at the end of the day really YouTube will always be

for the foreseeable future, hopefully 10 years, that's my main bread and butter. That's what I do. That's what I enjoy doing. - The way I see it as well is like, you know, it's not often you get an opportunity like this in like your life. - No, yeah, yeah. - Even if it did fall through, so fucking what? I had a good time. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Even if you were like a millionaire, if you were worth $500 million, Connor, you'd probably still do what you do now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's what I love to do. - You don't do it for the money. You do it because you actually enjoy commentating, you enjoy the creativity, you enjoy the fun.

And I'm sure that's the same to you guys, right? - Yeah. - I love the creative aspects for it. Like I went through four years of engineering to realize I don't wanna do engineering. You know what I mean? - I feel like that's engineering in a nutshell. I did engineering as well. You do three years of engineering to realize, I don't think I like engineering like I do. I remember I was, distinctly I remember this. I was in my dissertation, my final dissertation and I did some electrical engineering for it. And I was like,

"I think I like electrical engineering more than what I do." And I was like, "Fuck." It was like kind of like, "Shit, I've been doing mechanical for three years." - Did you have a diploma or? - Did I have a diploma? - Or diploma. - Diploma. - Diploma. - Or did a certificate from high school. - Or did a diploma or like a bachelor or something like. - Special boy studies. No, I did business and English linguistics. - Oh, okay. - And you did a bachelor's for that? - Yes. - Oh, wow. - Did a bachelor's three years.

Yeah. Straight to Japan. Okay. Yeah. I feel like that is litmus test, right? If you had like a billion dollars, right? Yeah. You'd still probably want to do what you do now, right? Oh yeah. Definitely live in Japan, experience the country, entertain people. And that is the main thing, right? Yeah. That's the main test. If you enjoy it or not. I've, I've always wanted to, and I think the other boys can detest this, but like, I've always wanted to ask you, and I'm pretty sure I've asked you personally about, uh,

- How you got to do your TED talk? - Oh, I completely forgot about that. - I fucking love TED talk as a meme. It's like, welcome to my TED talk, right? Like I love that. So yeah, we really wanted to know, we talked about this. We wanna know how you got that, how that opportunity came up and like just walk through the whole process. - I don't remember. Someone said, "I don't remember."

Do you want to do a TED talk about being a YouTuber in North Japan and talking about what it's like? Is that Tohoku University? Yeah, it's Tohoku University. Oh, damn. Tohoku University, which is one of the top three universities in Japan. Wow. And they were like, do you want to do a TED talk on how YouTube can be used as a way of encouraging people to come to Tohoku? And I was like, yeah, all right.

But I'm quite nervous at public speaking, 'cause it's quite scary going through you doing this, where it's three, four drunkards in a room just chatting in front of a Canon EOS R camera. Just standing in front of 2000 people going, "Excellent, brilliant, wonderful." Just like talking, trying to be bold and brilliant. It's a whole different ball game. - Inspiring. - No, it absolutely is, because there's no feedback. You're just talking to a camera. - I fucking love making a fool of myself in front of people.

I don't know why. - Get yourself on TED. - I think I'm too British. - Get yourself doing a TED talk. - Yeah, I wanna do a TED talk. - I've unironically said, I would love to do a TED talk. - What about? - About any- - Dr. Jelly. - Dude, honestly, if someone was like, "Can you do a TED talk about white animes?" Or something, I'd be like, "Fuck yeah, I'll do a TED talk about that." - Exactly, and it's gotta be something you're passionate about. And then you must be talking about how YouTube is a great tool for promoting North Japan. I had lots to say on the subject, given that I'd done it for five years of that. - I mean, I saw the video and you seemed quite natural.

I was the last fucking speaker of the day and I was like as I said I'm nervous doing public speaking and this is the biggest speech I've ever done in front of a crowd 2,000 people or something and everyone's talking and I'm the last one I'm just sitting there like

Just shaking And then you go up And you're like I need to act cool And I'm like Yes And there's like a timer Before you Oh is there really It counts as a fucking timer Oh god I'm like 15 minutes go 14 14.59 14.58 14.57 You're like Uh YouTube YouTube's good isn't it And people love YouTube And like Was there a part of you Where you're like Shit I've timed this To one minute And I've

I went 10 seconds over. Oh my God, I've got to speed the rest up. I remember watching loads. I remember I watched Ken Robinson, which is a really good TED talk. Ken Robinson, he talked about how schools kill creativity. It's one of the best speeches on TED and one of the biggest, most viewed. It's a great speech. And I just thought, I'll just do that. So I watched Ken Robinson's speech like 20 times. I was like, I'll just walk like him across stage and I'll deliver lines like this in intonation. And I just, I remember I commented like,

Mimicking is intonation. I'm just going to be like Ken Robinson. And it worked. Did you do like a lot of prep? I scripted the speech and then in my apartment the day before, I literally just did it ten times in a row. Ten times go and I just did it once and I did it twice. Like a tally chart and I was like five times cross. Six times. And that's all there is to it. And it wasn't too bad because obviously you can just wing it in English. Right.

