Thanks for letting me give something different a go everyone. This idea's been in my noodle for a while.

Spirited Away has so many liminal shots. Anime often does. The Japanese are masters of liminal horror because they’re living in it. 😵‍💫

This is why when I watch those "walk along" videos of Japan's streets, I feel like I'm clutching to onto the walker/cameraperson because I can't help but wonder "why"? They seem to know where they are going, but me? Just from watching the video I get the sense that I'm in an actual jungle rather than a city. At least Gaijin has been able to explain this is actually perfectly normal for someone like me who grew up in the Western world with a lot of space and need of a car to get around. I honestly don't get how you navigate around this type of urban layout. I like our grid-like layout. This is a space of waves.

Never been to Japan, but I've had similar feelings and dreams to yours, just about Mazatlan, Mexico. It's a medium-sized city, but outside of the commercial and coastal areas, downtown is cramped and maze like, but all of it surrounded by nature, like vines on the wall or trees growing through the sidewalk, not planted in a space for one, just growing up and out of the sidewalk. It's surreal, but calming rather than unsettling, making you feel like you don't know where you are going, but couldn't care less cause it's all so naturally beautiful.

As someone who grew up in Hong Kong and moved to the US, I felt the opposite; long streets filled with parked cars and houses gave me that sense of liminality.

I didn't think a gaijin goomba video would ever make me think "maybe it wasnt such a good idea to watch this in the dead of night" yet here we are This was such a good video, even if it awakened a primal unease and fear I never knew I had about liminal space. This was such a well thought out analysis that not only did it bring back the uneasiness i felt when in liminal spaces (apartment hallways, empty schools and malls at night) but made me understand why I felt unease in the first place Also the segment where goomba talked about dreams and nightmares freaked me out because now I remember having those same dreams too about places I've been to and it's just a freaky feeling of "holy crap it wasn't just me I think it was a byproduct of the plague" All in all this was a great video, i really liked it, keep up the great work, but I think japan vlogs have been ruined for me if not by a little bit

This video is very interesting to me. It also makes me question, "For a person who has traveled all their life, how would that same space feel?" For a person who uses landmarks to orient with, it would feel terrifying. Mirrors placed facing each other to create the feel of "eternity." Anyplace where someone can describe it as endless. Lost in the void sensation.

Though the modern use of the word liminal space wasn't used at the time, in my anthropological education, the whole liminal/transitional nature of Shinto and Youkai mythology was emphasized heavily (also we got to watch Spirited Away in class as apart of the Shinto curriculum, which was fantastic) that only now in do I realize how utterly rooted in liminal spaces Japanese Folklore is. It isn't just a modern phenomenon, liminality and Shinto go back a looong way. Starting with Torii Gates (shown in the thumbnail)) Torii gates are literal manifestations of it, being a threshold representing a gate-way between the mundane world and the spiritual world. To use a Ghibli example, Spirited Away relishes in the liminal feeling and non-places, from the bathhouse to the train to even the weird western style train station Chihiro and her family enters, of which Torii gates are used to signify Chihiro and her family wandering into those non-places in the spirit world. And in the folklore itself, Yokai manifest predominantly at the Omagatoki and Hinode, or the liminal space at dusk and dawn just before the sun rises and just after it sets, or the transient point between the states of day and night. On top of several Yokai who guard thresholds such as Komainu or Otoroshi on top of the sheer fantasy liminal energy that Torii gates are used to convey the feeling of transition of which the iconic image of a long-staircase in the woods leading to a Shrine at the top of a tall hill really helps embody. Shrines even though they are visited and tended to by countless people are intentionally built non-places as they are made to built not to be a home for a person,, but as a communion ground between two separate worlds. Which with this animist cultural context, helps... enhance the liminal feeling of rural Japan even more so. Given cultural and context can help tailor ones nostalgia and views of the world can really emphasize the uncanny feeling of being in nature. Having lived in the Sierra Nevada and growing up with tales of weird things in Yosemite, of Bigfoot, and all that, going into the woods became more unnerving with that folkloric/cultural context than the rational brain can really properly explain away. Being in such a non-place, it really does feel like a thing like Bigfoot could exist and appear and disappear into the aether and makes the countless stories of people vanishing in said places give a feeling of dread and isolation in the wake of it... but the moment you remove yourself from it that environment, rational brain reasserts itself, but that feeling never quite goes away. For me, I often have dreams of being in Japan, or even in places like Mecca or Russia, or the like and having a constant anxious dread of "I should not be here", "I do not belong here". A feeling I got from being in the woods as a kid, or being in a church as a mostly secular person or being at school after-school hours. That anxiety just really amplifies itself when you do go to a different place, unfamiliar to you and in Japanese folklore, heck, animist folklore in general, really emphasizes that fact of there being places that people do not belong in. And I imagine, with that cultural context and idea being grown up with...really provides a lot of insights into Japan's relationship with liminal spaces but in its folklore, and in its own modernity. Either way, I'm rambling now, but more to the point, I'd be very interested in a follow up video detailing how Liminal Spaces and Japanese Folklore are so intrinsically intertwined, be curious to see a learned and well-traveled man like yourself approach the subject. :)

