(Natsuki): Hello everyone.

(C): You are the most amazing people in the world.

(N): You are... Amazing people... What?

(C): In the world. (N):--in the world.

(C): You are better than sunshine and chocolate stuffed together.

(N): You are...bet...on...sunshine and chocolate together!

(C): We look forward to making lots more videos next year.

(N): We looks mostly next year... Together!

(C): Have a fucking good Christmas.

(N): Have a fucking gulf Christmas.

(Laughing)

(C): Fucking gulf?

(C): ...And a Happy New Year.

(N): And a Happy New Year!

(C): Love, Natsuki.

(N): Love?

(N): Love, Natsuki!

(C): Oof. (N): Move? (C): That felt wrong.

(N): Have..have a wrong.

(C): No, stop saying what I'm saying!

(C): God's sake.

(N): Yeah, thank you!

Some wonderful words from Natsuki there.

And I do hope you guys all had a fucking gulf Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's now officially 2017 and I've already begun drawing up my New Year's resolutions.

One new year's resolution I have at the top of my list is to be more grateful, more appreciative of the things around me.

Because as a British person I tend to always focus always on how shit everything is.

You know, a British person just looks at this

convenient portable multicolored thought-scribing tool and just sees a pen that isn't good enough.

Bleh!

And so before we plunge into 2017 I want to first look back and realize that

for this channel, 2016 was actually a pretty good year.

For many years now, lots of viewers have been asking me to make an end-of-year highlights video.

And, this year I have finally given into the peer pressure and decided to actually go ahead and do it.

Thousands of people took part in the questionnaire in December, sending in their favorite moments and highlights

from the 40 videos we released in 2016.

And so here they are the top 10 bestest moments of this channel in 2016 as voted for by you guys,

and ranked in order of... goodness...

Yeah...

Fantastically tedious and arguably the crappiest video ever made by humans.

In January this year I went out and bought some McDonalds limited edition chocolate fries,

and filmed myself eating them for 2 and a half minutes.

Double choco sauce. Because one chocolate sauce simply isn't enough.

The next morning I awoke to find the video had got 400.000 views.

And such was its importance to the general public.

Choco fries had featured everywhere, from the Gaurdian newspaper to some over excited people in a room in America.

(Broadcaster): Chris Broad from the YouTube channel Abroadin Japan reviewed it.

(Broadcaster): So he got his fries.

(Chris): Double choco sauce.

(Chris): The salt on the fries doesn't overpower the chocolate.

(Broadcaster): Looks like Chris likes the concept, he does he gives it a 7/10.

Almost a year later I still don't know why people enjoyed this video and why people voted have it featured on this list.

And for a time, strangers on the streets of Tokyo would even approach me and refer to me as the "Chocolate Fries Guy".

And quite honestly, it's the only video that I've ever made where I genuinely felt bitter about its success.

Fucking chocolate fries.

Ah, I finished it. That was quick.

(Chris' date): This is the worst date ever.

(Chris): Yeah, yeah, yeah, just hold the camera.

There are some places you shouldn't go on a date

and the Aokigahara forest, also known as the suicide forest, is probably one of them.

Passing through the area on the way back from Mount Fuji, I decided to take my date on an unplanned stroll through the forest.

And thus ensued an awkward few hours and a pretty unpleasant and creepy atmosphere.

(Chris): We went off the path a little bit and that's not a good idea given how dense it is.

It's quite easy to get lost.

I won't lie, I have always been annoyed by the way the forest has been exploited over the years.

And this video was kinda making a comment on that.

One visitor described the silence as "chasms of emptiness".

Chasms of emptiness!

She added: "I cannot emphasize the absence of sound, my breath sounded like a roar".

Huh, someone just liked my picture on Instagram!

But as per usual, went completely over the heads of many viewers and I was branded a "wankpuffin".

For talking about Harry Potter and Earth Wind and Fire whilst in the forest.

Whenever I feel a bit uncomfortable or on-edge

I really want to play a song like... "September" by Earth Wind and Fire.

Because for some reason that's offensive.

And some people were equally disappointed that I wandered through the forest without trying to find a dead body or an abandoned tent.

Like you're supposed to

if you're cool and adventurous.

Above all though, it really just was a tedious day in an over-commercialized forest.

It says here: "You may not be able to call for help, as the forest is rich with magnetic iron."

"But some believe this feature is proof of demons in the dark."

Who writes this stuff?

At number 8 is the Akihabara Ramen Challenge when Natsuki and I battled to the almost death, but didn't die.

To finish a mountain of ramen in 30 minutes.

For 10.000 yen at stake and our pride on the line, there was everything to play for.

I won't spoil who won, but suffice to say, one of us got completely destroyed.

And to top things off Natsuki also me gave a brand new nickname.

And one which I am not particularly enthusiastic about.

Say hello to Mister Snuggles!

Look at that!

He practically oozes charisma!

In a desperate bit to increase the number of subscribers to the channel,

I discovered the secret of success on YouTube is to stick an animal in your videos.

And to my delight, the animal didn't even have to be real.

Enter Mister Snuggles!

A charming little stop-motion cat who walks around the apartment and knocks bread out of my hand.

Since his debut, Mister Snuggles has increased audience engagement on the channel

through hundreds of extra comments,

thousands of extra likes

and an actual genuine increase in subscribers by about 15 percent.

It's just a shame he bears a worrying resemblance to Hitler.

Something I didn't even notice until about 10 minutes after I'd uploaded his first video.

Bugger.

I don't get any hate-mail these days; everyone loves this channel!

The Abroadin Japan brings joy and laughter to thousands all around the world.

"Your humor is so bad it gave me depression"

What?

