Tokyo

"Tokyo - The Modern Babylon"

- Pacific Rim Capital city of Japan Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. It has served as the Japanese capital since 1869, its urban area housing the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government. Tokyo forms part of the Kantō region on the southeastern side of Japan's main island, Honshu, and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. It has remained the cultural center of the country and has had an influx of foreigners raising it's population to 57 million people. It is also home to the Arasaka, Asahi Rem Tech, Kendachi, Fujiwara, SegAtari and more corporations.

Overview
The capital of (Nippon) Japan is located in the middle of the main island of Honshu on the Pacific Coast, apart of the Kanto region. The climate is generally cold and wet, during winter is freezing and can see snow usually for only 10 days, and during summer it's hot and humid.

Tokyo City's population is around 13 million, however greater metropolitan area of the Tokyo Prefecture is around 57 million, with around 34 million being in the city on a daily for work. The trains at its peak periods of the day run at 300% to 400% capacity.

In the modern day, Tokyo is one of the safest and yet one of the dangerous cities in the world. It's kept safe by the hordes of corporate police. On top of that the "Zaibatsus" hate trouble in their city. That being said if it doesn't threaten their profits, they won't lift a finger to stop it.

Tokyo has only been the capital since the mid 1800s, during the time of the Meiji restoration of the Emperor. For 1000 of years before that however, the capital of Japan was Kyoto. Since becoming the capital, Tokyo has been expanding non-stop, decaying, and rebuilding in a strange circle of progression. Order, disorder, development, and corruption, and life and death often co-exist together. During it's history there has only be three interruptions to this pattern. The first one being the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1922, which had leveled the city. The second was when the Allied firebombing of Tokyo during WW2 took place, which again leveled the city. The finale one was the Jiage (arson and intimidation by fixers to clear tenants from salabe land) during the 1980s bubble economy. Despite these setbacks Tokyo has not only come back, but has gotten stronger each time.

In reality there are very few Tokyo natives. For the last 100 years, most of the population has traveled here to work. Up to even 50 years ago, it was a lot of rural Japanese who cam to work in Tokyo.During the New Year and Bon festivals, Tokyo would empty out as people would go back home for the holidays. Sine the early 70s gaijin have been pouring into the city. With the growth of the Japanese and foreign populations, Tokyo is under stresses that never existed before.

This has led many people to criticize people from Tokyo for being overly concerned with style, appearance, and composure. Often times people have said they give a cold and uncaring feeling. People of the Kanto region are already much different from the rest of Japan. Those born in Tokyo often don't leave the city, becuase of it's size, it's considered to have everything a person could need.

Tokyo Wards
Special wards (特別区 tokubetsu-ku) of Tokyo are a special form of municipalities in Japan under the 1947 Local Autonomy Law. They are city-level wards: primary subdivisions of a prefecture with municipal autonomy largely comparable to other forms of municipalities.Although the autonomy law today allows for special wards to be established in other prefectures, to date, they only exist in the Tokyo Metropolis which consists of 23 special wards and 39 other, ordinary municipalities (cities, towns and villages).[1] The Special wards of Tokyo (東京特別区 Tōkyō tokubetsu-ku) occupy the land that was Tokyo City in its 1936 borders before it was abolished under the Tōjō Cabinet in 1943 to become directly ruled by the prefectural government, then renamed to "Metropolitan". During the Occupation of Japan, municipal autonomy was restored to former Tokyo City by the establishment of special wards, each with directly elected mayor and assembly, as in any other city, town or village in Tokyo and the rest of the country. Minority, mostly leftist calls for a restoration of Tokyo City (東京市復活 Tōkyō-shi fukkatsu) were not answered. The question of whether special wards actually are municipalities with full local autonomy rights at all remained a political and legal issue for decades.