I find it strange that such places made people uneasy. I find them rather relaxing and inspiring. Sometimes the empty space looks so full of possibilities. Sometimes it looks like the best place to stay at and not get bothered by anyone.

I never realized what a "liminal space" was, or that it's supposed to be upsetting or terrifying. I've always loved liminal spaces, and they fill me with a fascination that just wants to explore and wander. I don't need a destination, I just want to see what's there.

Kinda crazy how one man’s liminal space is just someone else’s everyday

This is really thought-provoking, and I love it.

One especially liminal time when I was in japan was when my dad and I were in hiroshima. Not only the vast feeling of shame and sorrow visiting the atomic bomb dome, but also riding the trolly late at night from the docks to our hotel. It was only us two in the train car and it felt so surreal seeing the tall buildings from below.

I was in Japan for two weeks. I don’t remember ever really noticing a sense of liminality, but that’s probably because I never travelled alone; we always had at least one local person with us who knew where they were going, and we were socializing while we travelled, be that on foot, by train, or by car/bus. But independent of Japan itself, I realized that… for me, travelling ANYWHERE is, in and of itself, liminal. The first time I ever rode on a plane I was no more than a month old. Thanks to mom’s flight benefits growing up, I’ve been all over my home country of Canada, as well as the US, the Caribbean… I’ve been to Costa Rica, the UK, Rome, and I spent two nights of layover in Paris - hell, those last two were the same summer that I went to Japan. I travelled three quarters of the way around the world, existed in three different time zones, over the course of less than fourty-eight hours! And no matter where I find myself, I just… carry on. Like I’ve never known anything different. When I arrive at my destination, it’s like everything else in the world just disappears for a while. When I get home, I slot back into my life as though I never left. It’s not a matter of memory, for me, so much as just… mindset. Disconnect and Reconnect. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone describe the feeling before today. Is it just a natural consequence of being able to travel so frequently, from such a young age? Of having all those “memory-making moments”… well before I was old enough to actually remember? Because I CAN’T remember them. I can’t remember much of anything before I was twelve - just snippets and flashes, most of them traumatic. As though *that place* took up so much space in my brain that everything from before that year, those childhood memories that I was supposed to have, got pruned right out of my brain to make more room. Most people tell me that their memories start somewhere around four, five, six years old. My earliest memory may be at six, but it’s only one. My next memory is at seven. Two at eight. Three at nine. Then the trauma happened, and I have a good dozen or two memories from that time. After that, eleven, one solid memory - again, a traumatic after-effect. Twelve, no more than four or five. My entire elementary school existence boiled down blurry scrapbook photos. I can’t remember any of the places we went to, before middle school. They didn’t survive the pruning. I remember stories that were retold after the fact - my mother loosing her sunglasses to that waterfall in Hawaii, visiting a butterfly garden in Victoria, taking my cousin to the Bahamas (she didn’t believe we were really going there until she saw the bright turquoise of the tropical sea). If I focus, I can imagine it - but only ever in those same stilted snapshots. Whatever was going on inside my head, back then… is that why travelling itself feels so liminal now?

When I first went over to Japan (1977 at age of 15), I saw the country with young eyes. It was an adventure for me. Yes, Japan was incredibly different from what I knew in the US, but that made the adventure all the more intense. Of course, it didn't hurt that I had a guide who explained everything to me and educated me on how to interact with people while I was there. I want to go back to the Hokkaido prefecture of Japan to retire in a few years. As for mountains with woods and not much around, I spent a lot of time in Beaver Dam, Virginia. This is the middle of nowhere in Virginia where there's not much but woods. Nearest "town" was Partlow, which at that time had one store, in a barn, and nothing else. You had to drive into Spotsylvania to start getting into civilization. I also lived in Absecon NJ back in the early 70s where it was (again) mostly woods. There was nothing close to us except a general store owned by our neighbors about a mile away. You'd have to drive to find civilization beyond that back then. That's my way of saying that maybe that's the reason that Japans mountain forests never gave me the same feeling they did you. I'm used to that kind of living. Of course, now I'm a city boy and really need my high speed internet or I'd go crazy. :)

Imagine if Gaijin could have visited Kowloon walled city. 😅

Wow. This was very interesting. I nice change from your usual content while still being on brand. Wouldn’t mind seeing more of this.