At number 6 the highlight is you! The viewer!

Or at least... The not so nice ones.

"This guy is so fucking gay, why does Japan attract bottom of the barrel white guys?"

Ah, for f-- come on now...

I'd like to think that I am at least middle of the barrel.

One of the benefits of being a YouTuber are the comments thrown at you from people all around the world.

Who don't enjoy what you're doing.

"Hate British Joke"

"'Your hair makes me depressed... Why can't mine fly so good"

Unfortunately though they're surprisingly rare, although here's hoping we get more hate in 2017.

Because it's always jolly good fun exploiting people's bitterness and stupidity for entertainment purposes.

"just go somewhere, anywhere. get out of your silly country and expand your little mind"

(Natsuki): Go fuck yourself!

If you're visiting Japan, one of the must-do things is visiting a Japanese hot spring, and this year, for the first time, we were able to capture two on camera.

I'm making them sound like animals, they're not, they're just puddles of water.

(Chris): We're in the mountains, I'm not even sure where we are, to be honest.

But I can spend all day sort off sat in here.

Hot springs or onsen as they're known in Japan are notoriously difficult to film in.

But we were lucky to get permission to go in and film in them. In full high definition video.

Although to be fair, the sound quality could've been better.

Whilst it's not easy to capture the relaxing atmosphere of a Japanese hot spring on camera,

we gave it a bloody good try and we almost dropped the camera in the water in the process.

But it was worth it!

And whilst I was passing through the underwear section, a questionable brand of underwear caught my eye.

Namely "Black Man" underwear.

After stumbling across some questionably branded underwear on a shopping trip.

I decided to dedicate the rest of my day to travelling around in search of bizzare Engrish.

Or Japanlish, depending on what you want to call it.

And we didn't have to try particularly hard to find it.

One of the shops caused me some concern though.

There was a discount children's clothing store called "Starvations".

Starvations...

Again, I don't know what compelled them to use that as their name.

Honestly, it's one of the bonuses of living in Japan or even Asia.

And I plan to dedicate more time in 2017 to uncovering some more linguistic gold.

For example: above the section for sashimi, for raw fish, there's a drawing of a girl saying: "I think I fit well in sake. Please daddy!".

You what?

Hey guys, it's ya boy Chris here!

Back to buy a sandwich from Lawson which is like a big room where you can buy things and take them home.

I'm gonna show you!

After receiving some criticism from a friend who thought my videos weren't energetic and happy enough,

and after watching some other vloggers, realizing how I was doing it all wrong,

I started vlogging in the correct way.

Haha! Oh my god guys! Monkey basketball!

Look at this monkey!

Some viewers assumed I was poking fun at vloggers like Casey Neistat who I actually quite like.

But it was more of a satirical take on many self-absorbed vloggers

who deliver nothing of real value to viewers whilst lacing their videos with over-enthusiasm and bullshit quirky timelapses.

And above all I felt frustration at YouTube as a platform for actively promoting these fucking shit videos in my YouTube news feed all the time.

With gossipy, clickbait titles and misleading thumbnails.

It's not what I wanna see and it really annoys me.

Still, that sandwich was good though!

I don't know what's in it but it's probably the best sandwich I've ever had! Haha! Ah... I wanna kill myself.

When a friend got me access to film in a love hotel, I could never have imagined just how spectacularly mental some of the rooms were going to be.

From some sort of disturbing Teddy bear cave

(Laughing in disbelief)

(Chris): This is terryfing!

to a random hole where you can sit in and have a mental breakdown.

It was all a pretty bizarre, crazy experience.

This is...

I am having a bit of an existential... fucking... crazy moment.

The video went viral and even ended up in the UK's Daily Mirror, who accused me of uncovering Japan's saucy secret.

Making me look even more seedy than usual.

This is certainly one of the best videos out on this channel in 2016 and definitely worth a watch to understand what goes on behind closed doors in Japan.

(Chris): Let's play sex.

You can have so much fun here.

At number 1 it's the unanimous highlight of the year as chosen by you guys.

Having moved into a tiny new apartment in Sendai,

I invited Natsuki over where we held his montly English lesson.

And by English lesson I mean pointing at various crap in the apartment and asking Natsuki to give the English word.

(Natsuki): Refrigerator? (Chris): Refrigerator. (Natsuki): Refrigerator!

(C): Nice one.

The situation quickly got out of hand with Natsuki incorrectly guessing items in English.

And re-branding various household items.

(N) Electric...

(N)...Box...

(C): Electric box! Uh, no, microwave!

(N): Microwave?

(N): Microwave??

But his greatest mistake couldn't have been much worse than it was.

(C): Oh yeah, what's this in English Do you know?

(N): Cleaner?

(C): Not a cleaner.

(C): Vacuum cleaner.

(N): Eh?

(C): Vacuum cleaner--

(N): Fucking?

(Laughing)

(N): Cleaner??

(C): Vacuum!

(N): Facuum?

(C): Va-- (N): Facyuu??

(N): Fa..fa..

(N): Facyuu???

(Uncontrollable laughter)

(C): No..

2016 was the best year this channel has ever had but for me it was a bit of a transition year.

Because I turned from being an English teacher over to being a full-time YouTuber person.

So I felt a bit in between worlds. But going forward into 2017, I can do YouTube full-time, and

I can go ahead and keep sharing these crazy, unique, wonderful experiences with you guys more than ever before.

So if there is something you wanna see in Japan, a person, a place, a thing, go ahead and let us know in the comment section below.

And it could- well happen. I'm open to all ideas--well, most ideas. Many ideas.

For now though, Happy New Year guys and I'm off to finish writing my new year's resolutions.