The very public display of affection brings shocked girlfriend to tears.

Dating in Japan can be a very different experience to dating in Western cultures. Here, it’s incredibly rare to see public displays of affection that go beyond holding hands, and getting down on one knee to propose in a public place is something that only really exists in Hollywood movies.

So it’s not every day that a Japanese couple decides to get engaged in the middle of a shopping mall with a flash mob proposal. But that’s exactly what happened on the weekend, when Motonori Kan popped the question to his girlfriend of five years, Emi Miyazaki.

Take a look at the proposal, which starts with Kan’s surprise appearance at 3:15 in the video below.

The flash mob broke out in Queen Street Mall in Brisbane, Australia, on 5 May, when dozens of dancers from local dance school Mad Dance House started moving their bodies to the beat of Rihanna’s 2011 hit “We Found Love”. During the performance, Miyazaki was in the crowd to the left of the screen, filming the dancers on her phone, totally unaware that the performance was all for her.

▼ The view from Miyazaki’s point-of-view in the crowd.

Things change dramatically around three minutes into the performance, when the group parts and Kan appears. This is when the music switches to Ed Sheeran’s slow-paced love song “Thinking Out Loud”, as Kan walks down the aisle to surprise his girlfriend, who doesn’t quite know why he’s there.

Then, after a few quiet words, Kan gets down on one knee, and his reason for being there becomes obvious to Miyazaki, and the crowd of onlookers around them.

Everyone holds their breath in anticipation for a moment, and then Miyazaki holds out her hand to accept the ring, prompting both the dancers and the crowd to erupt in cheers and applause.

The newly engaged couple then share a quiet moment together, as Ed Sheeran, or Edo-She as he’s colloquially known in Japan, continues to play in the background.

Speaking to a local TV news station immediately afterwards, Kan revealed that this was the Japan-based couple’s first visit to Australia, and as their third day in the country, this was “the most memorable trip of our lives”.

The flash mob was organised by The Proposal Gurus, who’ve helped plan many special proposals but say this was their largest one to date. While it’s unclear whether Kan and Miyazaki will have their wedding in Australia or Japan, with a display of affection as beautiful as this, their ceremony looks set to be just as special as their engagement day, especially if there’s a bottle of Ed Sheeran sake involved.

Sources: Brisbane Times, Twitter/@7NewsBrisbane
Images: YouTube/The Proposal Gurus
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