I love your video's Gaijin! ^w^ this one is so calming and made me sleepy. I love it so much ^^

this was fascinating, as a person who also grew up in america but in cramped cities most of the stuff he mentioned here seemed normal and not something that should bother anyone but yeah if you don't grow up in spaces like these I can see how this would overwhelm and even confuse more sensitive people especially if you don't have a natural sense of direction, this gave me an appreciation for my childhood and even the way I naturally perceive things

Keep on the good work with this kind of videos

Really interesting video and got me thinking. Japan almost celebrates liminal space, with the heavily shaped trees and lanscaping of gardens to artists like Yayoi Kusama, Shusaku Arakawa and colletives like teamLab Planets creating art and spaces that makes you feel off. Highly recommend visiting Site of Reversible Destiny in Yoro Park, Gifu. It was also interesting the difference between an American perspective and my own British perspective. The narrow winding streets feel more familiar to me than the grid perpendicular layout of American cities. All the streets look the same, no junctions are distinct, and all the buildings look the same. Always cool to see how perspectives are influenced by where we stand.

I've been going to Japan for years and i do notice this, specially Japan's subways, some of it looks like its abandoned but the lights are still on and with that weird yellow green tint.

Liminal spaces are always gonna be among my favorite topics! Thanks for sharing your piece on this! Would definitely love to hear more!

I visited Japan for the first time this year and I can understand where you are coming from. The fact that I was pretty nervous about flying alone for the first time was also probably a factor, but I sometimes had this eerie feeling when I walked the streets and especially the underground. It's a mix from everything kinda looking the same while looking very different, so you can't really take it all in and remember the way... I also got lost so many times ^^,

I remember as a kid getting lost in the Yellowstone Forest, it felt like I could have walked forever and never made it anywhere. what didn't make it any better was the fact that I wasn't wearing shoes and there was horse flies

Freakin’ love this website. Thanks, Mr. Sundman!

You absolutely nailed this video. I've been to Japan three times and to tons of different locations and sympathize with all your points.

congrats on 601K

I got the same feelings while being in Okinawa for a week. I remember going to the top of a multi-floor department store where a rooftop garden was set up, but nobody was there except for my spouse and I. This was even in places that had Ryukyuan influence, like the aquarium complex that a traditional village for display.

Your descriptions remind me of the story “The Town Without Streets” by Junji Ito. It’s the closest any fiction has gotten to replicating the kind of nightmares I have.

I like the transition from Goomba to tanuki. It's been a graceful rebrand man. Stay awesome.

Don't know why this video hasn't gotten more views, this was very interesting to watch

Oh this is a thinker video, I can't say I've ever felt like this but if I ever do go to Japan I'll definitely be on the lookout for this.

Great video. It's interesting for me, because I instinctively experience liminality and liminal space as a positive thing. Stepping out into nature, entering into a religious space and state of mind, or going outside of my normal feels liberating and energizing: the Door is Open, and I want to walk through it. At the same time, I can relate to the feeling of getting stuck in a liminal space. I'm not sure if my very positive experiences with liminal space are from a different definition of it (I see it as being more connected to possibilities and possible futures), or due to how common negative liminal spaces can be in some settings. Whatever the reason, thank you for sharing your experiences and perspectives on this. They give me a lot to consider :)

Hey Gaijin Goomba, it seems there's a new season of the show Takeshi's Castle and that got me wondering about what cultural influences the show has. In particular the Japanese interpretation of game shows compared to western game shows.

Surprised to see this kind of video on this channel.

Wow Guijin, just wow. But great job and video.

@20:07 To this point, there's a Japanese KZfaqr I watch named "Coupy Channel". They're a guy who travels around Japan in a Kei-camper van who also does reviews of products he uses, wants to use, as well as other campers on the market. I watch them as it feels cozy seeing Japan through their eyes and what places they travel too. Since he goes around Japan a lot, I end up seeing many places that would fit the description of liminal space. From various backroads, parking areas, and even viewing areas that are just devoid of people. Most of them feel chill and tranquil. But some of them, especially at night, have a tint of eeriness to them. It's quite something.

