Growing Up Half Black Japanese in Tokyo | ft. Hana 

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I’m really sorry for what she’s been through, having to go through all that she endured is not easy :( she seems like an amazing woman with a good head on her shoulders and it’s very refreshing hearing her transparency about growing up in Japan. She seems like a great soul and I know she’ll do really well in the future ❤

Damn...you had a Hell of a time, girl. Thanks for sticking in there. Glad you are doing great stuff now. Don't let the haters get you down. You be you and show the world your heart.

She has such a great soul and personality. I just vibe with it all. ❤

Hana's cool af. Wish her all the best. Thanks for the interview, Max!

Tremendous interview, sir! Some parts of her story is just heartbreaking and only because she’s part Black. God bless her

すごく感動しました。ハナさんに対する学校側のひどい扱いに怒りを禁じえません。不登校になろうがよく自分を壊さずに生き延びた。黒人でもない日本人でもないと外見だけで判断されつらい思いをしたのに、よく立ち直りアイデンティティを見つけ出す過程はドラマティックです。人間とは何かを問い直される良い動画でした。

Anybody can get bullied and usually for no specific reason. People advise you to "be yourself", but you don't know what that means yet because you don't have sufficient experience trying on different personae. Great interview with Hana, Max! She had poise and introspection, and a great story of her life. It sounds like you should interview her mom!

She has such a beautiful unique look. I wish she wouldn’t call herself stupid though, she is clearly intelligent.

I really relate on so many levels with what she is saying, even though I was raised mostly in the US and I lived in Japan twice during my late teens and early adult years. I have a lot of perspective on it that may be close, may be importantly different in that I am an American woman, a mother, grandmother, and we are used to mixed blood and still just being Black. That’s actually most Blacks in America. (I still got irritated having other kids call me Chinky Eyes, though.) My grandchildren are all either even more mixed race (white, Black, Native, Asian) or mixed heritage (African and Black American) and have these issues coming up in life as well. We all are working on this world.

Great interview. Love how Hana grips hold of her life and bosses it ❤

複雑な感情を率直に分かりやすく表現されていて尊敬します。特に最後のメッセージは大事だと思いました。

This was a great interview! Hana, thank you for sharing your story and perspective. Wishing you continued success!

I really enjoyed watching this. Thank you for this full length, in-depth interview.👍🏼😍

Thanks for introducing us to another cool and interesting person. Great video!

Wow! I really can’t imagine what this beautiful princess went through, I hope she will become an activist to help other half black kids to fight racism in Japan. She’s such a brave girl to be alive in that environment.

Wow, never would have thought you'd bring someone on who did the MVs for some of my favorite songs/artists! I'm definitely gonna have to keep up with their work!

Thanks for making these videos. Please keep thrm coming!

Thank you so much for this interview. I didn’t realize many half-black half-Japanese women were called “ugly” as in the time and town where I grew up they were seen as very beautiful more than white girls. I really enjoyed this video and learned a lot. So thank you for this

Very good video. Thank you for this interesting interview!

@Max D. Capo, Thank you so much for these interviews with your biracial guests and guests who aren't Japanese but grew up in Japan. Please keep them coming. These are very informative. I'm so sorry Hana had to endure such hardships, her story is terribly sad. I had to stop halfway through to take a break and post a comment. Have you ever approached the Japanese Board of Education with your videos? If not, please consider it! You're tackling an issue that is in Japan's blind spot! I think many schools in Japan still don't know how to deal with the various issues of bullying and some teachers, for whatever reason, still look the other way when it's happening in their own classroom*sigh* Japan is a country with over 97% its people being ethnically Japanese, and for some of them, it's hard to image that the words they're saying can be questionable, insensitive or straight up offensive to others. Hana, and others like her, can't call out all the BS they have to deal with--that $#!+ gets tiring after a while. Japan has always been infatuated with fair complexions, so natural half Japanese with fair complexions have an easier go at life--the issue of haircare products Hana speaks of, likely wasn't an issue for you or Shizu--I'm not calling you out, so please don't take this as an attack. People with dry, curly hair need more oils to care for their hair and those oils tend to have strong odors, so a way to cover those odors up is with fruity-smelling perfumes and the like. Japan being the bedrock conservative place that it is, needs to be aware of these issues and make exceptions. Japan isn't the static society living in a bubble like some would like to believe--blue jeans, rock music, hamburgers, and various other Western ideals migrated and assimilated to the country long ago. I can't remember the guest who said it, but I believe it was someone you interviewed a few years ago, but she spoke about how hard it was growing up in Japan being half black too because of society's emphasis on having a fair complexion. Japan has come a long way since Ariana Miyamoto, but not far enough. Anyway, I appreciate these videos, and I hope you keep bringing more. Particularly people with darker complexions so that more and more people can hear their stories. No one should grow up feeling ashamed of being the person they are. Japan needs to do better, and it can start by addressing these issues in schools. Sure, some half-Japanese children might have a fair complexion like Christel Takigawa or a neutral one like Naomi Watanabe, but others are on the darker side like Rui Hachimura or Naomi Osaka, and they deserve just as much respect as everyone else. Please consider approaching the Boards of Education in Japan. I think what you're doing here would help so many other Japanese people growing up with these issues, and you hear similar reoccurring incidences happening in your interviews. Hana's story resembles your guest Joe's story from seven years ago in parts, and he's what 10, 15 years older than Hana? Personally, I think your videos would be great for social studies class or even 道徳. Japan is changing, and it's about time most of the country got caught up on things. Understanding Hana's experience is something every person in Japan should hear. No one wants to feel the way she did, no one. She had to find her own inner strength to keep moving forward, that's too much for one person to shoulder. Understanding her story, and empathizing with it will help others speak up when they see bullying happen, including teachers.

