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Japan Times
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
The Hitobito's Megan and Ben uncover the real Japan, one video at a time
Before she ever set foot in Japan, Megan spent countless hours there — virtually. Growing up in Kansas in the early 2010s, she devoured YouTube videos by a wave of early J-vloggers such as Sharla in Japan, Kim Dao and Taylor R. 'If I saw 'Japan' in the title, I'm pretty sure I watched it,' she recalls. 'The shopping at the grocery store, doing taxes — if it was about Japan, I was in.' Now 27, Megan has become one of those creators herself — part of a new generation of content makers capturing everyday life in Japan for a global audience via her YouTube channel, The Hitobito. Alongside her partner, Ben, 25, the couple began posting videos from Awaji Island while working as English teachers through the JET Programme. What started as casual updates for friends and family quickly went viral on TikTok. Their everyday adventures snowballing into something bigger, with short-form uploads attracting thousands — and eventually millions — of views. 'We had set this goal of getting 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2024 and getting our YouTube Silver Play Button plaque ... but by September of that year we had boomed to 1.5 million or something ridiculous,' says Megan, who along with Ben asked that their full names not be published due to privacy concerns. 'We got our plaque and it was like, now what?' From fans to creators 'J-vlogging' took off in the 2010s, drawing in tourists and overseas fans like Megan who wanted a window into everyday life in Japan. It offered a first-person alternative to traditional news — grocery runs, paying bills, attending festivals — the moments that rarely make headlines. The format surged again during the COVID-19 pandemic, when homebound viewers turned to YouTube to satisfy their wanderlust. While the duo post longer YouTube videos ranging from the personal to the newsy, it's their short-form content that drives views. Their most-viewed YouTube Short centers on umbrellas being stolen and has 76 million views. 'We want Japan to be a thought-provoking place,' Megan says. 'We want people to think about the things that Japan is doing that they like — or maybe they prefer the way another country does it — and why.' Ben agrees, 'It's good to not present a country as a monolith. It's important to show that it's complex, multitiered, with a lot going on.' The challenge, he adds, is being able to do that in a minute. Known for their humor and honest storytelling, Megan and Ben offer a view of life in Japan that appeals to tourists and other foreign residents living here. | JOHAN BROOKS The Hitobito recently signed with Tokyo-based influencer agency GeeXPlus (our conversation takes place at their office in Shibuya), signaling the next step in the couple's evolution as creators shaping the bite-size future of Japan-related content. Megan's interest in Japan predates YouTube. It began with a 'Sesame Street' special in which Big Bird travels to Japan. That fascination deepened through Studio Ghibli films and the Toonami programming Meanwhile, Ben watched 'Naruto.' The two met in college in Kansas City and reconnected through social media, eventually becoming a couple. 'As an international relations major, the job market in the U.S. didn't seem so hot, so JET looked like a good way to dip my toes into diplomacy, which I was interested in,' she says. 'We were together for about a year and a half, and you were really serious about JET,' Ben says to Megan. 'I was up for an adventure.' 'You did take some convincing,' she replies with a laugh. 'That's true,' he says. 'I had to watch a lot of Japan videos. A lot of Chris Broad.' Like Broad, whose Abroad In Japan channel is arguably the most influential example of J-vlogging to date, the pair's work started as a way to document the realities of life in the countryside to those back home. There was more foresight to it, however, with Megan realizing she'd eventually need a job after JET. 'To be totally honest, I could see the AI boom starting while I was sitting at my desk, just using the internet,' she says. That realization prompted her to think about what skills might still be valuable in five years. 'Social media. It's my human story, and it can't be easily replaced.' The couple began filming from their 'dingy, little, echoey' apartment, hoping the neighbors wouldn't mind hearing them through the thin walls. After leaving Awaji for Tokyo — a journey marked by housing mishaps and soul-crushing jobs, detailed in a lengthy upload titled 'Life After Quitting My Dream Job in Japan' — they took a leap of faith into full-time content creation. 'At my old job, people would ask if I'd go full time because they saw the channel taking off. I'd adamantly say, 'No, I would never,'' Megan says, laughing. But the growth they saw in 2024 — and the fact that YouTube pays in U.S. dollars — gave them the confidence and financial security to make the jump. 'I think the experiences we had those first two years made us more confident we could put out content that people could relate to,' Ben adds. Their process hasn't changed. 'I have a big ol' Notes app of things I notice — birds chirping in the subway exits, hot-and-cold vending machines,' Megan says. 