Thanks for sharing this, Gaijin. This actually helped me make sense of an experience I had at a Disney park some years ago. (For reference, I grew up less than a day's drive from there.) I remember being in a crowded park and yet feeling very alone and isolated. Here were all these people from around the world, yet instead of interacting for shared perspectives, we just all queued up to have our own individual experiences of manufactured nostalgia. I guess even packed theme parks can be liminal spaces. Also, question for you, Gaijin: did you poll any of your Japanese friends about their perspectives on this topic? As an anthropology major, I'm curious if any locals encounter similar experiences or if this is purely an "outsider" perspective?

I want to compliment you on the video effects for this video. However you feel about them, I think you used them well, and it even came off as quite artistic at times. I'm a sucker for slick editing.

I find it fascinating how you describe the horror of a subway station. I listened to your video and the first picture in my mind was that of Tartarus in Persona 5. I was unsure why at first but your describtion was spot on why Tartarus in that game was the way it was.

Such spaces have never put me off my ease... in fact, most of my dreams have me walking down Japanese shopping-arcades and video-arcades, or the rooms of the house of my maternal grandparents. No, my nightmares have me back in the Navy, working with no pay.

Live in Japan and Idk really why, but I think I like the liminal feeling. There's a lot about it that is a mix of old traditions and new concepts and for some reason thinking about how they got an ancient building or site to have modern plumbing and lights is fascinating. Or like you rent an old building for work or live in, but it's clearly had fixtures upgraded or new appliances added. I went to Awa Odori for Obon this year and before I went to festivities I went to the museum at Tokushima Castle and the garden is old timey style and beautiful, but in the background there's modern tall buildings. I guess that could be frustrating or unnerving for some, but I'd always liked it. I kind of think my response is because of my own background. I'm American, but I'm Asian American, and I've kind of always felt that my existence was liminal. Like I'm Asian, so some parts of society think I'm not American enough and I'm 3rd generation so I'm also real Americanized and not Asian enough. I'm not ethnically Japanese either, so I just kind of feel like it's more honest. I'm a foreigner and that's the truth. I don't fit in in either the US or where my family is from, so instead of choosing I went to a 3rd place and made a life there. I like being in a sea of other Asians and blending in as well as a woman as there's far less street harassment and cat-calling and random men thinking they're entitled to an opinion about my appearance. People leaving me alone and just passing by for the most part has been a comfort. I just like it here because I feel like it fits what I am and sometimes the traditional bits and modernity clash and it's a jumbled mess, but that's how I feel about my identity too.

FASCINATING video, dude!

I had a similar experience when I went to finland, since a lot of forest next to roads is man planted and either birch or pine. With just a long stretch of road and non discernable forest it felt really weird.

Dude thanks for sharing your experiences, I love to ponder this stuff. I've become one of the few liminal space enjoyers after some deep psychedelic trips! Try the manga Gantz and the games Race the Sun, Naissance and Antichamber.

Thank you... I had no clue what a liminal space was. Just gave me something new to write on. I greatly appreciate the inspiration.

Hi Gaijin Goombah! How are you doing today? I've been on a layover in Japan once and visited twice including once with my family and once with on a senior trip in high school as an international student. As good as I am with directions I got lost too. Also I felt at ease there being an introvert but my extroverted friends I don't know. Also the Kansai Region where I stayed around Osaka and Wakayama and Kansai in general had friendly extroverted Japanese people, so I really came out of my shell compared to where I was from.

8:16 I’ll go with you on this. When I walked back into the American airport after being in Japan for several weeks, it was hit with a little confusion like something was amiss. It took me a second to realize that seeing people of various skin tones and hair colors (even just natural ones) had thrown me for a loop because I had grown accustomed to the typical Japanese appearance you described

15:13 you can write a horror story from this

A very fascinating video, though it now makes me wonder how I would handle myself. Some of the pictures in this video you've shown of the cities makes me think of Copenhagen, lots of buildings clustered together.

As someone who grew up in a really mountainous and forested country I totally understand the vague nature of forests. It's a trope in horror for a reason. Still, I find pictures of forests incredibly relaxing. A picture of a forest covered in fog makes me think of home, and strangely makes me feel safe. I live in a very flat part of the US now and the vastness of the horizon makes me feel so uncomfortable. The buildings are too far apart and thanks can look abandoned at times. Strange how what one person doesn't notice sticks out to another like a flashing sign you know?

Interesting topic that I hadn't really given much thought to before, but everything you said makes sense. It might also explain why my head sometimes feels like I got spun around a couple of times when I enter certain spots, like empty hotel hallways. It has real identity for me to associate with.