Great interview. What a cool chick, very relatable. Best wishes to her ❤️

Great interview with a fascinating guest. The worldview expressed was captivating. Where in Wisconsin?

Lowkey it’s amazing how Africans and Asians look similar in some features of the face. It’s wild.

I love her! Hanaちゃん尊敬！❤

Hana is so cool "Kakkoii" with respecting her identity and beauty. I love her. Tokyo is grateful of having Hana.

She had a seriously harrowing childhood in Japan, I sincerely hope that this kind of mistreatment is a thing of the past. 😐

What a legend! ❤

西日暮里！千駄木懐かしいー😢 上野桜木に住んでましたー

OMG, I looooooove everything about herrrrrr… ❤🙌

すげぇな。カッケーなこの人。

Hello, is there a link to the music video @00:38, the visuals look amazing!

I love this tokyo girl 😊❤

The few idioms that I know seem to be apt: 出る釘は打たれる 雨降って地固まる The bad experiences growing up are positive only after having some time to reflect on them in retrospect. However, I do wonder whether having an alternative or outsider's perspective helps in being creative and objective. Being able to closely observe artistes like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Boyz II Men and others working and getting complimented by them when being a child is quite a memorable childhood.

I like the way she thinks when she says it's more about she has black "blood" rather than being "black" or being of that race. As someone who has black and Hispanic roots but grew up in a very mixed west coast area, I just see myself and act like a standard American of that region. I'd be deemed "white sounding" by black people, and I have absolutely no connections to my Hispanic side because my father was very Americanized and has no accent even. I think it'd be more accurate to just tell people I am someone who genetically has the traits of a black person or Hispanic person, but to claim I am black or Hispanic just brings a bunch of stereotypes, assumptions, and unwanted dissapointments from people bringing their own views of what they think those terms/qualities mean.

WHOA! Fine AF 🔥🔥🔥

ハナさんの考え方、生き方、感性、どこからどう見ても日本人だなと感じます、可愛い日本の女の子

Wait, who was her mom?!?

She's toting a heavy bag

She is really cool and I am impressed by her strength and ability to push forward despite her struggles and disadvantages. But I am a little sad about her answer about not wanting to look “black” by wearing braids. Reality is, she is black, but she is also Japanese. It seems like she embraces some aspects of black American culture, but not as her identity even though she is black. I say this as a mixed person as well, black and white.

I am one of the ones with the highest likes on your IG comment. This was highly anticipated as a Pacquiao/Mayweather fight. FAQ you for making us wait this long. But it was worth. Watching now.

Lol I’m from Ohio, I imagine it is very different than Tokyo but there are Asian immigrants and communities in the bigger cities like Cleveland. If you only spent time in the very rural and very white parts then yeah I get how boring that would be.

やば！そのらBoot campの話、聞いたことある！知り合いも喘息があったからの入れさせられてたの！！！

30:51 OHIO CLOUT

まいどありがとうございます。 ちなみに、初見ですが、「GBA」の意味を教えてもらえないでしょうか。答えられる範囲で。 「Gobierno de Buenos Aires」かと思って爆笑しましたが、違いますよね。

It was a cool and interesting video, but when it came to the race comments and cultural appropriation topic i knew it was going to be shaky. I just don’t get the comment about some japanese people wanting to be black, like that’s not something that should be accepted because if they really respected black culture then they would know what’s cool and what’s not . I kinda feel like the respect is a one way street because i bet if a black person was to find a problem with the embarrassing hip hop scene in japan then that respect would be thrown out of the window and they wouldn’t give a shit about what that black person had to say. Then she said she doesn’t wear braids because it makes her look black is weird but then in the same breath says that we should try to be open to japanese people cosplaying as black is hypocritical because if you don’t see yourself as black so how can u dictate if your/our culture is being respected or not. Also about the girl doing the braids and supposedly knowing about black history doesn’t make her a scholar in black culture but i could care less about what they doing in japan because i can’t go over there and stop them🤷🏽‍♀️ but this was just my two cents on the video.

"Lots of rules in Japan like don't wear perfume in a sushi restaurant". What I hate is men wearing sandals with no socks to sushi restaurants in the US. It doesn't make the sushi taste better.

her ⬛ definitely overpowered her 🍙 side

日本人の黒人に対する接し方も、黒人ハーフに対する接し方も、基本同じでしょうね。子供の時は興味本位が先に立ち、何も思わず口にだす。これは黒人に限らず外国人に関して同じ行動に出るでしょうね。外国人youtubeで同じようなコンテンツの動画を見ますが、日本は好きだけど外国の方がジロジロ見られないので楽だから、外国の方がいいという方もいますし、自分は地球人と言ってる方もいますし、これって「日本で生まれ育ったから」の共通点でしょうか？

匂いで気持ち悪くなる人もいるから禁止にするのは当たり前

日本語も変ですけど・・・

Stop now Japan..you have been warned.

What the hell is that?!