YouTubers in Japan you watch?

Hi all,

Before I went to Japan, when I was a teenager I used to watch you tubers based in Japan such as Tokyo Cooney, Tkyo Sam, Unrested etc sharing videos on Japanese culture and travel.

I stopped watching ages ago because some of them got involved with drama and some left YouTube and Japan.

Does anyone here watch Japan based You tubers? Any recommendations?

Here is Onoda-san, a YouTuber who travels the world and documents his trips. The following is his trip to Lukla Airport in Nepal (the most dangerous airport in the world).

ネパール航空（関西空港⇒カトマンズ）搭乗レビュー!!2019年8月新規路線!!Nepal Airlines

ネパール・カトマンズ空港近くの激安宿(1泊800円)に宿泊#OYO

【ネパール】世界一危険なテンジン・ヒラリー空港へ！（カトマンズ⇒ルクラ）

世界一危険なテンジン・ヒラリー空港に"アレ"で向かいます。
***** This is the best one to watch. ***** His scary flight in a helicopter starts at 20:23.

世界一危険なテンジン・ヒラリー空港の飛行機!!復路リベンジ【ネパール】

【機内撮影動画】世界一危険なテンジン・ヒラリー空港から飛んでみた / Take off from Lukla's Tenzing Hillary Airport

ネパール航空（カトマンズ⇒関空）で帰国。エコノミー4列独占でビジネスクラス以上に快適

Since we are on the topic of Japan on YouTube, I couldn't resist posting a version of the song Sakura played on the koto. There are several arrangements of Sakura on YouTube, but this my favorite.

Sakura Sakura

I've seen a handful of foreign residents making Youtube channels that seem to appeal to people abroad, and there are also some Japanese YouTubers catering to the domestic crowd. Personally, I find the ones about food, language, culture and scenery that make me want to go back the most fun to watch, but I don't get to watch a whole lot of Japan-centric stuff these days. Here are a few I've come across:

Yukiko the Witch: This is a friend of mine who created a youtube channel about food recently. Her use of on-screen subtitles and visual aids is actually kind of helpful for me to learn more about talking about food and cooking in Japanese.


Rindo: This guy just rides bikes mostly, and his channel is relatively new. It makes me miss my touring days, and the footage is beautiful. I think I found this through a bike touring in Japan FB group


Dogen: This guy is quite funny, and cuts together very well-timed comedic takes on the Japanese language mostly. His Japanese is pretty fly for a white guy, but he is sufficiently self-deprecating about his ability.

Abroad in Japan: This British guy caught my eye by doing some bike touring across Japan. Reminds me of some of my British friends, so although I don't agree with him on everything, there's something oddly comforting in his narration and sense of humour.


PDRさん: Honestly, I just found this one today in researching this post. He's a British-Japanese guy who is bilingual and about 5 years ago put together some funny videos about being biracial in Japan. Just a young guy making movies in his room, his more recent uploads are mostly talking straight into the camera doing commentary.


Nobita from Japan: Another one I just found today, but after watching a couple of his videos I appreciate that he goes out and talks to people about more difficult topics, and mixes the languages. Easy to watch and informative, I like his content and his calm delivery, especially compared to more the more frantic pace and aggressive editing style of PDR or The Anime Man.

The Black Experience Japan: A very interesting view into, well, the channel title is self-explanatory. Lots of content and talks about experiences in other asian countries as well. Very much worth a watch to help expand my worldview.

To a somewhat related degree, there's a Vice video about Ike Nwala, a black comedian in Japan. I enjoy the bilingual interview, and the view into a talent's life.

Another decent interview with Anthony, an American-Japanese comedian.


Asian Boss: This channel covers all of Asia, but has a fair amount of interesting videos on various topics for Japan. Up until more recently, seems like it was mostly just interviewing random people on the street about a particular topic, trending towards more human interest pieces

Mr. Yabatan: Pretty straightforward, comedy channel of foreign accents in Japanese.

I enjoyed this collab with Dogen


Ryan Celsius: This is one of those lofi hip hop channels, and not sure if he's based there, but he has a TRAPPIN IN JAPAN playlist that uses various footage from Japan and sometimes just looking out a bus window, which is strangely nostalgic for me.


Rachel and Jun: This is an international couple that documents their life. Run by the wife, as the channel name is MyHusbandisJapanese. The content is light and fun, but they don't seem to do much research into their topics, just share their thoughts and observations without putting in much extra effort. Their content has dropped off and they don't post often anymore.


Jun's kitchen: Jun from Rachel and Jun is a chef and does his own cooking channel. He is much more thoughtful and polished in his own content, and there are cats, so 5 stars.


Okilife: I met these guys when I was visiting with Josh Simmers of the Okinawa Karate Podcast. Lots of diving and Okinawa promotional content, beautiful stuff.


Okinawa Karate Podcast: This is a little more specific to a subculture of my own interest, but good stuff.
And here's Josh interviewing Jesse Enkamp (AKA the Karate Nerd)


Refinery29: This isn't really a Japanese channel, but they've put out a couple videos about some Japanese subcultures, namely Yami Kawaii and Chicano homage culture.

There was a very good New York Times video on this last topic, and how lowrider cars became a vector for the cultural infusion.

I did a little search and found these lists. Some of the channels I mentioned are here:

Oh yeah I forgot about That Japanese Man Yuta

@nice gaijin
Wow nice list you made there, I got enough to watch while switching from Netflix to YouTube now!

I like this guy as he made tons of videos about various topics.
Paolo FromTokyo

I really like Paolo's videos too. I always watch a new video of his whenever it comes out. (When Paolo puts out a new video, it gets 20,000 views within 24 hours!)

Another channel I really like is Life Where I'm From (although these videos do not come out too often.) The following video about owning a ramen shop is a true classic.

There were some that I used to follow but most are gone now. On occasion I still watch videos from Kyde and Eric ( Kyde and Eric ), Rachel and Jun ( Rachel and Jun ), and more recently Tokyo Llama ( Tokyo Llama ).

Some people who left but there are still lots of videos:

Texan in Tokyo ( Texan in Tokyo )
Hannah in Japana ( HannahInJapana )
The Japan Guy ( TheJapanGuy ) - Actually seems like he has, kind of, come back

One video I absolutely recommend is the one on school lunches in Japan. Note the use of face masks before the Corona virus. (This video is from 2015. The star of the video, Yui-chan, must now be in the tenth grade.)

@nice gaijin Great post, thank you for the recommendations. The quality of content has definitely improved and the YouTubers themselves seem really nice people.

@Petaris Some YouTubers I used to watch are still active such as BusanKevin, Tkyo Sam and Hikosaemon but looking at their channels now, their viewers have really gone down.