- Right, right. - I did a Japanese speech contest once and in that-- - I would've asked you once. - Oh yeah. - That was extremely difficult. - Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause it was in Japanese and you're not allowed to deviate from your own script 'cause the judges have your-- - They have the script. - Script in front of you if you like go off on a tangent. - Oh God. - Nope, it's shit 'cause you went off on a tangent. - That sounds so Japanese. - So you have to go word by word perfect. And so I'd done that and that was obscenely complicated. - What was the process of that? Like how did you get into that and then why? - I had to focus on like one paragraph a day.

How long was it? It was a 15 minute speech delivered entirely in Japanese. I wrote it in English, translated it and perfected it and then I just broke it down into paragraphs. I used...

a memorization technique to get through it. - At that point, how good was your Japanese speaking? - Oh, I guess. - Conversational less than conversation. - I was conversational. I've been learning Japanese two years by that point. And the year before I'd done another speech contest and I just forgot it. I got like three, two paragraphs and I was just like, "Saw this there." And they're like, "Oh fuck, I've forgotten it." Everyone was like,

And I just bombed So I had to read it off a sheet And it was really awkward And I was like I've got to learn from that experience Next year I'm going to have this Fucking speech contest I'm going to do it And it worked You know I went all out But so doing that Really prepared me for the TED talk And after that TED talk I was like okay I don't feel that nervous About public speaking anymore Would you do another TED talk If you got the offer? Sorry? Would you do another TED talk? Eh probably I don't know what I talk about

about how awesome Japan is. - The value of strong zero. - Why the West needs strong zero. - Why the West needs strong zero as a beverage. - No, 'cause that sounds like my worst nightmare. I hate public speaking and I've only gotten better about it because I've done panels and it's like a fight or flight kind of situation, right? - But once you've done it a few times, you do learn to enjoy it. - Yeah. - I mean, we just dragged him out recently to do a video shooting in public.

which he'd never done before. - That was hell for me. - It's not out yet. It's actually gonna be out like this weekend. - It's out by the time of this recording. - Basically we went around Akihabara and buying as much stuff as we could for 500 bucks. - Yeah, yeah, this is all the stuff. - We had a bunch of challenges and he'd never done any video or anything like that before. And it was really fun seeing him suffer slightly. - Did you get like spotted in public while you were filming?

- I mean, we got permission to film where we did, but there were still like people there. But I think the biggest thing for me is that I'm just like, my videos are scripted. They're like perfectly planned, perfectly like, I know everything that's gonna- - Yeah, same as me. - Yeah, so like when you just stick a camera in front of me and just expect me to just talk, and like the podcast is different

'cause I got you guys, it's like a conversation. But like, I need that conversation. I need that bounce back. Because if it's just a camera and I'm like, I kind of speak and I almost like instinctively wait for a response. And then I realized that no response is coming so I start panicking. So I'm like, oh, oh shit, did I make the point I wanted to make? And it's like,

The first time I tried filming the intro for this video, I was just like panicking. - People are looking at you. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wasn't used to it. But no, 'cause I remember my first panel and I was equally as nervous for my very first panel. And it was like back then it was only like in front of like 50 people or something. - Have you been to an anime convention? - I haven't, I got invited to a few, but I felt like I was misplaced 'cause I-

- I think you could. - If it's about Satoshi Kon, we're in. - I feel like you'd be good on the panel. - If it's about Japan stuff, yeah, maybe. - I mean, if you're talking about something you know about and you're passionate about, it's easy. Because my experience with public speaking had come from school.

- Oh God, what an awful worst place. - My God, like doing presentations in university, that's actually worth something for your final grade. It's just like fucking awful. - I gave the fucking worst speech for my dissertation. My dissertation had failed completely. I had built these renewable energy devices that just did not fucking work. And they were so poorly made.

