As a way of welcoming in 2017, Joe, a popular Japanese YouTuber uploaded a video to his channel (Joe Blog), featuring him jumping into Osaka’s Dotonbori River while wearing a gorilla costume.
Every
year thousands gather along the Dotombori River in Osaka to ring in the
New Year and of those thousands there are always a few that when the
clock strikes 12, jump into the river in what some call a “New Year’s
dive” (toshikoshi daibu). According to J-Cast News,
approximately 60 people jumped into the river 2 years ago in order to
celebrate the start of 2015. Unfortunately, amongst these roughly 60
people there was an 18-year old Korean man that drowned and died.
Because of incidents like that authorities warn against diving into the
river but people still do it.
This
is the second year that Joe has done this but the first year that he
did it in a gorilla costume. The temperature that night was about 3 °C
(37 °F).
