He is known for videos that spend an entire day with Japanese office workers, delivery workers, and ramen shop staff.

Who is he, and how did the channel arrive at what it is today? We'll go through it step by step, checking his official site and the channel's 565 videos.

All figures in this article were measured by us with the YouTube API on October 28, 2026.

The Channel at a Glance

The channel was created on October 23, 2016. As of October 28, 2026, it had 3.73 million subscribers and about 722.33 million total views.

The upload list showed 566 entries, but one of them was a live-stream slot created in 2018 that had not yet gone live. Leaving it out gives 565 public videos, the same number the channel itself shows.

In the channel's description, he introduces himself: “I'm Paolo. I'm from TOKYO, I've been living here for a long time.”

The description goes on: “I'll be your Tokyo Travel Guide and show you things to do here as well as show you what to do all around Japan and anywhere else I travel to.”

He adds, “I'm also into Tech so you'll see a few videos about my drone and other cool toys I discover.” That love of tech shows up in his very first video, too, which we'll get to shortly.

Paolo's Real Name, Age and Nationality?

We read the About page of Tokyo Zebra, the site he runs himself.

The page's title includes the full name “Paolo de Guzman”.

That said, we have not found anywhere that clearly states this is his real name. All we can say is that his official site uses this name.

The text of the same page says Paolo is “a Filipino American, California/Washington native”.

According to the page, he “moved to Tokyo 20+ years ago and fell in love with the city” (this is the About text as we read it on October 28, 2026).

His home page also introduces him as “an American guy living in Tokyo for half of his life”.

On the other hand, neither the official site nor the channel description gives his age or date of birth. That may be a bit of a letdown, but from here on, let's look at the channel itself.

From Finance to Filmmaking

According to the About page, Paolo was a “Tokyo-based finance industry Project Manager and software development company owner”.

From there, the page says, he “turned videographer and producer of Paolo fromTOKYO”. As for what he likes, the page adds: “He's into Tokyo, Tech, and DIYs.”

His oldest video is “Riding my Leiftech in Tokyo Japan”, from October 23, 2016, in which he rides an electric board around Tokyo.

Its description reads: “My first Vlog of me doing the stuff I love in Tokyo.”

The videos that followed that October also include unboxing reviews of a microphone and a smartphone stabilizer. It seems the channel began less as a travel guide than as a tech hobby.

“Day in the Life” Dominates His Most-Viewed Videos

What is now his signature series began in 2019.

“Day in the Life of a Typical Japanese Office Worker in Tokyo”, published on April 6, 2019, follows a woman who works at a company in Tokyo through her day, from her home and her train commute to her office in Otemachi.

As of October 28, 2026, the video had about 17.63 million views. From there, the “Day in the Life” series kept going.

In all, 56 videos have that phrase in their titles. Line up the channel's 10 most-viewed videos, and 9 of them belonged to this series.

The jobs he tags along with really do vary: a delivery worker for a major delivery company, a game programmer, a butcher shop owner, a ramen chef, and a manga creator.

The delivery worker video had about 20.68 million views, and the game programmer video about 17.54 million. It's interesting that ordinary workdays of people in Japan, rather than tourist spots, draw this many views.

The series is still going as of October 28, 2026. The garbage collection video from May 2, 2026, had about 3.07 million views, the most of any video published in 2026.

His Most-Viewed Video: “Things Okay in Japan but Illegal Around the World”

Still, the most-viewed video on the whole channel is not from this series.

It is “Things Okay in Japan but Illegal Around the World”, from April 2, 2022, with about 24.52 million views.

According to the video's description, he had already made videos about “things you can’t do in Japan because of laws or unknown laws that could get you arrested”.

This time, he wanted to “switch things up a little” and share “some things that are legal in Japan but may be illegal in other parts of the world”. You could call it the perspective of someone who has lived in Japan for a long time.

“Behind the Counter”: Stepping Inside the Shops

His other main pillar is the “Behind the Counter” series, in which he goes behind the counter at places that serve food.

The first episode, from August 14, 2021, was at a menchi katsu restaurant. In all, 49 videos have that phrase in their titles.

The most-viewed is the bento shop episode from January 21, 2023, with about 4.1 million views.

As of October 28, 2026, the latest was “Behind the Counter at the ONLY Tokyo Yatai Ramen Cart Shibuya”, released on October 17, 2026.

According to the video's description, this time he goes inside a traditional yatai ramen cart “hidden in the streets of Shibuya”. The description also notes that yatai date back to the Edo period.

As of October 28, 2026, it had more than 1.1 million views. Starting in November 2025, he had also put out four videos titled “What a Day … is like”, in which he spends a day at places such as a daycare or with a tofu cart.

A Two-Person Team, and Tokyo Zebra

The About page introduces Maiko as “a film editor/director of Paolo fromTOKYO”.

The Join Our Team page says that Paolo and Maiko have been making videos together “for several years now”, and that it has been just the two of them from the beginning.

The page goes on to say they are looking for editors and videographers who are Tokyo residents with “Professional Business Level” English and Japanese. But the page carries no date, so we could not tell whether they are still hiring.

There is also a separate channel called “Tokyo Zebra”, with the same name as the official site. The official Links page listed the main channel and the family channel as separate entries.

That channel was created on August 1, 2019, and as of October 28, 2026, it had 204,000 subscribers and 75 videos. Every figure in this article is for the main Paolo fromTOKYO channel only.

How Often Does He Upload? A Record 83 Videos in 2024

Finally, we counted the publication dates of the 565 videos by year.

In 2016, his first year, he posted 17 videos between October and the end of the year, followed by 77 in 2017. From 2018 through 2022, the count stayed between 43 and 62 videos a year.

He posted 62 in 2023, then 83 in 2024, the most of any year so far. In 2025, the count was 45.

In 2026, 27 videos had been published up to October 28. With the year still in progress, the final count is not yet known.

As of October 28, 2026, his most recent upload was on October 17, 2026. Starting from a tech hobby, the channel has widened its subjects to the workdays of people in Japan and then to the other side of the shop counter. It will be interesting to see what kind of workplace he goes into next.

The post Who Is Paolo fromTOKYO? Filming a “Day in the Life” of Japan's Workers first appeared on タツの気になるYouTuber事情.