Ahh this is fun! In that existentially satisfying way. Really neat application in a way I've never thought about a nation. I can definitely see streets and the like as liminal spaces. I've felt for the last several years like I've existed in a liminal state personally in the sense that I don't really fit into a single group and have a pretty loose sense of identity. My friend groups are disparate, I have little care for nationalism (I am Canadian though), and I rarely feel like I belong anywhere in particular. Love me some nature though. Don't get outside enough sometimes

Just watched this while staying in Asakusa on vacation and I absolutely agree. I noticed it especially when I went to Akiba and Shinjuku; I have been here a few days and am used to looking around and up to see everything, but in those places it was overwhelming. On the other hand, when I went to Meiji shrine and wandered around Asakusa, things felt much more comfortable, though with Asakusa I think it may be because Nakamise and the covered streets nearby had a more familiar design and layout.

I guess it has to do with how oblivious I can be to what's going on around me but I can not really think of a time where I was in a space that felt like how you were describing. I've gotten lost in the airport before but nothing about that made me uneasy or uncomfortable, I actually find airports quite cozy., I wouldn't sleep in one but that's more bc I don't want someone to steal my stuff not bc I'm uncomfortable. I am sorry you have been having to go through this tho and I hope it gets better.

I stayed in a small town in Hiroshima Prefecture some years back. It had this shopping center that was a small department store, stationary store, shoe store, dentist's office, snack stand, and supermarket. But the layout was like...smushed together? They had their different rooms/spaces but the dentist's office felt like it was just across the hall from an ice cream stand. It felt like I was in a dream that my mind pieced together and it made no sense (or maybe walking through spaces like that influenced how places looked in my dreams, kind of a chicken-or-egg situation).

This was a VERY interesting video! I really enjoyed it thoroughly and wouldnt mind more video essays like this. Also shoutout to SuperEyePatchWolf for making me genuienly fear Garfield for a while.

I definitely agree that nature can be a major source of liminal spaces as well. Forest clearings feel this way to me especially. Like there's some kind of invisible force present.

This was enlightening.

3:08 that's kinda nostalgic.... it's foreign yet it reminds me of the city at night.... I can't really describe the emotion I feel beyond nostalgia. ...and it takes a lot for single images to have a strong effect on me

still haven't been able to make my first trip over to Japan yet so I can't speak to how it feels there but have had very suffocating feelings about where I currently am in life that is in the US I think the best way to describe it is how Naota Nandaba from FLCL describe his home town and state of life "nothing amazing ever happens here When you're in a town like this all covered with smoke, you forget that there's a world outside. Nothing amazing happens here. And you get used to that, used to a world where everything is ordinary. Every day we spend here is like a whole lifetime of dying slowly"

It would probably feel cramped to me too. But I had the opposite feeling when I visited Canada coming from Europe. Hardly any building had more than two stories, the whole city was sprawled out around me. It made me feel very small and tired me out because I was so used to walking everywhere 😅

My experience living in Japan felt very different, so I'm fascinated by your account. I'm wondering if some of our reactions to such spaces come from how we sense direction and space. I have something like a minimap in my head, but my brothers get lost without sequential directions and play 3D games by looking at the minimap with the rotation turned off. I wonder if the way I sense space causes me to assign "place-hood" to more spaces, thus fewer trigger that "liminal creepiness". I often recognize layouts of areas in my dreams as memories of places from my waking memory, reskinned, like the same cast of actors putting on different costumes for my dreams. When I lived in Japan, most neighborhoods and spaces felt nostalgically comforting; I thought it due to seeing such scenery in anime. I got lost in its winding and unlabeled streets, but I never felt helpless doing so. In those enclosed subway mazes, I was reminded of the dungeons in Zelda II - a game to navigate. It could also be due to our homes or personal experience. When I found myself in a farm field outside a town whose name I forgot, I got teary-eyed with nostalgia, but something that creeps me out is vast, open fields of featureless mowed grass, which I'm likelier to find in the US countryside. No landmarks and a personal association with cultural isolation. It could be that my home in forested hills resembled many of the places I visited in Japan, and thus felt comforting; while someone used to open, flat land would feel beguiled or crowded in such places. My unpleasant "lost" dreams are hearing the school bell and not knowing which class I should be in, or trying to find the right bus line to visit a fun store, and I think those are dependent on recurrent trials with time schedules and transit routes from different times in my life. Likely, your dreams were the same, but a different struggle.

Great video.

The picture of the random pole in the street still freaks me out.

