Earthquake Ruins Natsuki's Day | Trip to Japanese Alps

Hey guys,

I hope you’ve all had a great week so far.

SO you might have heard that this week we had a bit of an earthquake over here, in the form of a magnitude 6 quake in the Kansai region - the largest to this Osaka since the 1995 earthquake that killed 6,000 people.

Fortunately, Japan is much more adept at dealing with earthquakes these days, and four people lost their lives with a few hundred injured this time around.

I certainly felt it - at the time I was asleep in Takayama, Gifu, a town nestled in the Japanese Alps, and around 8am I woke up in the final moments of the earthquake, a bit disorientated and annoyed at having my sleep ruined (an annoying trait shared between Earthquakes and North Korean Missiles is they have a habit of ruining my sleep).

One person who was affected by it was Natsuki, who was coming to Gifu to film the video a day later than myself and the cameraman.

He got up at 6am to fly from Yamagata to Tokyo, then headed to Shinagawa station to ride the bullet train from Tokyo to Nagoya, where he planned to meet his brother and catch the local train on to Gifu.

However, unfortunately for Natsuki, all the trains were delayed due to the earthquake (the train lines need to be meticulously checked over after major earthquakes), and so for 5 hours he stood in a crowd of people at Shinagawa station gradually losing his temper.

He did eventually make it to Gifu - 7 hours late - shattered and distraught. But after he’d been refuelled with no less than two Asahi Beers, Natsuki transformed into his usual charismatic self (he's essentially Popeye - except with alcohol instead of spinach).

Sadly, it meant his brother didn't join us, and thus my five year wait to finally meet his sibling, was postponed once more.

But filming went well. The two videos we made in Takayama were both related to Pachinko. For those of you that haven’t heard of Japan’s most popular game, it’s somewhere between Pinball, an arcade game, and a chaotic nightmare. Played by 1 in 10 people in Japan, in a market valued at $200bn, it’s more or less Japan’s answer to gambling.
 

I’d always wanted to make a video on it, but given that Pachinko parlours are more or less casinos, they’re not overly happy with photography or film inside. Luckily, the place in Takayama let us film inside in return for being in the video, so it was a good win-win, and I’m looking forward to editing the colourful, chaotic nightmare we captured.

When we arrived back in Tokyo the next day, we also filmed two videos for Tokyo Creative, one reviewing the new Coca Clear drink, that’s taken social media by storm. The other, was Natsuki giving chat-up advice (and incredibly questionable advice it is).

If you have any earthquake related questions or about anything I mentioned above, feel free to ask away below, but for now guys, enjoy your Friday!

- Chris

P.S. "10 Things I Learned Making Natsuki: the Movie" is out this weekend on Patreon!