'Stuff we take for granted living here, but that is interesting to those who don't.' Sometimes, inspiration is unplanned. 'I missed the last train,' she continues. 'Instead of being mad about it, I thought, I can turn this pain into entertainment.' The resulting clip, which goes into what you can do if you too miss the last train, now has more than 30 million views. At a time of increasing AI-generated content in social media, Megan and Ben believe their human touch will continue to resonate with viewers. | JOHAN BROOKS Facing the age of AI It's not hard to see why they've attracted such a wide following. Like the J-vloggers who inspired them, The Hitobito offers a look at everyday life in Japan — the highs and lows alike. The key difference is that Megan and Ben have adapted the format for the short-form era, which has even brought them attention from the White House. 'We got this email from someone working with the U.S. Surgeon General,' Megan says, referring to Vivek Murthy, who held the post under President Joe Biden. 'He was coming to Japan and he wanted to talk to American content creators about their experience with mental health online and how they deal with it in another country.' 'He was an absolute sweetheart,' Ben says. Success brings new challenges, though, ones their J-vlogger predecessors never had to contend with. 'Recently, there's been all this AI slop, for lack of a better term, relating to Japan,' Megan says. 'So many fake accounts making up whatever about Japan. Stuff like, 'Hey girls, did you know men always pay the full bill?'' ''And they always cook and clean!'' Ben adds. 'It's scary when you see AI videos of actual human faces giving these perspectives.' Not all misinformation comes from machines. Plenty of real people lean into the same cliches — the kind that declare 'Japan is living in the future!' — but there has been a surge in uncanny content with unsettling robo voices, misleading information and outright fake images that look as if they were AI-generated. 'Tens of thousands of people believe these are real people giving real information,' Megan says. 'They can create this stuff with AI so much quicker than we can that, I don't know, nobody knows where the internet will be in five years.' The pair hope tech platforms will eventually do more to monitor synthetic content. For now, they see their humanity — their real experiences, broadcast daily — as the best way to stand out. 'The full-circle moment for us was having people tell us, 'I'm a teacher here now because I watched your videos,'' Megan says, hinting that maybe one of them will be the next big Gen Alpha influencer shaping people's minds about what it's like to live in Japan. Then she laughs, 'I'm also excited to meet the generation of AI robots that end all our careers.'
Japan Times
31-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Japan Times
Waves of umami: Awaji Island's culinary trove
Lifting the lid off a large ceramic pot with a flourish to reveal his aged shoyu, chef Nobuaki Fushiki tells me that with soy sauce, 'taste is born with time.' As the distinctive aroma of umami wafts into the air at Zenbo Seinei — a Zen wellness retreat designed by Shigeru Ban and located in the north of Awaji Island, Hyogo Prefecture — I'm instructed to place a dash of the rich brown liquid on a small plate. Most of the 20 members of my group, who hail from North America, Europe and Oceania, are joining a soy sauce tasting for the first time, inspired by their introduction to Japanese cuisine onboard the Silver Nova, one of the newest ships from luxury cruise line Silversea Cruises. The Silver Nova, which has a passenger capacity of 728 guests, made its debut voyage in the Asia-Pacific region last September. After sailing from Hokkaido, the ship undertook two voyages in Asia before heading southwards to Australia and New Zealand. It returned to Japan last month. The vessel held its inaugural Sea and Land Taste (SALT) — an immersive culinary program that lets guests experience a destination's cultural identity — in the Asia-Pacific region, which included SALT shore excursions in Japan for the first time. The Silver Nova is one of the newest vessels from Silversea Cruises. | SILVERSEA CRUISES Launched in Greece in 2021, SALT has proved immensely popular among passengers, prompting its expansion from the Mediterranean to voyages that include the Caribbean and South America, before its launch in Japan. Gourmet programs from cruises are, of course, not new. Most international cruises to Japan tend to feature onboard themed dinners featuring regional produce or work with local tour operators to bring passengers for short gourmet jaunts onshore. With the increasing demand globally for more immersive gourmet experiences in travel, a few cruises are now offering culinary tours that take on a more authentic vibe. Princess Cruises, for example, offers a visit to the Yamada miso and soy sauce brewery in Niigata Prefecture. Silversea's SALT program places a heightened emphasis on regional food and its ties to local identity, as well as hands-on experiences for its guests. Its onshore SALT Excursions are designed to offer insights into traditional cooking methods and local ingredients. For example, in Tasmania, passengers had the opportunity to forage local produce with renowned chef Analiese Gregory followed by a lunch with Tasmanian wines. In Napier, New Zealand, guests were taken to the award-winning Craggy Range winery for a private tour, wine-tasting and a five-course meal at the winery's restaurant. On Greece's Mykonos island, turophiles got the opportunity to make Kopanisti at cheese producer Mykonos Farmers. 