This was a great video, but not one that I really share. Perhaps because i only had 1 experience in Japan. I also tend to do a lot of hiking in forest trails and liked to jog around Soshigaya when i stayed there. Since my reading wasnt on point, i navigated with landmarks like when I hike on trails. I also don't find horror in liminal spaces. I find them to be more freeing, like the feeling of wanting to run through them as one would an open field. I even have a lot of memories of train stations themselves due to solo travel. I could absolutely identify a picture of the stations as shibuya, harajuku, shinjuku, ueno, soshigaya, and yotsuya.

Hey is that Yume Nikky ost? Niceee

I've noticed Aisles & Walking spaces in shops in areas with dense immigrant populations have tightly packed narrow walkways too. This coming from my somewhat limited visits to such shops in Denver's "Little Vietnam" & Sakura Square the remanent of Denver's "Little Japan" area & such areas in a trip to NYC. I've noticed the photos you posted are clear of any murals, & graffiti, thus clear of any personally CLAIMED space & history. So weirdly CLEAN.

When everything is a liminal space, nothing is.

8:34 I had a similar feeling but to a lessor extent going from the countryside of my home to New York City, essentially on the street or trains.... it was quite overwhelming. But when everything slowed down it was different.

@11:53 It makes SO MUCH SENSE NOW! I keep wondering WHY I'm so comfortable in a mall but so ANTSY at the airport! This is WHY!

I haven't had much experience with liminal spaces, I've been in an airport a few times and a mall a couple. I have however given them some thought cause the few experiences I've had with them have felt weird. Liminal spaces, or as I've seen them described before as "in between places", feel off much like an art piece that hits the uncanny valley. It's unnerving, and feels like a place that doesn't, or shouldn't exist, a place that mimics being a place without actually being a place. The halls between mall shops aren't a place, they are a connection between places, you don't linger there because it isn't somewhere to be, if you do linger there it is real easy to feel unnerved as the locations blend together into rows upon rows of generic, near faceless store fronts.

In some way, I kind of understand what those nightmares must feel like. When you live in a foreign place for a long time and not go back to that place for and even longer time, you have this fear of things changing without knowing if those changes are real or not. Dunno much about living in urban japan cuz I lived in rural japan, but I get that fear of thinking you know that place when there's so much more hiding in plain sight. Even now, I don't remember what Isahaya looks like anymore. And the only way to know for sure is to go back there. But who knows when I'll ever get the chance to go back...

I've recently moved to the Isle of Man. It's a tiny island that has some similarities to what's described in the video. Tiny roads that are two way, especially the 'mountain roads'. I'm originally from the US and I've been to other parts of the US, even lived in a few places for years, but nothing compares to the surreal nature of being here, like actually being here. I've visited before but moving recontextualizes everything. In the US, I would get around in a car and I always expected travel times to long. Now, I take the bus (mostly because I need to get a new license). It is strange to think that 15 mins gets to the next town over or even two towns over. There is some planning necessary to get to certain parts of the island simply because the bus routes are fairly fixed and don't really overlap. Combined with the fact that the bus could never go on these 'mountain roads' even if they were converted to one way, makes my whole way of thinking change. I can't just hop onto the express way and go wherever. Even walking can be strange because I'm used to wide sidewalks or at least a wide street if you end up on a side street. Something to keep you out of the road and feeling somewhat safe. There are roads where the sidewalk just stops. There is no room for you to continue to walk. You would be in the street and it's a tiny narrow street. You have to go to the other side or follow a public path to go down and around to get to where the sidewalk starts up again. Even the idea of a public path freaks me out. Some public paths go through people's property but the law says that you can walk that path! It's a whole different mindset and set of 'norms' that I have to adjust to that are very foreign. I can only imagine going to a place that speaks another language and has very different road signs. A few of my family members visited me and they finally understood some of what I meant by 'it just feels different'. I'm used to crowds in the US but being here, it's a complete change. People say hi and acknowledge you. It's not overwhelming. Being the only two people on a bus at 10pm is just wild to me. It is clearly a place that was built for an age long gone and most of the island is like that. It's not like they can change it either because what are you going to do, move the historic castle to make the road bigger? Being here, I am amazed when I see a house that's not connected to another one. I've gotten used to the natural sounds and not hearing cars and people constantly. I've had a few moments where I've seen groups of teenagers especially and they all look the same, even if they aren't in their school uniform. That still kind of freaks me out so I definitely get what Gaijin is talking about when your brain thinks that it's glitching out because your brain is telling you that you are seeing and hearing the same person 20 times over. XP It's all just different. I love it here and I'm definitely more relaxed here but I do notice that it's different.

sounds like my friend's house, even his bedroom is liminal.

