Taiwanese YouTuber Zun says he paid JPY 700,000 for the original VHS tied to the Yaju Senpai meme

Taiwanese YouTuber “人生肥宅x尊,” who has more than 1 million subscribers, posted a video on Aug. 10 documenting his trip to Japan to buy a first-edition VHS linked to the internet meme “Yaju Senpai.” While the video title said he spent JPY 1 million, he later said in the closing segment that the actual amount paid was JPY 700,000, or about TWD 141,000. According to his account in the video, that price was 50 times the tape’s original JPY 14,000 list price from 25 years ago. The story gained traction in Japan more than a month after the upload. On Sept. 22, Zun shared Japanese online reactions on Facebook, including comments calling him “the Taiwanese person who owns a national treasure.” Some posts joked that Japan should buy back what they described as a cultural treasure that had ended up overseas. The report says the tape came from the 2001 Japanese adult video “真夏の夜の淫夢,” a four-part anthology whose lines and facial expressions later became source material for online remix culture, including memes such as “Yaju Senpai” and “114514.” The article also notes that a related repost on X drew 444,000 views, and that Taipei hosted a free “Yaju Senpai” themed exhibition from Aug. 15 to Aug. 30 this year.