At the end of August, a story appeared in the media and social networks about an adventurer courier who, for the sake of a client, climbed to the top of Mount Fuji to deliver pizza. This story is allegedly confirmed by photographs. We checked the story for accuracy.
August 25, 2022 on World of Buzz Malaysia reported, that in Japan a traveler made an order from Domino’s Pizza directly to the top of Mount Fuji and waited for him for several hours. There they referred to a tweet from a user who posted a photo of the courier and wrotethat the described event occurred on August 20. As a result, the alleged courier was found on the website of the Yamap mountaineering and travel tracking application. According to World of Buzz, the delivery guy took the order around 7:38 a.m. and handed it over to the customer after five hours of walking. The cost of the pizza itself was allegedly 3,776 yen (at that time moment about 1,600 rubles), and delivery cost 40,000 yen (about 17,000 rubles).
The incredible courier was also written about on many Russian-language resources (often with reference to World of Buzz), but new details were added there. For example, on the newspaper website “Komsomolskaya Pravda” reported that “onlookers looked at the pizzeria’s website” and made sure that the courier actually worked there, since they were able to recognize him in one of the photographs posted there. According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pizza was delivered at noon. On the sites "Gazeta.ru" and TV channel "360°“wrote that the pizza was already cold, and added that the courier refused to comment, but the pizzeria allegedly noted that they welcome any customers and try to please everyone. These publications cited an eyewitness to the events, according to whom the delivery costing $962 (about 57,000 rubles) took five hours. In addition, Gazeta.ru noted that “the climber happily had a snack and continued his climb,” but it is unclear where, because he was already at the top of the mountain. IN "Rossiyskaya newspaper“It is indicated that the courier took six hours to deliver.
There were other sites that talked about this unusual delivery, including “Radio Sputnik", TJournal, DTF, IA "Red Spring", "Reedus", "Island", as well as "Peekaboo", "I cried" And JoyReactor. The story also spread across social networks: for example, in the public Just art a post about pizza delivery to the mountain received 1,800 likes and 134,000 views.
To begin with, we note that absolutely all of the resources mentioned above were wrong about the expected delivery time. On the Yamap website indeed there is a page a man named Umanami Futoshi, who on August 20 climbed to the top of Mount Fuji in the uniform of a Domino's Pizza delivery man. According to the data indicated on the resource, the entire journey took Futoshi 5 hours 49 minutes (a rest of 50 minutes is also taken into account here), that is, almost six hours. This time includes both the ascent to the top and the return descent. In total, the man walked 8 km, starting his journey at 7:38 am at an altitude of just under 2400 m (more about this testifies and one of the first photographs). Futoshi reached the summit (Kengamine Peak, 3776 m) at 10:51, and at 13:27 he returned to the starting point of his hike. This means that he walked to the top for 3 hours and 13 minutes (during this time he climbed almost 1400 m).
Let's say the media simply made a mistake in their calculations. What about the story itself? It turns out that the courier really delivered the pizza to the mountain? It's not that simple.
If you look closely at Futoshi's Yamap account, you will notice some interesting details. There are now three other records of ascents that occurred before August 20th: July 2 - to Mount Oyama, July 23 - to Mount Daibosatsu, and August 6 - also to Fuji. A couple more entries have been deleted, but thanks to the web archive, you can find out that there were also ascents to Mount Tsukuba (June 25) and again to Fuji (July 29). By the way, after the 20th there were two entries, and both were also about Fuji: August 27 And September 3. Moreover, judging by the photo, the man always delivered some kind of food to the top. For example, to Oyama he brought pizza in a Domino’s Pizza uniform, to Daibosatsu some kind of food in the form of Uber Eats, and to Fuji he went dressed as Demae-Can, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza-La, and even delivered sushi dressed as a chef.
If we assume that this is some kind of professional courier who works for several companies and specializes in delivering food to the mountains, then the amazing coincidences do not end there. For example, according to pictures of receipts, the cost of food delivered to Fuji, be it pizza or sushi, is always equal to the height of this mountain (3776 m). We were not able to find any information about the huge shipping costs. On the contrary, the receipt supposedly from Domino's Pizza had a 50% discount due to the long wait for delivery to Mount Oyama - then the pizza cost only 540 yen (214 rub.).
In addition, each Futoshi climb on the Yamap website has a funny description. Most often, at the beginning, the author writes that he made a mistake: he mixed up the addresses, got confused in the maps, or could not cope with the complexities of the Japanese language, and as a result, instead of the desired address, he had to climb into the mountains. The texts always end the same way: “I will be the king of delivery!” And on July 2 he told, when an old man saw him in a store near the road and was delighted: “Hurray! They now deliver pizza to Oyama!” However, Futoshi immediately upset him: “Sorry, I’m not real.” His profile description states that he delivers “surprises and smiles.”
The thing is that Umanami Futoshi is not a real courier. He is actually an office worker who loves to go to the mountains and cosplay as delivery men. Instead of pizza and other food, his bag is filled with various equipment and essentials that might come in handy on a backpacking trip. August 23rd on TV Asahi website it turned out a short interview with this climber-cosplayer. Futoshi said he received an insulated bag from Uber Eats about a year ago and thought it would be cool to climb Mount Fuji with it. After the positive reaction from people climbing the mountain with him, he decided to cosplay as other delivery services.
Thus, despite statements by Russian and foreign media, Futoshi does not work as a pizza delivery person and did not charge huge amounts of money for food delivery. Apparently, some of the materials are simply made up.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the publication “Reedus”. Overall there described same story: the courier delivered the pizza to Mount Fuji in six hours, the food cost 3,776 yen, and the delivery fee 40,000. However, irrelevant footage is attached to the material: it shows not Futoshi, but another person. At the same time, Reedus referred to the New York Post, where told a similar, but still different story, and Futoshi is mentioned only in passing, without details. According to the NY Post, on August 16, a video surfaced showing a delivery man from the Indonesian company Gojek. This courier allegedly also brought food to Mount Fuji.
The video shows a man wearing a jacket with the Gojek logo handing bags of food to the cameraman before allegedly walking down the mountain. However, upon closer examination of the tweet with the video, we found out that the courier himself posted the recording, since he owns the account, which is clear from numerous photo. From his earlier tweets, it appears that the person in the video had climbed Mount Fuji along with several other people, as evidenced by photo And video with his group, and also picture of the ticket. In addition, in replays and personal correspondence, we asked him whether he works as a courier or just put on a deliveryman's jacket for the sake of a funny video. He confirmedthat it was just a joke.
Cover photo: Umanami / Yamap
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