17 million yen in rent…! Interview at the luxurious “Aojiru Hills”, “Prince Aojiru” reveals his true financial situation.

I’m at a loss as to what to do with the money I’m making right now. Frankly, I have no use for it (laughs).”

Yuta Misaki, 34, who was interviewed in a room of an ultra-luxury condominium, commonly called “Aojiru Hills,” located in a quiet residential area in Shibuya, Tokyo, laughed as he said so.

Mr. Misaki’s “Sukkiri Fruits Aojiru” (refreshing fruit aojiru), launched in 2005, was an explosive hit, and he became the “Aojiru Oji” (Prince of Aojiru). In February 2007, he was suddenly arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of tax evasion amounting to 180 million yen.

When I was arrested by the Special Investigation Bureau, I was at rock bottom. I had never been so devastated in my life. All I heard from the world was ridicule. The world was crueler than I had imagined.

I started social networking to prove the truth. I don’t think I would have become a YouTube star without that arrest. That’s how big an event it was in my life.”

Misaki has since made a comeback as an influencer, but he says he faced a series of hardships when he first launched his channel.

I had to constantly upload videos, and sometimes it felt like an obsession,” he said. Now, thanks to the many ideas that come up at planning meetings, we don’t run out of ideas, but it’s still hard work to make videos. My current concern is the number of subscribers to my YouTube channel. The current number of subscribers is about 930,000, and I need 70,000 more to reach the one million mark. But that 70,000 is the hard part. When you get to this point, you have to attract a different audience than the one that originally got into the channel, and that’s where I’m struggling.

The resurgent Mr. Misaki has recently been frequently posting his celebrity status on SNS, where he rents out a three-story condominium building, “Aojiru Hills,” for approximately 17 million yen. In March of this year, she also published her first photo essay, “The Beauty of Earning Millions ” (Takarajimasya). How in the world does she make so much money?

Most of my income now comes from social networking and investments. I have invested in about 10 companies, and the cumulative sales of the companies in which I have invested exceeds 120 billion yen. The total amount of assets fluctuates constantly, but the majority of my assets are in stocks and virtual currency. Frankly, I am paid more as a businessman than on YouTube. However, my probation will be lifted this September, and I have not yet decided whether I will continue with YouTube after that. I would like to continue live broadcasting, but for the time being, I’m taking it easy and thinking about it.

One of the ways he uses the extra money he has is to travel abroad, which he enjoys.

I have been going abroad about once a month recently,” he says. Last month I went to India. I felt the unimaginable wave of people and the vibrancy of the country. It’s hard to say, since it varies from country to country, but I would say that the travel expenses for one trip are about several million yen. Even so, I can travel back and forth between New York and Japan about 100 times with just the points on my credit card, so it’s not easy to spend money (laughs).

Mr. Misaki has turned from a criminal to a millionaire. In the aforementioned photo essay, he describes his business secrets along with his photographs.

Recently, I have been asked by many young people, ‘How can I become successful like you?’ I wanted to answer that question, even if only a little, so I put my business attitude into words. My personal favorite phrase is “To do or not to do. It is simple, but I believe that business is all about this.

In February of this year, Mr. Misaki became a topic of conversation when he confessed on YouTube that he had lost approximately 1 billion yen in virtual currency.

It’s the biggest loss I’ve ever made in investing,” he said. But now I’ve recovered that amount with bitcoin. In the end, investments go through cycles, so I made it back by aiming at the right time when the price was going up. That is the amount of money I made the most from my investment. It really is like a roller coaster (laughs).”

Perhaps this vitality is the secret of Mr. Misaki’s success.