by Kazumi Kawakami

More people watch YouTube than TV these days. In fact, I am one of them. Recently, I was moved by a YouTube video that I saw on a channel called "JOE BLOG/Crazy Challenger" that I subscribed to. Its creator, Joe, is Japanese, and it was filmed in Japan.

Joe is a person who undertakes various challenges, such as undergoing training by a former boxing world champion to the point of obtaining a professional boxer license. I’m into watching boxing since witnessing the match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier on TV when I was a kid. That was one of the reasons why I subscribed to this JOE BLOG channel. Three years ago, he posted a video titled "What is Tenrikyo?" I was so surprised that I watched the video immediately. There, I found out that he actually studied the history of Tenrikyo, went to Tenri city on his own, visited the headquarters, and stayed at a followers dorm (tsumesho). The length of the video is approximately 35 minutes. Surprisingly, this channel has 2.43 million subscribers now. This video was posted in October 2023, and as of today (April 2026), 2.1 million viewers have watch this video. 

The content of the video was amazing. He studied well and was telling the honest truth about the goodness of Tenrikyo. He said that the reason why he decided to make the video about Tenrikyo like this was because he watched another YouTuber's video. In that video, a homeless YouTuber was asking for a place to stay, but everyone was pretending not to see him, and then someone walked up and said, "You can stay at my house," and he took the man to his house. When Joe watched the video, he was so moved that he contacted the YouTuber who made the video to find out who had taken the homeless YouTuber to his house. That person was a head minister of Tenrikyo church in Kyoto. Upon making contact, Joe was invited by the head minister to visit the Church Headquarters, stay at the dorm, and actually experience the city of Tenri. There were comments about this video such as "I had a prejudice against religions, but now I know there is such thing as a good religion," "I used to feel that Tenrikyo is a little scary, but now I see it's a warm and gentle teaching," "I now understand why Tenrikyo people are so kind," and so on.

I was so happy to see these comments. The man who is not a Tenrikyo follower made this video out of his honest feelings.  It all started when a head minister spoke kindly to a homeless YouTuber and took care of him. From that act, more than 2.1 million people so far have been sprinkled the fragrance of the Tenrikyo teachings.

Circumstances are different between Japan and the United States. However, we, Tenrikyo followers, want to maintain the attitude of always being kind and helpful to others. I believe that this attitude will lead to a "niogake" (sprinkling the fragrance of the teachings) like this video.

Link to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G2ZXhni3zM