And I had to like, it's like selling a product that you know doesn't work to someone. And I remember sitting there and I knew within like two minutes of this like 10 minute speech that my professors, they knew it was fucking shit. And I had to keep selling it like, but it's very renewable you see. And when the water comes up,

- The magnet will power the, I'll literally explain like basic like physics to them and it should have been like way more in depth and somehow they gave me a good grade. I think 'cause I was hopefully at least somewhat charming. - Because it was very renewable. - I think I was like, I was just like playing it off and I'm like, well, I guess it just, I remember I was like, it should work, but it just doesn't.

because I didn't make it right. And then they started laughing and I'm like, all right, well. - And the joke's in. - I genuinely think the joke saved me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - 'Cause they were like, all right, it wasn't fucking awful. - 'Cause like, I remember like, okay, here's the thing.

- I remember back in my university days, I had kept the fact that I was a YouTuber or did YouTube videos completely secret. - Oh yeah, same. - How? 'Cause my roommates found out immediately when they heard me fucking making anime screaming noises in my room. - No, no, no, 'cause like anytime I would record, my housemates would be like, "Oh, were you practicing for a presentation?" And I was like,

- Yeah, I was practicing for a presentation. They believe that, they believe that. - Dude, I remember doing like moaning for like a character or something. And I came out of my room and they were all just outside looking at me. And I was like, "Hello, I'm going to go get a glass of water." - See, 'cause when I was at uni, I was like attending uni from home, like from my parents' place. So like I had the privacy. - Really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had to travel like two hours one way to like go to uni every day and then two hours to come back.

And so like, I was like, the only people who heard me was my sister and my parents. And I wasn't like doing weird like- - I wasn't doing like weird moaning shit, right? So I was like- - That's all you, man. That's all you. - I'm still stuck true to myself. - I was unlucky 'cause obviously I was a teacher. And in my second year, my channel really took off for my, I don't know how my students found out about me, but they did.

And so every time I went from being Chris sensei to YouTuber, and I'd walk out the corridor and be like, "Hey, YouTuber." And I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, again." That's kind of awkward and weird. - You should have corrected them being like, "It's abroad in Japan."

- It's not just a YouTube channel. - It's quite an awkward situation. - Yeah. - To have 1200 students shout at you. - But isn't it so strange now how we've gone from that to like, at least in Japan, all these young kids wanting to become YouTubers. - Yeah, yeah. - If you ask kids nowadays, they tend to say they wanna be YouTubers. - Yeah. - They used to be rock stars, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like sports stars or something like that. - And I'm like, why?

- I mean, I get it, but at the same time, it's very stressful at times. - I feel like if you're not mentally strong enough, it can really break you. - No, but for me, compared to getting 100K, getting a million just for some reason didn't feel as good. - Definitely not. - It just felt like it ticked over. It's like when your car hit 100,000 miles, like,

And it's just like, I feel like mental health and just taking care of your mental health is like such an important thing to think about when you're becoming a YouTuber. Nobody really thinks about that when they say, oh yeah, I want to be a YouTuber. You've certainly got to grow a thick skin. I mean, I do read most of my comments on my videos. I feel like when I make a video, it's like hosting a party and you want to be there for the party. You don't want to just make a video and then fuck off. You want to actually be there for the house party, mingle with the guests.

And then go to sleep At 4am And I Love that And I love that But if you do read the comments They'll always be the ones That are like Oh you're fat now Your comments are fucking brutal Someone called and said You look like a retarded Elon Musk Ha ha ha

- Those are funny though. It's the ones where they do like just the littlest jab that really gets you. Where they might've said something about that one thing in the video you were insecure about and it just ruins you. You're like, fuck, my whole day is ruined 'cause of that one comment. You just hit the right thing and didn't want them to do it to you. - I mean, I got my fair share of that when I was on your journey across Japan. - Well, I think you always get it when,

As a new person on the channel, like a few guests got that. It wasn't just you on Journey Across Japan, Joey. Like my good friend Pete, who I do the podcast with, he got that as well. Because he was a new guest and he was very different. Right.

And you're always gonna get that, I think. - I mean, how do you guys deal with hate comments or like- - I don't. - I feel like as a YouTuber, what a normal person would consider hate and what a YouTuber would consider, you have to really push that goal to like further. 'Cause if you consider even the slightest thing hate, you're gonna- - Right, that's the thing, right? It's like, it depends on what they say, right? If it's something like very like opinionated, like I just don't like,

"so and so because I just don't." And it's like, you can't really do anything about it because that's just their opinion. But when it's like really persistent and really petty, that's when you're like, "Okay, what's your issue?" - I find some of those funny. Like I said earlier, the ones where they just find out

one thing you're worried about. - That specific thing. - You somehow find it. - They know what you're insecure about. There's that one thing. Like you can have like the worst hate comment in the world. And it's like sometimes like a one sentence comment just like bothers you for the entire day. - I've had comments like, "You're an asshole." I'm like, "That's funny."

