[ JAPANESE / ENGLISH ]

Video_Teppei Okubo
Photos_John Patrick Finucane
Special thanks_Levi’s® Japan

 

VHSMAG (V)：　How was Seoul?

Aiki Arakaki (AA)：　It was my first time there, and unlike in Japan, people didn't really care when you're skating. The moment I arrived, I was pushing around and I was like, "This is gonna be good."

Kotaro Nakano (KN)：　I felt like, well, people are more relaxed than in Japan. They didn't really care about what people were doing. We did see "green peas" though (laughs).

Kaito Sagawa (KS)：　Yeah, they didn't really care.

Joshua Nishimiya (JN)：　I was there for almost a year in 2019 when I was skating for Heaps, and there was a period where I stayed there for three months, three times over. I knew a bit about Seoul, but there were more skaters and street culture fashion than then. The skate scene seems to have grown a lot since 2019. I was used to being there, but it's fresh again. There were spots all over the place and it was good.

Teppei Okubo (TO)：　There's a skate shop called Savour in Seoul and one of the riders there used to live in Japan and was a Shinyoko local. I got to know local skaters through him when I went to Korea before. They are all from the younger generation, but I heard some skate shop riders get paid 150,000 yen a month. It seems they support skaters well.

V：　How did you find spots?

TO：　A photographer from Ireland named John, whom I met last time I was in Seoul, sent me a private Google Photos link with nearly 700 spots. He's a total skate nerd and super serious when it comes to filming skating. There is less pressure to get kicked out, so it's more of a ‘skate it when you can’ kind of vibe. But John is super motivated, so when young skaters come from Japan, he really takes care. So I had the information from John and also from Joshua since he used to live there. It worked out.

JN：　Kaito knows quite a few spots too.

KS：　I was also visiting Seoul a lot around 2018-19. I even bumped into Joshua in Seoul. That was random (laughs).

V：　I ask this question every time, but did anything chaotic happen during the trip?

KS：　I ordered Red Bull vodka at a club and it was about 1,500 yen. I thought it was expensive but it was like a litre (laughs). I don't know how many we drank while passing them around together... Even though we were tired after filming till night, we would go out.

JN：　It was more like a mission (laughs).

V：　Kotaro was the youngest? Did you get in a crazy situation?

KN：　I couldn't go back to Airbnb the first night. I was drinking Red Bull vodka with everyone else, but when I realised there was no one around. Instead, there was this girl and I had my arm around my shoulder. She only spoke Korean. I was drunk, so I was like, "I want to close my eyes," but she just took me with her and we went to a hotel.

AA：　And you lost your wallet.

KS：　The next morning, Korataro was the only one who hadn't come home, and he called me at around 11am. He came back about two hours later and he’s like, "I found my wallet. It was on the hallway of the hotel (laughs)."

KN：　She paid for everything too. Since that was the first night, I was like, "This is going to be good." I wasn't used to drinking alcohol, but I was able to drink as much as I wanted. Then I went to the same club another day, and I was standing near the table where we were drinking Red Bull vodka, and that girl appeared in front of me again.

AA：　And he didn't come back that night again (laughs).

TO：　But what really impressed me was how easy it was to film in Seoul, and clubs were free. The days are long and taxis are half the price in Japan. If you can save money to rent a car two or three times in Tokyo, you can go on a three- or four-day tour to Seoul. It made me think about how strict street skating in Tokyo is today.

KS：　The tour lasted eight days, but we were only able to film for six days. But it rained from the morning on two or three of those days. It stopped in the afternoon, and while we were waiting for the ground to dry up, we went to spots under the bridge. So even in the rain, we were able to get clips. In Seoul, there's a big river called the Han River, so there are quite a few spots under the bridge. There’s a lot of rain spots.

JN：　Korataro mentioned "green peas." It was a guy with a shaved head and a green T-shirt, and he was just trying to stop us from skating. We got rid of him in the end, but as he was leaving, he said something in Japanese. Like, “You bastards.”

AA：　And it doesn't say "no skateboarding” anywhere. And yet he kept hating us and called the police.

KN：　But they never came.

JN：　I think the police didn't want to deal with him.

V：　So it seems like the filming went smoothly. Were you okay with the language?

AA：　I had no idea what people were saying.

JN：　But Kaito was speaking in Korean fluently. I was quite surprised. He was talking in Korean with the taxi driver.

KS：　I have the Test of Proficiency in Korean Level 4 (laughs). I took it when I was a university student. But it's level 4 (laughs). I can read Korean, so it's good that I know the names of places and so on. It would be tough if I only spoke English.

V：　What was your most memorable skate moment in Seoul?

AA：　Kaito's kickflip late shuvit. I saw it go down and I was like "What!?" It was the day when it rained and the ground was drying up, so we decided to leave the spot under the bridge. We got to that bank and it didn't take long at all to land that. It was really quick.