When I was in my mom's home town of kiryuu, only the kokudo main roads had name signs. You literally need to describe roads relative to things; the alley by the dentist goes to family mart. Across from murata san's home is the road that goes so and so. Even the locals don't know which road is 4chō and 6chō, but they know what store is on 6chō, and since that's a block south so by subtraction we must be around 4chō. I at least agree with you that a majority of japan is filled with liminal spaces, although I think they're slowly being eliminated.

I've lived there for a few years as a JET as well, and when I got to Tokyo for the 1st time, it was overwhelming for sure. Definitely a little head spinning. Though I've never liked big crowded city areas, so I tried avoiding the big cities as much as possible. Once I settled into my new home, I did continue to feel that closed off claustrophobic feeling with the narrow streets and closely placed buildings stacked next to each other like dominos, but I got used to it and came to appreciate how close everything was. I'd spend a lot of time exploring in my 1st few months in the country and bought a bike within the 1st month to help with that. So with time I just biked and walked everywhere. I kind of tried avoiding using the subways and trains cuz I preferred traveling on foot. SO I guess I kinda missed that closed off feeling of the subway stations. The stations in Tokyo tho... always hated going thru them.

Super eyepatch wolf's piece on why everyone should read berserk had me in tears, no lie.

OH MY GOD I can attest to this! I've been to Japan twice (a third time coming soon) and even with my Maps app on (both Apple AND Google) it was still easy to get lost because everything looked and felt the same! It ended up frustrating a friend of mine as we tried to find someplace we were trying to get to but the Maps app kept rerouting us. It was wild.

I've been to JP pre-Covid. Whenever I look at the pictures I took at Osaka during early morning, I can't help but feel they look like really good 3D renders

I'm somewhat afraid that I don't understand the thought of liminal spaces, but I'll try to answer from what I felt about the location as best I can remember as compared to the images you shown. None of the places I visited really drew much emotion in terms of fear or even nostaliga. To me, they were either completely new places I had never been too with, at best, a faint memory of something being somewhat similar from a manga, anime, or video game. The one and only exception that I can think of is the main Kyoto station and the stores underneath as it seemed like a mall that never ended and nothing distinguishable about it, all the while there was apparently a grocery store but I couldn't find anything in it like a bag of chips or something like you would at a Wal-Mart. As to why I didn't have any issues, my best guess is that I had so little to compare it to. The only city I can think of that I walked around on foot was New York City, every other city I'm usually getting around by car and I never lived in a city to where I could easily walk to most places. Another possibility is that I relied a ton on Google Maps to get around until I became familiar with an area or otherwise paid little attention when I was following someone else. A third possibility is that I've traveled the US so much growing up that going some place kind of "off" didn't bother me. That or the fact that I've only been to Japan as part of a 2 week vacation instead of actually living there is making the difference, I'm not sure. I will say that after I got back, I do get odd feelings of nostaliga when in VRChat and I see a small shrine, much akin to what I felt with the picture in @00:53. I know there is a world with a large shrine, but that invokes nothing, only the smaller worlds that have a tiny shrine in them get something out of me. And you didn't ask, but I'll broadly share my dreams. I rarely get dreams where I'm in Japan again, but those I do get have been pleasant as I dream about being back at a temple, admiring the architecture, or seeing the Nara deer again in one case. The last one I had was that I had to go back to Japan due to some paperwork issue and was debating about buying a replica Master Sword at some small, random shop. The worst were when I was dealing with jet lag with one dream having me with my travel group again in a Japanese train station, figuring out what station we needed to get to. We were the only people there, yet the hallways were cramp and narrow. I didn't really feel terror though, just completely confused when I woke up (which I've been told is normal.)

Completely agree. My brother and i (6'2" and 6'5") just got home from Tokyo and between all the small places (like bathrooms), lack of places to sit and constant escalators, it really felt like we never left the airport. We had a great time, and even met the game grumps randomly on our trip back, but i was really happy to get back to America. To your point about liminality in the people, i can absolutely see what you mean. The few real interactions i had with them were always very nice, but outside of that everyone really keeps to themselves. People rarely talk on subways and it was a breath of fresh air hearing some 20-something guys talking, or some English speaking middle school girls laughing amongst themselves to contrast the silence. I like the country as a place to visit, and genuinely think they have figured a lot of things out. That said, when I visited alone for a week 5 years ago, the apathy was oppressive and left me depressed quite often while i was there, and in those moments i saw how the suicide rates could be so high over there. Theres an unspoken pressure exerted on you from society that can really take its toll.