- But then they'll just like, I can't remember what it was. I read one recently. I was like, fuck you, you got me bitch. I hate you so much. - So what are you my therapist? - Yeah, like that, right? They just hit you in like where you were insecure about it and you're like, God damn it, like they got it. But you just kind of learn like, all right, that sucks, but I've got to deal with it, right? If I let it affect the videos, then, you know,

yeah i mean that's what i'm doing right i feel like the the craze that phase is over but hate mail reading comment you know reading those videos yeah that was really fun i feel like you can't really do it anymore i feel like it happened like three years ago it was really popular like 2000 it was yeah yeah i did i did one like three years ago i've done three videos and wrote that wave and viewers always loved it because the comments i used to get which ridiculous like i hate british men that speaks with the mouth like pitbull was one of

- That was so good. - Some hate comments are just like so brilliant, you want to put on a t-shirt. - Yeah, yeah, I know, right? - That's when you pin the good comments. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's such a good insult, you're like, "I'm a pin there, I'm a pin." - I used to hate when they called me a faggot. I hate the word faggot. - What do they call these? - You are a fucking faggot. And 'cause in the UK we have faggots, which are like meatballs, right? - Yeah, yeah. - I'm not a meatball.

- Oh right, yeah, North America. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - That word always showed me up the wall. - But yeah. - Yeah, because I feel like- - You adapt, right? You adapt, you learn. - You have to. - I mean, it kind of sucks, right? 'Cause like, as...

- Like anyone, like any influence, I gotta hate using that word. - Dirty word. - Words I don't wanna be associated with me, but still is associated with me. - It's my second least favorite word next to content creator. - But like a lot of questions I get from like other smaller creators, like how would you deal with hate comments? How did you not let that affect you? And I think it fucking sucks that all you can say is you get used to it.

And that's not a solution. That's a fucking coping mechanism. - It's sad that it's a part of the job. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Do you remember when you started uploading first and you got that first dislike and you were like, who fucking did this? Who disliked this? How? And then now you just accept that for some reason you'll have a thousand and you're not really sure why you have a thousand, but you're like, that's normal. I expect a thousand. And then when you don't get a thousand. - But when you think about it, like when you think about a thousand people surrounding you who just fucking

- Yeah, it's just like, oh, okay. - It's weird, but I remember there would be like, I had a friend who, when they started out, they had like a mental breakdown when they got a dislike. They were like, who disliked it? No one in the comments said they disliked it. Who did this? Why did they do it? And it's like, you just gotta deal with it. You just gotta get over it, I'm sorry. Man.

No, because like, I remember one of the hardest lessons I had to learn was just learning that you can't please everyone. And especially like, I remember a point when it seemed like everyone was positive about what you were doing, you know?

- That's how it is. - Yeah, yeah. And then you reach this point when people just start hating you, like as a person or like they personally dislike your personality or something about you. And you're like, I don't know why you dislike me. I've never met you. I've never seen you, but you seem to dislike me. And I'm just like having to learn that there are just gonna be people that dislike you is like one of the hardest things I've had to learn. - It's still a thing I think I still like have to like come to terms with.

Some people are just gonna dislike you. And it sucks that you have to accept that. - I feel especially when, again, because the large majority of YouTube is American. And I don't wanna say Americans don't get sarcasm, but a lot of them don't. And unfortunately all four of us are very well versed in sarcasm. - When you do any form of jokes, it could fall flat. And to that person, you're constantly- - The thing that annoys me is when people get angry about me swearing.

- Oh yeah! - That's really common. I get people like, "Stop, you're ruining Japanese culture by swearing." I'm like, "Yes, me speaking words is ruining an entire culture. It's back three, 4,000 years." Words can bring down a culture. That is hypocrisy. That is fucking stupidity. - I mean, swearing in the UK is so ingrained in culture. - It is, yeah. - And in Australia it's much worse. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, there are many- - I used to see it.