JN：　Super quick. Probably a few tries after the late shuvit.

KS：　It rained, it was cloudy and I wasn't really feeling it. But Joshua got a clip and I wanted to get something. That felt good. I usually need to catch the kickflip before I shuvit, but my board wasn't under my feet. I was a bit tilted but I rolled away. I was surprised. I also did a hardflip manual Bs 180 out at a spot called Sunae, but it took me longer than usual because of the rough surface. But then I did a frontlip nose manual line for fun, and did a frontboard biggerspin out. I was tired, so I just kind of tried it and got it in about three shots.

TO：　Everyone got their tricks pretty quick.

KS：　You can skate very relaxed because there are no kick-outs and no eyes around you. You don't have to think too much, and it shows in your skating.

 

JN：　We all have memorable moments, but Aiki's slappy shuvit out on the last day was memorable. That was the closing trick of the tour. Kaito did that biggerspin out and Kotaro pulled a nollie heel on a double set. I was super stoked.

AA：　And that was the very first nollie trick at that spot. The way he landed was sick too (laughs). Maybe he hit his tail on the last stair.

KN：　I was only looking at my board. I was like, "Oh no, I'm gonna hit my tail but I don't care. (laughs)" It's a nollie so I didn't know when to hit my nose since I was going super fast.

V：　How many tries did it take?

KN：　It didn't take more than 10 tries, maybe seven or eight?

TO：　That's one of the few spots where you get kicked out a lot. The last time I went there, the police came. So sometimes you need to wait for an hour or two after you get there. We wnet there late at night.

V：　So that trick is the most memorable for you, Kotaro?

KN：　Yeah. But Kaito's manual line was most artistic.

V：　Basically the filmer watches all the tricks. Teppei, what was it like filming everyone?

TO：　Actually, I first met Kaito when I was in sixth grade or something, so we've been friends the longest. When I started filming, I was working with the Newside crew, so this was pretty much the first time filming with him for a decent amount of time. So it was nice. As for Kotaro, that nollie heel was mind blowing. When you're filming in Seoul, you're going to be in a situation where the skaters are breaking spot records without even knowing it. As a filmer, that makes you very happy. I think of Aiki as a skater who combines creativity and bangers. I like that type of skater these days. The last slappy spot would definitely have Braille blocks if it were in Japan. The last time I was in Seoul, I heard from the locals that everyone was slappying it and falling on their heads. I was thinking, "It would be sick if Aiki tried this spot." We were able to go there on the last day. But Aiki rolled his ankle before we got there.

AA：　Yeah, my ankle wasn't in good shape and I couldn't flip my board. So I need to think of a spot where I can skate. Or try switch or nollie tricks. I wanted to go to that spot since the second day, but it ended up being the last day. But I'm glad everyone was there and I was able to make it.

 

TO：　Well, I want to do the best for the skaters as a flimer. Everyone got their tricks and Aiki is hurt so I wanted to take him to a spot where he can get a clip. I was happy to film Aiki's creative skating. As for Joshua, he was the one I started filming when I bought my first VX camera. Joshua was the first one where I provided clips for a skater or a company. That was during covid. I hadn't seen him at all because he was in Australia. It was nice because I hadn't seen him since then. It was really good that this brought us closer together again. Then there's Joshua's fashion sense. The du-rag and the Oasis T-shirt from Levi's®. I took a shot of it from below, and I was like, “Dope!"

V：　Finally, this was Levi's®'s third tour, what do you want to do in the future?

JN：　This is our first overseas edition. We're all hoping to go abroad again. I hope we can go to Europe.

AA：　When you're abroad, you often can't act alone because you can't speak the language or read, so I thought that because we all work together, we can get to know each other better. If I have the chance, I would like to go on another overseas tour with everyone.

KN：　I agree. If it wasn't for these guys, I might have been done on the first day (laughs). I think they helped me a lot.

KS：　It was a lot of fun and I want to go back to Seoul and other countries to film. After that, I think it would be fun to involve various skaters and have a Levi's® event in Japan.

TO：　If there's next Levi's® trip, I'd love to tag along again. Everyone killed it, so I hope you'll all enjoy the video.

AA：　Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I had a wet dream for the first time on this trip. I was just thinking about skateboarding, but I guess my body got horny while I was sleeping (laughs).

 

Levi’s® Japan
@levis_japan

Following the "Meadows" and "Hat Trick Tour," Levi's® Japan skate tours abroad for the first time.
Skaters: Kaito Sagawa (@kaito5agawa), Joshua Nishimiya (@joshuanishimiya), Aiki Arakaki (@_aiki.x_), Kotaro Nakano (@kotaraw__)