24 Hours in AKITA | 4 Things to do in Japan's CHICKEN Capital – Transcript

00:00japan land of the cute cuddly and of course friendly oh my god what the hell is that so today we're in akita prefecture in north japan home to the tastiest chicken in the entire country it's cute as dogs and of course most horrifying creatures but if you think that's unpleasant wait until you see what we're traveling with today oh my god me

00:25three and a half hours north of tokyo by shinkansen akita literally meaning autumn fields is japan's sixth largest prefecture but with a population of just one million its mountains lakes and luscious fields remain amongst the least densely populated in the entire country secluded on the north west coast along the sea of japan akita has a strong sense of identity and some rather unique if not terrifying traditions and today we've come to see what we can do here in

00:52just 24 hours from eating the juiciest yakitori chicken in all of japan and enjoying a dip in a hot spring to meeting the universally beloved akita dogs but our first stop is the orga peninsula home to the utterly horrific namahage demons so we're about to go into this beautiful traditional straw house and meet these terrifying namahage god-like creatures

01:19can't be much more terrifying than e.t or ryotaro

01:44yeah the words post traumatic stress disorders spring to mind the namahage are godlike creatures that roam the mountains and are welcomed into the homes of locals each year during the new year's holidays once inside they check to see the harvest has gone well for the year and intimidate the children to work harder at school a bit like santa's naughty or nice list but far more traumatizing because they literally carry knives

02:10and when i say they enter your home i mean grown men put on a massive costume and burst in through your front door a situation that probably wouldn't work out so well in other countries we watched a video of the ceremony on screen a minute ago and uh on new year's day they all burst in the house and start like taking the kids away and the kids are screaming the kids are crying for for their life and they're like just dragging them around the room and uh yeah

02:37i wonder how many kids get ptsd off of this but yeah an incredible amount of detail you gotta admit some of axes some of swords some have sticks no shotguns like only primitive weaponry the real question is who would you rather go on a date with him or him leave a comment below but we all know the answer the scariest ones they're always the ones that don't have a weapon well these have got like butchering knives this one's just like a horse look at this

03:04no weapon just a horse i think the scariest thing though isn't the appearance it's the noise they make when they come in they go you know i think you kind of think of the image of japan it's always cute and cuddly things isn't it and then you see this and this is very much the antithesis all of that but i love it it's a great way to get kids to do their homework and stop messing around threaten them threaten their lives

03:31still don't be deterred by the thuggish and frightening namahagi gods akita has a reputation for having the most beautiful women in all of japan referred to as akita biji unfortunately though there's no akita bijin today it's just riotaro in a hot spring oh dear the people of orga peninsula refer the number huggers so much they've even stuck them inside the local hot springs giving what's meant to be a typically relaxing experience an ominous sense of

03:58dread then again maybe that's just ryotaro yes it definitely is japan has just been ruined by one man okay oh god so onsen are typically supposed to be a relaxing affair but not only do we have a horrible creature next to us we've also got the namahage

04:26it looks like it's going to rip our bloody heads off look at it what is that and also i've got the hot water spluttering in my face coming straight out of the ground being pumped up it's not overly relaxing but the water is really nice it's full of minerals and because we're outdoors you've got the nice sort of summer cool breeze coming in weirdly ryotaro's lost his voice uh it's a strange omen i don't know what it represents but yeah his voice is going yeah i'm starting to sound like an old greek guy

04:53insult the viewers of greece from the hot springs of north japan it's a typical afternoon with ryotaro how's the water great it's nice akita akita's hot springs are usually famous for being extremely hot like 50 degrees celsius so it's actually quite bearable apart from the the spray in the in the face but where's rachel who's that having a bath with batman bloody yeah

05:22leaving the onsen behind elderly greek batman and i head further in land to meet the only animal more famous in akita than the namahagi the universally beloved akita dog is a great source of pride for the people of akita so much so they built the only museum in the world dedicated to japanese dogs up until 1931 akita dogs were known as

05:47odate dogs due to the breed's origins in the city of odate with dna very similar to that of a wolf the dogs were often used to hunt bears out in the wilderness of north akita with a reputation for being remarkably loyal the most famous akita dog is of course hachiko a dog that's been forever immortalized at shibuya crossing hatchkorff famously waited every day for 10 years outside shibuya station waiting for his deceased owner to return until

06:13he himself passed away in 1935. his loyalty to his owner became the stuff of legend in japan and was even referenced in one of my favorite episodes of futurama go watch it and have some tissues ready really bloody sad look is nippon danji literally japanese guy japanese guy that's his name so big it's so big it's like minnie might think japanese looks like a b really small but like shiva dog but it's