- In my early videos, every video I said cunt like two or three times at least. And there would always be that one comment which is like, I don't like it when you use the C word. I'm like, get used to it cunt. - I get it 'cause have you heard Americans say the word cunt? It's like, with your mates in England or Australia, you say it all the fucking time. Like, all right cunt, how are you doing? But when you say an American, when you hear an American say, you're like,

- R, like wash your fucking mouth, please. - It's so elongated in American. - It's the hard C. - It's the hard R as well. 'Cause the way we tap the R in like British, but in American, the R is a full sound. So the R, no R in it, what the fuck am I saying? - There's no R in the word confine. - I was like, wait a minute. - I was thinking about a different thing.

I've lost my mind. I don't know what I'm going on about. Just take over. - No, but like, yeah, I definitely, like I still get comments which are like, I don't like it with you swearing because my kids are into anime and I don't want my kids to be affected by your dirty, dirty language. - Look at the anime titties all the time. What do you mean? - Yeah, right. And it's like,

- Like, let me do what I want dude. Like, I'm sorry that your kids, you know, don't like when I say fuck or cunt, but like, I'm sorry, that's just me. - 'Cause like to me as a Brit, like the word fuck is just like a filler word sometimes. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you're just thinking, you're like, what was I fucking saying? - Fucking in British and Australian language is like the equivalent to like the word really.

Where it's like, it's not really hard, it's fucking hard. - Yeah, exactly. - It's just like, the situation. - It can be anything, right? - Yeah. - We obviously weren't brought up in a Christian household. - My parents hated me swearing, but that's another story for another time. - Oh, no, my dad's swearing like a sailor. - I mean, he's Australian, doesn't matter. - Yeah, he didn't fucking care. - That's like normal, right? - Yeah. - Man, well, I mean, we got anything else to talk about? I guess not, right? - I know, I guess that's, I think that's everything I had in mind. - Do you wanna shout anything out, Chris?

- Newest TV video, right? - Yeah, watch "A Broadened Japan." - Check out Chris's channel with the link below. - When is this coming out? - Early July. - Early July. Well, the video I've talked about now has come out already, so you should check it out on the "A Broadened Japan" channel. - All right, well, we'll link it in the description. - Thank you for coming on, Chris. - It's been a lot of fun. I've not been in a room with two other British guys in about eight years. - Really? - In Japan, anyway. And an Australian person, it's just a bonus, isn't it?

It's been a train wreck. An exciting transcendent experience to come to the anime church. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, guys. Actually, before we end it, we're going to make it a tradition that every guest has to sign.

- Oh, wow. - So we've like prepared like a- - Wow, it's the Japan style thing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Every bar or restaurant in Japan, they have these and they've got like celebrities that no one's ever heard of. - We would be honored to have you sign it. - I mean, we have like this blank wall at the back. - Yeah, yeah. - So I'm thinking, why not with every single guest that comes onto the show, we get them to sign this and so that- - Do I have to write a special message or? - If you want to. - Sure, whatever you like.

- In the meantime, thank you to our wonderful patrons for supporting this episode. Names are on screens right now. - If you'd like to support the show and help us bring in more guests like Chris or other people, then yeah, your support on Patreon is greatly appreciated. - Yes, and if you enjoyed having Chris on and you enjoyed having guests on, leave a comment as well, because this is new for us as well. This Chris is finally our first guest. You guys have been talking about this empty microphone since the first episode, I think.

- What did you write? - He said, "I love you guys, especially Jelly." This tiny signature at the bottom. Jesus Christ. Well, that's going on the wall. - God bless Jelly. - God bless Jelly. - And here he is. Oh, it's gone.

- I know we're supposed to end there, but can I just quickly talk about how the first time I had to like, when someone asks you to sign something as a YouTuber and like you realize you don't have a signature as a YouTuber. - I have a doctor signature.

- My signature that I use now was the first time I ever signed something and I was like, "Yeah, fuck it, I'll go with that." And I've gone with that for like the past four years. - My signature as Gigguk looks better than my actual signature. Like my actual real name signature is like fucking squiggles. But there was this one time when like someone asked me to sign something at a panel and I just signed it and he was like,

can you kind of sign it again? I can't really read this. And I was like, oh, oh. - I mean, look at the broad. I can make out the C, but it was the pen's fault, not me. - Yeah. - What is that supposed to be? Is a C and a- - I'm not explaining. - Amazing job, thank you. - Thank you very much, Chris. - Jelly.

So yes, we hope you enjoyed this episode of Trash Taste. I've been Gigguk and here with me has been my co-host, the hentai man, C-Dog and Chris. And we will see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.