00:00
Welcome to Kevin's English Room Podcast!
Today we have a very special guest, MC Takasawa!
I'm MC Takasawa! Nice to meet you!
Hey Takasawa!
It's okay, Japanese is completely okay.
For those of you listening and hi YouTube,
we do not have Yamachan today.
Yamachan could not make it to the recording.
So I took that as an advantage of like,
"Why not take this as an initiative to do something that I've never done before
and invite somebody to the podcast?"
And Takasan has been a good friend of mine since...
We go way back.
Yeah, starting...
Like last year?
Yeah, last year.
Which is not that long.
Not that long.
But yeah, I think...
But you are one of the first friends to...
Like a creator friend.
Yeah, I started TikTok and then you were already there.
I don't think I was already there.
I started in 2020. That was July.
You guys started like a little bit before me.
2019. Late 2019.
So we started at a really similar timing.
And...
How did we connect?
Clubhouse.
This is hard.
I think we had like Mayu-chan, Sagiri-chan at home
and all those English TikTokers on Clubhouse.
And then I think I was following you.
And then when you follow someone, when you're the speaker,
it kind of pops up when you come into the room, right?
And I was like...
I think somebody was like, "Hold on. Kevin's in here."
We were like, "What?"
Our boss.
English TikTokers.
Like, "Rasubosu. Kevin's English room is in our room?"
This other day you came up as a speaker and then...
I think that's how everything started.
We started following each other on Instagram.
We started reacting to each other's stories.
And then it all started.
Yup.
Well, thank you for being here in such a short notice.
Two days notice.
Yeah.
One day night.
Thank you.
And also for those of you listening on Amazon Music...
Hold on.
Is it recording?
Yeah, I think so.
It's the first time using this app.
So I'm still kind of worried.
But I think it's okay.
Three minutes?
Have we talked only for...
03:00
Yeah, three minutes.
We only have like two minutes left.
Oh, no. This is like a ten-minute version.
So it's okay.
I hope it's recording.
Yeah, I hope so.
I think we're good.
I believe you.
And for those of you listening on Amazon Music...
The Plus version will be after the usual one.
Usually it comes first.
But since we have Takasan as a guest...
We'll ask questions on the Plus version too.
Nice. Sounds good.
So am I your first guest?
Actually, you're the second guest.
The first guest was someone from Amazon.
A curator, actually.
I guess so.
But you're the first guest that I actually reached out.
Thank you.
I feel special now.
How are you, Takasan?
Very good.
Do you want to introduce yourself to everybody?
In case...
For the few percent of the audience that might not know.
I am MC Taka.
I started off teaching English on TikTok.
And then somehow ended up testing people's English skills.
Yeah, you do that.
Somehow.
I ended up right there.
That's...
English verification.
Is that what you go by now?
Pretty much, yeah.
In other words, I would call myself...
"Meowk-K TikTok-ka YouTuber."
Like, talking to other people.
"Hi, how are you? Do you speak English?"
"No."
What are your balance of that?
When you look at the comments of like...
"Oh, you f*cking...
What the f*ck are you doing?"
It's not nice to just go up to people and test people's English.
Versus like, "Oh, this kikaku is so cool!"
Like, I was curious of how this daigaku English level was.
What's your balance on that?
Well, the balance is something I did not expect.
I started off as an aori-kei TikTok.
I had a lot of anti-commento.
You know that, right?
Yes, I do.
So I was assuming that those anti would still like...
Stick onto my tail and be like...
"I'm waiting for that moment where I can give you all those nasty comments."
But I would say like...
90% of the comments are supportive.
Wow!
I've been getting comments from...
Abroad, like...
From America, from like...
Canada.
And they are so supportive.
They've been like...
"This is the best series on TikTok."
Blah blah blah.
"You are the only TikTokker I've been following for the past like...
... months."
06:00
Unexpected though.
I was expecting a lot more anti-commento.
But they've gone away.
But like, if you follow your content long enough...
You can see that you have a very warm heart.
Like...
It's noticeable. It's there.
You have a very warm heart. I can tell.
I'm sweating now because I'm embarrassed.
Thank you.
You know, you do look Ikatsuya as fuck though.
Well at least I have my hat on so like...
With that hairstyle, right?
Yeah, with your...
"Ginpatsu"
Your account name is...
"Ginpatsu Higemegane"
What about you?
You've had that hairstyle for a while, right?
Yeah, I have.
Are you thinking of changing it?
I mean, a lot of fans would love to see your new hair.
I don't know.
No.
I actually cut my own hair.
I don't go to a hair salon.
Really?
For me...
It's just...
It's not worth the money.
Really?
You know how one haircut could cost like what?
7000 yen or something?
It's ridiculous.
Yeah, that's true.
I could just buy a barricade from Amazon.
3000 yen, right?
I'll just do it myself.
I did this by myself.
I think I've done a pretty good job at it.
Do you barricade your backside?
Yeah, I do it without mirrors too.
Oh wow, that's skills.
It's just a feeling.
What about your top side?
Top side?
Yeah, I do it myself.
You do barricade?
You have bangs too?
What?
It's easy.
Just finger it.
That's it.
That's crazy.
How many subscribers do you have on YouTube?
1.2 million.
And you cut your own hair.
I take pride in that.
That's amazing.