In Japanese, they are collectively also known as "Wards area of Tokyo Metropolis" (東京都区部 Tōkyō-to kubu), "former Tokyo City" (旧東京市 kyū-Tōkyō-shi), or less formally the 23 wards (23区 nijūsan-ku) or just Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō) if the context makes obvious that this doesn't refer to the whole prefecture. Today, all wards refer to themselves as a city in English, but the Japanese designation of special ward (tokubetsu-ku) remains unchanged. They are a group of 23 municipalities; there is no associated single government body separate from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government which governs all 62 municipalities of Tokyo, not only the special wards.

Wards of Tokyo
New Shinjiku, Shibuya, Meguro, Toshima, Bunkyo, Chiyoda, Taito, Arakawa, Sumida, Old Edogawa, Koto, Chuo, Minato, and Shinagawa.

History
The history of the city of Tokyo stretches back some 400 years. Originally named Edo, the city started to flourish after Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate here in 1603. As the center of politics and culture in Japan, Edo grew into a huge city with a population of over a million by the mid-eighteenth century. Throughout this time, the Emperor resided in Kyoto, which was the formal capital of the nation. The Edo Period lasted for nearly 260 years until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when the Tokugawa Shogunate ended and imperial rule was restored. The Emperor moved to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo. Thus, Tokyo became the capital of Japan.

Tokyo is home to many megacorporations such as Arasaka and Asahi Rem Tech which are among the the largest corporations in Tokyo. By 2045 Tokyo's population starting getting higher, where expansion was needed in order to house the 57 million people. Tokyo is also the leading city of cyberware tech in the world.

Weather
In Tokyo, the summers are short, warm, muggy, wet, and mostly cloudy and the winters are very cold and mostly clear. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 36°F to 87°F and is rarely below 31°F or above 93°F.

Islands
Tokyo has numerous outlying islands, which extend as far as 1,850 km (1,150 mi) from central Tokyo. Because of the islands' distance from the administrative headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in Shinjuku, local subprefectural branch offices administer them.

The Izu Islands are a group of volcanic islands and form part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. The islands in order from closest to Tokyo are Izu Ōshima, Toshima, Nii-jima, Shikine-jima, Kōzu-shima, Miyake-jima, Mikurajima, Hachijō-jima, and Aogashima. The Izu Islands are grouped into three subprefectures. Izu Ōshima and Hachijojima are towns. The remaining islands are six villages, with Niijima and Shikinejima forming one village.

Economy
Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world. According to a study conducted, the Greater Tokyo Area (Tokyo-Yokohama) of 57 million people had a total GDP of $8 trillion in 2045 (at purchasing power parity), which topped that list.

Arasaka Tokyo Headquarters
The Arasaka HQ is located in Tokyo, Japan and consists of two skyscrapers more commonly referred to as the Boys in Black, due to the similarities between the two imposing black towers and the black-clad Arasaka Security guards. They dominate the Tokyo skyline and are easily recognizable, not from their shape or size, but for the giant back-lit Arasaka Logos at the top of the towers. Arasaka regional offices around the world follow the same pattern with their buildings looking almost identical.

The top floor has several landing pads for various AV's helicopters and Ospreys, the company will have up to four Ospreys or helicopters at each facility at any one time and up to eight AV-4s. The building has an underground section featuring a loading dock and employee parking for the various personnel as well as company cars such as the Lexus ZR-5000. Also housed in the underground facilities are the employee training facilities and shooting ranges, as well as a range of combat ready company vehicles such as Kuma light troop vehicles and the larger Riot 8 Assault vehicle and the even heavier Combat 10 APC.

Elevators are restricted to certain floors and certain personnel, though executive clearance can override these features if needed. The lobby of the building is stylish and spacious and features a mix of modern and contemporary Japanese styling. The Tokyo HQ houses the current CEO Kei Arasaka as well as the executive Vice Presidents the board of directors and other various officials. The Tokyo tower alone employees upwards of fifteen thousand employees.

Transportation
Tokyo, like pretty much the rest of Japan, has an excellent metro network and bullet train system throught the city to the suburbs to the rest of the country. That being said the metros remain busy and crowded, this is due to the numbers of armed guards that the companies employ, the trains are very safe, and unruly passengers are often quickly dealt with.

