Foreign YouTuber apologises after free-riding Japan trip
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A YouTuber known as Fidias posted a video showing himself and three others riding trains around Japan without paying for tickets.
PHOTOS: SCREENGRABS/X
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TOKYO – A YouTuber with 2.4 million subscribers apologised on Tuesday after a video of him and three others free-riding around Japan became the latest example of fame-seeking foreigners riling local residents.
The YouTuber known by the username Fidias posted a video at the weekend of the four riding trains and buses around Japan – in some cases without paying.
In the video, Fidias hides in a toilet of a bullet train, pretends to be ill when confronted by a ticket collector, and then escapes to board another train where he pulls the same trick.
Another clip shows him entering a hotel and pretending to be a guest to get a free breakfast.
“I just (got) access to a five-star Japanese buffet. And we’re leaving the hotel without getting caught and without any problem,” he triumphantly tells the camera.
Other parts of the video show the four, one of whom appears to be the YouTuber known as Night Scape, who has 1.7 million followers, begging for money from local residents to pay for tickets.
It was unclear when the footage was shot or whether the three men and one woman are still in Japan.
“Another strange, annoying YouTuber from abroad emerged. In addition to this guy Fidias, the three others should be arrested,” one social media user said in Japanese.
Another said that “surprisingly, comments section (of) his (online post) is full of applause. (Police) should arrest him to prevent copycat crimes from happening”.
Regional train operator JR Kyushu said it was studying the footage before deciding whether to inform the police.
“We are aware of the case and investigating facts around it,” a spokesman told AFP.
Fidias on Tuesday posted an apology on his YouTube channel, saying: “Hello beautiful people, I apologise to the Japanese people if we made them feel bad, that was not our goal! From now on I am going to (do) more research (on) the cultures we go to and try to prevent this from happening again.”
The incident came a month after Japanese police arrested a US live-streamer known as Johnny Somali for allegedly trespassing on a construction site.
Video footage showed that the 23-year-old live-streamer, whose real name is Ismael Ramsey Khalid, repeatedly shouted “Fukushima” to construction workers who urged him to leave the site, police officer Genta Hayashi told AFP, referring to the stricken nuclear power plant.
Another clip shows Khalid, who describes himself as a former child soldier, harassing train passengers with references to the United States’ atomic bombings of Japan in 1945.
He has 12,500 followers on YouTube and 10,800 on another platform known as Kick, where his account is marked “offline”. His Twitch account was reportedly taken down.
In 2017, US YouTuber Logan Paul attracted controversy with a video he posted of a dead body in a Japanese “suicide forest” that drew six million views before being taken down.
Incidents of foreigners behaving badly, including by drinking in public and littering, are a regular cause of annoyance in largely law-abiding Japan, not least on Mount Fuji.
The government is working on a package of measures aimed at reducing “overtourism”. The measures reportedly include more expensive train tickets and musical rubbish bins.
“In some areas and during certain periods, there has been an impact on the lives of local residents due to inbound tourists, such as bad manners,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in October. AFP
