Yusuke Hamada, a 26-year-old fisherman from Shodoshima island, Kagawa Prefecture, has attracted more than 120,000 subscribers to his video-streaming YouTube channel.
His videos depict his fishing techniques as well as his culinary grasp of cooking up seafood as he goes about living his life as a fisherman on the small Japanese island in the Seto Inland Sea.
Now that his YouTube channel has taken off, Hamada said, "I want people to appreciate fish more and to make the attractiveness of Shodoshima widely known."
His video clips include such scenes as fishing Japanese butterfish under the scorching sun, grilling blue crabs for breakfast at a port, and up-close and personal reports of his dynamic way of eating and drinking on a day off in Takamatsu.
On his YouTube channel, "Shodoshima no Ryoshi Hamayu," he has posted about 160 video clips since May of last year. The most watched video clip has been replayed more than 900,000 times. In addition to his Japanese audience, his videos are also watched from the United States and Taiwan.
Fishing has long been part of Hamada's family. In fact, Hamada's family has been hooked on fishing ever since his great-grandfather took up the trade, making Hamada a fourth-generation fisherman. Hamada started fishing as a child when his father took him boating and fishing offshore. "I thought it would be a matter of course that I would become a fisherman," Hamada said.
After getting his own fishing boat and floating gill nets at the age of 23, Hamada became an independent fisherman.
Knowing of a YouTuber fisherman from Okayama Prefecture, Hamada began publishing his own videos with the idea of increasing his revenue stream through the online promotion of fish. With that in mind he sent some butterfish he caught to another popular YouTuber who was highly curious about the fish. When that YouTuber introduced the fish as "huge premium fish," the number of subscribers to Hamada's YouTube channel surged.
Hamada then started to upload more and more videos. Some of Hamada's clips show how he removes the blood from his catch immediately after hauling them in from the nets as well as videos of his family members falling into the ocean while cultivating seaweed. Hamada said his video clips attracted unexpected reactions from his audience such as "How time-consuming their work is!" and "It's no wonder why fish are expensive!"
Hamada said, "By letting people know more about fishing, I now hope that people will not only know me, but also recognize the value of fisheries."
In April, after the novel coronavirus pandemic caused the prices of marine products to plummet, Hamada produced a clip in which fishermen across the nation spoke up about their hardships. These clips that showed Hamada speaking with senior fishermen in shiny morning ports with crystal clear blue seawater were praised by his subscribers with comments like, "Time passes in a different way than in urban areas," and "These frank relationships are so heartwarming." Recently, there are many comments that say they want to visit Shodoshima when the novel coronavirus is contained.
Hamada has been keeping busy. He shoots video clips every two days. When doing so, he carefully adjusts the camera's position after each shot to make his fish look delicious. It takes at least three hours to make one video clip.
"The video distribution shows its effects with numerical figures, such as the number of clip replays," Hamada said. "This point is similar to fisheries where I can understand on sight a successful catch."
Hamada still has plans for the future.
"My goal is to raise the number of [YouTube] subscribers to 1 million," He said. "I want to show the attractiveness of the Seto Inland Sea's fish as well as Shodoshima to as many people as possible."
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