'The nature of SALT is that it's constantly evolving,' says Adam Sachs, the program's director. 'We're passionate about food and drink and created SALT to share the best of food culture with like-minded guests hungry for truly authentic and memorable culinary experiences.' A staff member at Zenbo Seinei prepares condiments made from soy sauce for lunch. | KATHRYN WORTLEY From Osaka, where the Silver Nova is docked, our shore excursion takes us by bus to Awaji Island, the largest island of the Seto Inland Sea. It includes a fermentation workshop and an eight-course lunch led by Zenbo Seinei's Fushiki, as well as a farm-to-table experience. Bert Hernandez, president of Silversea, says the tour lets guests discover 'the soul of a place through its food and culture.' In this case, the focus is on learning about the building blocks of umami. Umami is a key flavor component in fermented food, which is central to Japanese cooking. For Fushiki, an expert in fermented cuisine, fermented foods not only enhance a meal's flavor and nutritional value but also play an integral role in Japan's culinary identity. At the fermentation workshop, we are introduced to the role of fermentation in a wide range of Japanese condiments, such as soy sauce, miso, mirin and rice vinegar, as well as items like nattō (fermented soybeans) and tsukemono (pickled vegetables). 'Some soy sauces in the supermarket today have been made within months, but my variety has taken me more than six years to brew,' says Fushiki, who uses traditional techniques such as using kōji mold and brine fermentation in the moromi (fermentation mash) to create a soy sauce with depth and complexity. Chef Nobuaki Fushiki of Zenbo Seinei is an expert in fermented cuisine. | KATHRYN WORTLEY Fushiki's six-year-aged soy sauce is served with his Taste of Awaji menu, which takes his team of chefs at Zenbo Seinei a week to prepare. Showcasing the best of the island's produce, from the mountains, sea and farmland, the menu is a fitting introduction to Japanese cuisine as Awaji is recognized in mythology as the birthplace of Japan, he says. According to Japan's earliest written works, the 'Kojiki' ('Records of Ancient Matters') and 'Nihon Shoki' ('The Chronicles of Japan'), the island was the first landmass to be formed during a ceremony carried out by the deities Izanagi and Izanami. Awaji is also known as one of only three miketsukuni (provinces of royal provisions) that supplied food to the imperial court in Kyoto during the Heian Period (794–1185). The island was chosen for its exceptional bounty of agricultural and marine products, which established it as a center for Japanese culinary excellence, a reputation that continues to this day. Fushiki's eight courses reflect this long and rich heritage. The Power of Awaji features Awaji beef fermented with maitake and kōji and finished on a charcoal grill, while 'The History of Japan' comprises Awaji swordfish served on a savory egg custard made with 10 kinds of local vegetables and dashi infused with bonito and kelp. The Ocean of Awaji is a nod to the rich variety of seafood found around the island's rocky and sandy shores. Small parcels of fresh spring green vegetables are wrapped in various kinds of fermented and dried fish alongside green tiger prawn boiled in local sea water. A fine bed of crushed pine nuts, white sesame and shio-kōji (salted kōji) embodies a beach, while an accompaniment of a dashi foam represents ocean waves. Chef Fushiki's The Ocean of Awaji dish is a homage to the rich seafood found around the island. | KATHRYN WORTLEY Great care is also taken to introduce drink pairings with complementary Japanese flavors. The Awaji beef is accompanied with a choice of a Japanese wine made from yamabudō, a wild Japanese grape variety known for its acidity and dark hue, or a mocktail featuring grapes and beetroot, milk-washed or clarified with lemon. The swordfish is served with tea made from herbs and dried shiso (perilla), a popular ingredient in Japanese cuisine, while the ocean course is paired with a tea made from Japanese butterbur, a perennial herb native to East Asia. The alcohol option for both fish dishes is sake, including Regulus, a brew from the award-winning Niigata Prefecture-based Abe Shuzo. After a dessert that includes sweet miso-marinated strawberries with sanshō pepper-infused cream and matcha served with mochi, I visit one of the sources of Zenbo Seinei's fruits and vegetables: Awaji Nature Lab & Resort. Located nearby, the 38,000-square-meter facility grows some 30 crops annually using circular farming, a sustainable practice that minimizes waste by treating byproducts as resources. Farmers make compost using leaf litter, rice bran and manure, changing the composition throughout the seasons to maximize the quality of the fruits and vegetables produced. Such a rare look into a sustainable agricultural practice offers guests a greater appreciation of Awaji's rich bounty. Silver Nova returns to Japan in March 2026, with SALT excursions to Zenbo Seinei and Aomori Prefecture; Silver Moon, another vessel, will arrive in Japan in October 2025, with SALT excursions to Zenbo Seinei and Fukuoka Prefecture.
