The Japanese YouTuber Who Fell in Love with the Chilean Suit and Opened a Store to Sell It in His Hometown

Yuma Ogihara (32 years old), known on social media as Japonesito Yuma, is a youtuber Japanese passionate about travel, but also about tasting the culinary delights of each nation he sets foot in.

All these trips and gastronomic experiences are presented in his Youtube channel where today it has a loyal community of more than 63,000 subscribers from different countries.

During his stay in Chile, he dared to try all the foods recommended by his followers: sopaipillas, empanadas, pastel de choclo and even mote con huesillo. However, nothing captivated him as much as the complete Italian.

His passion for this dish is such that on July 10, he decided to launch a full restaurant in his hometown, Kyoto. He named it “Eleven” in reference to the traditional Chilean snack served in the middle of the afternoon.

“For me it was a challenge, because for some time I wanted to create my own company. Here in Japan there are no wholemeal ones, but for me it is a delicacy and others must also know how to eat wholemeal ones” Yuma tells La Tercera.

Since his university years, Yuma has shown an interest in learning Spanish. He decided to go on exchange to Spain to be able to speak the language, however, upon returning to Japan, he realized that it was a bit difficult to continue at that pace because he couldn’t practice with other people.

“After five or six years, I returned to Spain to continue learning and living in the country. I wanted to stay for more than a year but because of Covid, I couldn’t,” he explains. This same desire to improve his Spanish even more pushed him to open a YouTube channel during the pandemic.

In September 2022, the influencer dares to take on a new challenge in his life: He left his native country again and went to live in Iquique, in the Tarapacá region. He stayed there for about 10 months, working in used car sales.

Yuma remembers that time fondly because it allowed him to learn more about Chilean culture and its gastronomy. However, he also assures that living in Iquique was not easy because he did not have as many friends as in Santiago and Concepción, cities he visited on several occasions.

After finishing his stay in Chile in July 2023, Yuma embarked on a long adventure through countries in Europe and Latin America, where he took the opportunity to continue tasting the typical foods of each region to record them and upload them to his platforms.

But in February of this year, after the long trip, he felt tired. “I had to ask myself whether I would continue to make videos in Japan for YouTube or whether I would work more or less permanently in a company. Ultimately, I wanted to do something more fun and more challenging,” he says.

This is how the idea of ​​entrepreneurship was born for a complete “once”. Each of these sandwiches costs 600 yen, or just over 3,500 Chilean pesos.

Although the YouTuber acknowledges that there are many differences in the culinary tastes of Chileans and Japanese, he believes that so far the reception of the full versions has been positive. “Almost everyone liked it a lot. In Japan they also eat avocado, tomato and obviously bread, but in a less complete way. You eat hot dogs, so it’s not that different,” he says.

Yuma also identified that there is a detail that the Japanese appreciated in wholemeals: that the avocado is “very creamy” because it is ground.

“We simply cut it and put it on the salad or with tuna. We don’t eat it directly, with bread like in Chile,” he says. Another detail that your guests will notice is the explosion of flavors from the combination of avocado, tomato and mayonnaise.

When the establishment opened, his friends dared to taste the popular Chilean sandwiches. The reactions of each of them were recorded in two videos that Yuma shared on Youtube which already has hundreds of visits and comments today.

Shortly after his videos were released, several Chileans living in other parts of Japan assured him that they would soon be eating their suits in Kyoto.