This article is also available in Japanese: Read the Japanese version
Square watermelons, the food served to daimyo at banquets, gift wrapping finished in 13 seconds. John Daub is the American YouTuber who has been covering, in English, the things you can see only in Japan.
The show is called ONLY in JAPAN. The series began after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and since 2020 it has continued on a channel bearing his own name.
In this article we look in turn at Daub's background, how the show began and his new channel in 2020, then at episodes from the one he made at Kanazawa's request to the one in which he visited Kochi.
Figures such as subscriber and video counts are ones we measured at about 3:43 p.m. JST on October 30, 2026.
Who Is John Daub? His Nationality and Background
Daub's background is laid out in one place on a profile page by Jarman International (in Japanese).
According to that page, his nationality is American and he studied at Ohio State University.
He moved to Japan in 1998 and has lived in 16 cities around the country, it says.
In 2003, the page adds, he hitchhiked from Wakkanai in Hokkaido all the way to Kagoshima, visiting every one of Japan's 47 prefectures.
It seems fair to say he got to know Japan on foot.
The same page also lists his work as an NHK World reporter on Tokyo Eye, Destination Kansai and Journeys in Japan, and his appearances on TBS's Hiruobi to talk about inbound tourism.
The page carries no update date, and we could not confirm whether any of this is still the case.
In his 2020 video descriptions, he himself wrote, in the third person, that “John Daub has been a reporter for NHK World TV since 2008”.
In other words, he had honed his skills reporting for television before YouTube.
In Japanese, most outlets write his surname as “Dōbu”, and our Japanese edition does too.
A Kochi company's notice spelled it “Dābu”, but only in its headline.
As far as we could check, we found no age or year of birth for him.
ONLY in JAPAN, a Show That Began After the 2011 Earthquake
The description of his current channel opens with “My name is John Daub”.
He goes on to write that he started the channel after the 2011 earthquake, when tourists and foreign residents were leaving Japan.
He adds: “The situation has changed a lot since then. Japan is now a top destination for tourism.”
Choosing to film what makes Japan appealing just as people were leaving it is not something just anyone would do, we think.
His videos cover everything from food and technology to history and culture.
When we checked on October 30, 2026, the description said he puts his “27 years of experience living in Japan” into his stories.
Jarman International's page describes Daub as the founder of the YouTube channel ONLY in JAPAN, which it says has 1.41 million subscribers.
The same page says that channel is now called WAO RYU! ONLY in JAPAN.
The 1.41 million figure is Jarman International's, and the page does not say as of when.
2020: Moving to a Channel Under His Own Name
Jarman International's page says that Daub went independent in 2020 and started ONLY in JAPAN * John Daub, a channel bearing his own name.
When we checked, the oldest public video on his current channel was a channel trailer posted on June 27, 2020 (JST).
Posted the same day was a video titled What happened to ONLY in JAPAN.
In its description, he calls the new channel “a continuation of a series” he created after the earthquake.
It also contains this line: “It's not easy to start a new channel and I know it will be a real challenge but I feel it's the right thing to do.”
We haven't watched this video, so we won't go into the background of the change here.
Incidentally, the channel itself was created on September 20, 2011.
The description also says “This particular channel was created in September 2011”, so it seems he turned a channel he had made in the year it all began into the show's new home.
The trailer's description reads: “A new format, opening and home but the same John as always”.
It was probably a greeting to longtime viewers.
An Episode Kanazawa Asked For, and a Visit to Kochi
Local areas sometimes reach out to Daub's show, too.
In a notice dated August 10, 2020, the Kanazawa Culture and Sports Commission (in Japanese) writes that it asked Daub to make a program presenting Kanazawa in English as “a city of both culture and sport” (the commission's phrase, our translation).
With travel to and from other countries at a standstill, the aim was reportedly to introduce Kanazawa first to foreign residents of Japan and to lay the groundwork for visits in the future.
The result was this episode, which focuses on what the daimyo of the Maeda clan, lords of the Kaga domain, ate.
As of October 30, 2026, it had been viewed more than 560,000 times.
During his stay, he reportedly also did two livestreams, walking around Omicho Market and Kenrokuen Garden.
Kochi is a different case. A notice from VP Advisors (in Japanese), a company in Kochi Prefecture, says the company's head was interviewed by Daub and talked about depopulation in the town of Otoyo and why the company moved its head office from Tokyo to Kochi.
That episode, posted in February 2022, was Leave Tokyo & Save the Country.
Its description says it looks for ways to draw people to Kochi, where the population is shrinking and towns are decaying.
Jarman International's page lists collaborators such as JR East, Honda, TOTO, Aomori Prefecture, Kochi Prefecture and the city of Miyazaki.
That suggests he is seen as someone who can be trusted to promote tourism.
His Most-Watched Video, and Two Channels
At the time we checked, the most-viewed video on his current channel was a gift-wrapping episode from December 2022.
As of October 30, 2026, it had more than 7.45 million views.
According to its description, besides the wrapping at Mitsukoshi in Ginza, he also visits places such as a mochi shop in Osaka that can “wrap a gift in 13 seconds with ribbon” and a furoshiki (wrapping cloth) shop.
In second place was a time-lapse of square watermelons from October 2024, with more than 6.61 million views as of the same date.
By our measurement on October 30, 2026, the channel had 352,000 subscribers and 82 videos.
From 2021 through 2025 he posted at an unhurried pace of roughly 9 to 14 videos a year, and he seems to put real care into each one.
Among his long-form videos from 2026, How Japan Runs Mt. Fuji, posted in August, was doing well, with more than 850,000 views as of October 30, 2026.
When we checked on October 30, 2026, the newest video was a one-minute Short posted October 12 about making a bed on a Shinkansen bullet train.
The other channel, ONLY in JAPAN * GO, is one he livestreams to from the road on his phone.
Its description opens with “Hello, I'm John Daub” and says there are episodes four to five times a week from all over the country.
When we measured on October 30, 2026, it had 340,000 subscribers and 2,209 videos.
A new episode went up every day from October 28 through October 30.
Carefully crafted main episodes, and livestreams that carry the feel of the moment.
Moving between the two while he keeps walking every corner of Japan: that, it is fair to say, is Daub today.