06:40not they they look like shiva but it's huge like a male dog uh normally it goes like around 40 kilos um it's a pretty big i just i just love boxing you've had a dog yeah i had i had one dog she did a black shimmer dog never had a dog i do want one one day it's just a little bit difficult when you live in an apartment in japan

07:14is inevitable while kobe might be home to japan's most famous beef and aomori is home to the most prized tuna akita is home to the nation's most delicious and sought-after chicken called hinaijidori and given with just around the corner from the restaurant best known for serving the chicken and grilled yakitori skewers my full stomach is also inevitable

07:44so this is the restaurant yakitori restaurant but not only the simple yakitori this is one of the best chickens we ever have hinaya julie and standing here i just can smell the amazing amazing yakitori uh smell then let's check it out

08:12so these beautiful freshly grilled skewers of chicken have just been brought up to us they smell incredible i love the way they're slowly grilled over the charcoal grill releases that sort of juiciness slowly cooked what are we waiting for let's dive in no story first about this chicken you know what you do all right okay what's he what does he do he literally mean that right so um first of all you need to know that there's a chicken called

08:38right yeah uh tori is like chicken so hinai dairy chicken is hinay area local chicken right right so they're two different but this is origin because you cannot eat hinay dodi because that's natural monument definitely in a nutshell hinayadori chicken which was known for its great taste and enjoyed by powerful lords

09:05throughout the 17th and 19th centuries was designated a national treasure in 1942 and as such was never ever eaten again however unsurprisingly the people still wanted to eat chicken and after crossbreeding a hine dory chicken with a rhode island red a new plumper breed was created and bred locally here in akita called hinai jidori to qualify as hinaijidori the chicken must be bred in a free-range environment and they're only ready for consumption at least 75

09:33days from hatching due to the strict agricultural conditions only one percent of chickens in japan meet the requirement and because the chickens are raised in a colder environment their skin is thicker than other breeds and the fat is said to be sweeter fantastic that's the story listen to me oh so good is it it's so juicy let me just heavily seasoned perfectly salted this is called negama it's probably the most popular yeah anyways

10:00chicken leek chicken leek chicken what's the significance of the leek why is it that well um it's being said that the it helps the digestion all right yeah yeah like you don't need eating chicken uh like sometimes like you know you might have like a bad stomach or something right but adding leek and everything just helps digestion it's quite a nice sort of refreshing thing to go with the the saltiness exactly you just ate chicken there but i like it i've got a big mouth right here i can't

10:28fit them yakitori is my favorite japanese cuisine i just love the simplicity of it there's just an elegance to it like it seemed like such a simple dish but if i was tasked to do it i would screw it up at every turn like the best yakitori places they do it very gently over charcoal grill use special charcoal don't they all the time it burns very slowly and over a long period of time so it releases the heat very gently cooking it through yeah so it doesn't have that sort of

10:55toughness to it when you cook it really quick it's really tender but it's still crispy on the surface beautiful jewels of fat on top as well and uh that's just so damn good such a such a simple dish done so well and season to perfection so what what what how can you tell a difference between like ordinary chicken and legendary chicken how to tell it tastes a bit more gamey more gay more flavor he does he does he does he's about to back up a little bit there's nothing better than a long night

11:22sitting with friends going to a yakitori restaurant and getting wave after wave of yakitori over some beers so we've got our main dishes uh inanimate udon and oyakudon and ryostra is now going to explain what they are well i eat them all right so everyone knows right so udon is mostly popular in the west it's like osaka and uh fukuoka and all these places and but there's a one place in

11:48the east japan that's where the old mississippi where putin is pretty popular which is here in akita right inaniwa they call it i think what's so special is like kind of flat flat noodles it's flat no no but it's kind of it's a lot thinner uh compared to the west yeah they're kind of translucent yes it is just try it i like it because it's not as kind of filling um as regular udon i've had this quite a few times whenever i pass through akita

12:14we've doused it in this dashi soy sauce fish stock and it tastes fantastic but the dish i'm most excited about one of my favorite dishes is literally mother and child dish uh because it's called my mother and child in one ball yes that sounds absolutely terrible sounds really wrong but it is basically chicken and egg right away chicken egg

12:39egg bowl yes so you've got the rice uh you have the chicken the chicken is then sort of mixed up with egg soy sauce marinated chicken uh in a kind of sweet like kind of almost you typically eat it with a spoon it's the easiest way to eat it and uh oh no yes and again they use hiday jidori chicken yeah so let's see how it goes so with one mouthful we get the chicken the egg

13:06mother and child it's so graphic and of course the rice oh sugar very sweet very sweet the chicken's salty the sauce is sweet and the chicken is very juicy as well it's a very satisfying dish like i often this is probably one of my favorite dishes um in japan actually and it gets even better when you put some