I used to work in a hospital as a porter and that got deeply unpleasant as it got later. The lack of people in pristine corridors, the unnatural cleanliness, odd industrial objects in places where you expect people to get better. Sure, it was also a place where unfortunately people died but that was the nature of the job. I'm sure it didn't help but even saying a body didn't induce that feeling. I live in the UK and we don't get the same issue. Plenty of landmarks to get around (usually a pub 😅)

I have had odd liminal space experiences ever since I was a child, I simply had no idea until now that this feeling had a name.

This definition of liminal describes ALL of human reality to me. This is just my every day. That schema concept is completely foreign to me regarding places found in real life. I can only recall experiencing that kind of thought process while I am gaming.

My mom’s from Kochi, she’s lived here in Omaha for nearly twenty years. We went back to visit her dad’s grave and she knew exactly where to go. It was very eerie to my 15 year old mind.

I dream almost exclusively abour empty spaces that don't exist but are built at least partially off off of a memory or something. Makes me wish I knew how to paint backgrounds more. I remember most of them so vividly. And yeah! I've had my share of dreams that take place in forests. I can only imagine how much being exposed to how other cultures organize their spaces can fuel that into complete overdrive.

Hearing super eye patch wolf as one of the first things in this video was very surprising but welcome

I went to Japan through a college program years ago and am now just realizing the odd feelings it brought up. Compared to cities I'm use to like Boston or New York, Tokyo just made me feel dizzy, similar to but not the exact same as feeling lost. The fact that I could be lost even though I had a set path I'm now realizing was that sense of Liminality.

I sometimes have this feeling when I visit the UK. This usually happens when I'm tired, but the hedges that block visibility to the fields beyond in some places can be kinda eerie if you're not running at full capacity so to speak.

15:45 The pandemic definitely harmed my memory of normal life but I stayed in the same country most of my life.... These descriptions are terrifying.

On this subject, I recommend everyone watch call of the night. It gives makes me feel all the great parts of liminal spaces in the most relaxing way.

Speaking of nightmares. I kind of having this common Dreams/Nightmares about a nameless town that is kind of a mix of real places, fictional places from game/comic/etc and thing I never seen before. And it was consistent as in when I have dream about this "town" it's always the same

I absolutely HATE liminal spaces. I always have but I never knew the reason why or the way to describe them until people started talking more openly about what a liminal space actually is. I was stationed in Japan back in 2016 and while I was immensely excited to be there I also found it terrifying to go off base and explore the cities on my own. I just assumed it was due to the fact that I didn't speak the language and was worried about getting lost. However, when you mentioned the whole difference in perception of space in America versus Japan it all kind of clicked as to why I had such a hard time just going down the street to the local train station. Liminal spaces make me feel extremely trapped and now I finally have the words to describe the existential nightmare of looking around and seeing nothing but endless winding streets and passageways that look identical and feel like they lead nowhere. I eventually got over it as I grew more accustomed to travelling in Japan and I wound up having a great time there. Still, I don't like liminal spaces but at least now I can understand them better thanks to Super Eyepatch Wolf and you of course! Thanks for that!

I think there needs to be a distinction drawn between the Liminal and the Sublime, because while they are similar, they are different. The Liminal deals exclusively with artificial spaces, while the Sublime deals with natural ones. The Sublime is the realization of how much bigger nature is than you. It's that dread that hits you when you realize that you're lost in the woods, away from civilization. It's the moment when you scale a steep cliff on a mountain and realize there's no one around for miles to find you if you fall and hit your head. Liminality is a man-made phenomenon, where things that seem familiar are suddenly strange. Where a place that should have people in it doesn't. Liminality is when our pattern recognition throws us for a loop, whereas the Sublime is when we are overwhelmed by the wild

honestly listing to you describe the nightmares makes me glad i dont dream much

Went to japan recently, and yes i have to agree with you on this. There were countless times of just walking around and thinking is this place even real. Walking into the many buildings in Akihabara, going up the many floors was very disorienting. It was a great experience overall but did have these weird feelings of unease allot of the time.

Most of the images of liminal spaces i see, i either get a desire to explore the area or think it would be a sick place to skate. I think it would be pretty fun to explore a place like japan with its maze of streets

3:38 So my question is how do you know this is marked for cars? Because I think that looks like a bicycle road, but I can't read Japanese and lack context clues from anything outside frame.