But I'm sure your fans would love to see your new hair.
I don't know.
Maybe I might change it.
Are you thinking about any other new content?
I actually am.
Oh shit.
Should I talk about it here?
Yeah, do it.
Why not, right?
I haven't told anybody.
I told you personally.
But not on camera.
YouTube in Japan is like...
It's so hard to become successful now.
Even if you get a certain number of channel subscribers,
it's so hard to get your views on every single video.
09:00
That's why you're amazing.
That's why you're trending.
All your videos are going viral.
That's a very good thing.
But starting from scratch,
it's so difficult to be at that level.
So I thought I'd talk about it here.
I'm not sure if I can do it.
I'm not sure if I can do it.
I'm not sure if I can do it.
But I'm not sure if I can be at that level.
So I thought,
why don't I target the world instead of Japan?
Because in Japan we only have like
100 million people.
How do you say that in English?
What's "100 million"?
I don't know.
That's so hard.
Plus currency too.
Anyways, back to the subject.
What was it again?
So targeting the world.
There have been new YouTubers
where they target the world.
But most of them don't have
languages in their content.
It's more about humor and acting.
So I thought,
why don't I be that guy
who speaks in English,
who's Japanese,
creating content in Japan,
but targeting the world.
I don't know anybody else who does that.
Do you?
Well, for example, like...
Being Japanese.
Oh, being Japanese.
Being Japanese, speaking English.
Not just...
What do you call it? Subtitles.
Subtitles, yeah.
Not just subtitles, like actually speaking their language.
And creating content on YouTube.
Not that I can think of.
The only guy I would say
who is successful in YouTube
and the only guy who is successful in the world
would be Sushi Ramen Riku-san.
He's got a certain number of followers outside Japan.
And his content is top-notch.
It's top quality.
Yeah.
But that's the only person...
And he doesn't speak English either.
It's all subtitled.
But you can speak English.
Yep.
So it would be more direct.
He does a lot of crazy experiments.
Like chemistry-related kind of thing?
Chemistry-related, I would say.
Like dry ice versus
1000 Fahrenheit
ball. Those kind of things?
Those kind of things.
But not only chemistry.
A lot of physics included too.
Like "hyodai na nani nani"
Something like that.
Or like "super strong hanabi de uttara
hito wa donaru" kind of...
Not exactly.
That wasn't the title.
But like "sou iu kei"
It's crazy.
But yeah, that's what I'm trying to start.
And I'm thinking of doing a group YouTube.
I've been finding
on my own for a while now.
Kekko sabishii.
How was that? Your new recruiting?
12:00
Of your new members.
It's basically my friends
who speak English.
One guy is from Japan
and he's still learning English
but he's been doing YouTube
in English already.
And he can speak well.
And we already have quite a lot of ideas.
And our target is...
We have a big target.
It's huge though.
Am I speaking too long?
No, no, no, no, no.
Definitely. You're okay.
It's usually like 10 minutes.
Sometimes even 15.
Okay, okay.
You know, Japan has a huge problem
of shoushikoreika.
So we're gonna have
less population in the next
like 20, 30 years.
And when COVID hit 2 years ago,
I realized how poor
you can become for not having
people spending money outside.
We were all
poor in 2020
when COVID... was it 2019?
Or 2020?
When we had that first state of
emergency.
And that's probably...
Something similar is probably gonna
happen to Japan in
the next 20, 30 years. I mean, we're gonna have
less people in the city, which means
less people spending money.
Which means money's not gonna be in
any industry.
In the economy.
So I thought like,
what's the... how can you
solve the problem? And the first
thing that came into my mind is to have
foreign people, you know, live in Japan
or at least spend money
in Japan. Or...
having Japanese people
become more globalized and trying
to, you know, sell
some kind of service outside
of Japan.
I thought that would be like the two
top like, you know, priority
to solve or like make it happen
in order to solve the shoushikoreika
problem. Which I don't know
how to say it in English. Yeah, I don't either.
So I'm just gonna keep saying shoushikoreika.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what we're gonna do is
we have a goal and
our goal is to
sort of like, in
simple words, like
globalize Japan.
And Japan is very un-globalized
at the moment. I think.
I personally think.
So if we were, if we are able
to like
make videos about
how beautiful Japan
is from various points
of view. Not those like typical
"Look at this Kyoto!"
"Whoa!" "Trines and temples!"
"Bah!" We already have
enough of that on YouTube. So like
more like in depth
like how convenient are convenience
stores? Like we can, you know,
choose
different konbini
and
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean keep it a secret, right?
15:04
I mean,
five times more strategic than
I thought. Like, you're so
strategic.
Well, I've always been working
like that on social media,
so I love thinking about
strategic.
Is it fun for you?
It's fun. What about you? Like,
your, I mean, your contents are like
superior. Like, it's
it's like
none other tanji. One and only,
Kevin's English room. Like,
is that all strategic or
is that like
idea that comes up and you're like, "Let's do this!"
Okay, um,
I'll tell you on the
next episode.
I'll cut it here for now.
No, no, no problem.
I'll do it. Talk about that
on today's
Kevin's
English Room Podcast Plus, which you can hear
on Amazon Music.
Wow, looking forward to that.
Thank you for listening, guys. And thank you for being here,
Takasan. Thank you.
[ Silence ]
