How I became a Japanese Celebrity on a Honda Cub

Every bike is an adventure bike if you try hard enough.

Awesome report!

Awesome! These ride reports that are unique are truly the best ones. Not only were you on a small bike, but a Japanese reality star as well. I spent 3 months in Tokyo, and I love Japan, so I really enjoy reports from there. Ride on!

A month or so after I returned from the trip, my phone began buzzing in the middle of the night. I was getting flooded with emails, facebook messages, twitter mentions, etc. The TV show had just aired in Japan and a few dozen Japanese people had somehow found me online.

It turned out that the TV show, which I had assumed was a small production, was actually one of the most popular primetime shows in Japan! The producers of the show had decided to make a three-part series about my tour and the wave of messages I’d received were all just from the first episode. I made sure to include my Japanese nickname Mr.カブ on my social media, etc. and a few weeks later, when the second episode aired, I received over a hundred messages from fans of the show.

I work on project basis in animation and at the end of 2016 I was on a new project set to end mid-March with another project beginning in late May. I had been in touch with the directors of the TV program and they had informed me that if I ever wanted to come back to Japan, they would provide me with a bike and loding.

I searched online for airfare to return to Tokyo in April and found direct round-trip tickets for $420. I snatched them up and began planning with the directors. They asked me if a 50cc bike would be ok. I was pretty reluctant, but decided I’d take whatever they could get.

By this time, the third episode of my tour had not aired yet, and upon hearing that I would be returning for a second trip, they scheduled me to surprise the hosts of the show on camera before leaving Tokyo on my way to frozen north of Hokkaido.

I arrived in Tokyo at the start of the cherry blossom season, the city was awash in little pink petals. I had a few days to walk around and get over the jetlag before my appearance at TV Tokyo. Walking around the city random people would recognize me from TV and ask to take selfies with me, it was quite a shock the first time it happened and something I never really got used to.

A few days later I made my appearance at the TV Tokyo studio to surprise the hosts of the show. They were genuinely surprised to see me as I delivered the line the directors fed me: “I’m back!”

The director had a surprise for me as well. It turns out that the 50cc bike they had prepared for me was not a rental, but a gift from the Morinaga family, fans of the show from Okayama. It was a 1990 Cub 50 deluxe, previously owned by Morinaga-san’s father who had recently passed away. The bike had been gathering dust since he died and upon seeing me on TV he thought: Mr Cub should have this bike.

The director showed me footage of the elder Morinaga’s widow cleaning the seat and asking it to keep me safe. She affectionately named the bike Kabu-chan. At the end of the video the directors took me outside to see the bike for the first time. After several minutes of kick-start attempts, Kabu-chan finally came to life and I was off on my next adventure!

Stay tuned for ride report #2 below!

Awesome!



Thanks,

JM.

Wow what a ride!

I believe things happen for a reason!

Ride safe,

Taz9

p.s. I hope you got paid for your tv appearances.

And your advrider handle isn't "Mr. Cub"????? What a grand adventure! Unfamiliar bike, unfamiliar country, no touring experience at the beginning, gear a bit sketchy.....what's not to love about this story?????

Mister Cub-San,
Where can I find the episodes on the internet ?

Domo.

There's a few bootleg versions floating around. Here's the first episode:

Never got directly paid, but the did pay for airfare a couple times and food and lodging anytime they were with me.

I created my advrider handle before I was Mr. Cub! I did my research on this forum before the first trip.

Love it,,,

That was great, even more impressive was the 15 sec ad breaks, here they go for what seems like hours.

Good stuff, I watched the whole thing, At 7.48 was a Honda 750/4.

Might as well post the other episodes on here, then! I'll be leaving out my second trip, because I haven't filed my report yet!

Part Two:

Part Three:

so what was the story about meeting you at the airport the first time.Was it truly just a co inceidence,ie they were just gonna ask the first gaijin they saw???

The name of the show is YOUは何しに日本へ？which roughly translates to "Why did you come to Japan?" Their entire schtick is to find foreigners at Narita airport and follow the interesting ones around. There was no pre-interview, they literally picked me out of a crowd, old Hollywood style. It's a weird concept for a show, I know, but it's hugely popular over there.

Not roughly ,if you type YOUは何しに日本へ？ into google it goes straight to a page about the show titled Why did you come to Japan

Well I guess all the new RR's will have a film crew along, found the English version of the show and searched for Mr Cub.