Buses
Most of the train companies operate bus routs as well. The buses are decently kept up, but hampered by the fact that they must use the roads, so most of the general public use the trains. Very often the buses are often seen as the vehicles for the poor.

Cars
As for Cars, they can be very popular, to sleep in that is; possibly find some people living in them and even have sex in, but rarely to go anywhere in. The roads are narrow and rarely see traffic, especially outside Tokyo, where biker gangs will attack. Most of the cars, usually from Toyota, Honda, or Takaya, are equiped with TVs and massage seats to be more relaxed and pass the time after work.

Motorcycles
Motorcycles are much faster than cars, and much more popular with the public. Riders on Hondas, Suzukis, and Kawasakis zipping along between rows of cars are a common sight in Tokyo.

AVs
AVs are aggressively utilized, but there are so many restrictions in highly populated areas like low-altitude limits, and high altitude limit when approaching near the Imperial Palace, people not accustomed to Tokyo are usually recommended to not fly.

Under the Bridge
The Tokyo Bay Crossway or The Birdge was built at the turn of the century. It largely consists of 10 km of underwater tunnels, and 5 km of bridge crossing the bay. By the year 2010, law and order had declined fast and an Auto Defense System was installed to prevent a terrorist attack that could appear in the Bridge. Guard robots moving in and out of the small maintenance ducks were considered powerful enough to take on any head on attack by a terrorist group.

However in 2018, the Ministry of Science and Technology lost communication with the Bridge, which then took matters into it's own hands. Many different theories have surfaced over the years, one of the more popular ones is a virus took over the central AI and caused it to go rogue, but there still is no definitive answer.

First, the traffic lights all went down. Afterwards a small Security Office was attacked by their own drones, and then people were forced out. The Tokyo Police from Keishi-cho, Chiba Prefecture Police, and Arasaka Riot team upon request from the S&T Ministry attempted to take back the central computer, but they couldn't seem to reach it. Control from the Net to this day hasn't been established. The Bridge went rogue.

Not too long after, homeless started to migrate to the Bridge. These "Bridge People" aren't seen as enemies from the defense system, that is if they stay 200 meters away from the Control Room. Most of them live in the underwater sections of the bridge. Also, there are many who live on the artificial islands that support the aboveground portion of the bridge, and the girders of the bridge. The Tokyo Police have put it on record that around 8,000 people live in the Bridge.

As stated the people who live here are usually unemployed Nomad-types who aren't able to afford living in the big cities of Tokyo or Chiba. There's also a small portion of gaijin and Nambei-jin who are the first to go in a job crunch. There's also quite a few criminals who have also taken refuge. Since Arasaka is the law in Kanagawa, and Chiba Prefectural Police rule in Chiba, the bridge was always a jurisdiction gray zone; now a days it's just a sovereign territory.

As long as there's no skirmishes above a certain level, the bridge doesn't really interfere with the rest of the public. On rare occasions, a small riot team will go in to arrest a criminal who escaped to this location. However not all crimes will be cashed down here, big ones like Nov. 6, 2018, will be squashed with extreme force.

In the present day, the defenses appear to be invincible. There is plenty of ammo, as the auto-factories around the bridge legs keep making more from construction material stockpiles intended for the bridge itself. The government an local policing forces do not see the situation changing anytime soon.

Shopping
You're in Tokyo, and you really want/need something that's (relatively) inexpensive, unusual, or not exactly legal; where do you go? Well, there is no "one-stop shopping" strip in Tokyo (although Ciba comes close). Rather. they are spread out around the various areas.

Akihabara:
Electronic equipment and parts; Computers, VR and Braindance sets, Black-market Programs, Cyberware, new & used. You cand find legitimate, non-cutting edge electronics for 20% to 70% off. If you look around at some of the indie dealers, you can find custom work, or newtech undiscovered by the corps. Famous the world over its jungle of neon signs and laser ads.

Kanda, Jinbocho, Ochanomizu:
Books (new and used), Manga, Foreign books, Sports equipment, Musical instruments. Any book published in Japan can be found here. Even rare, old books are around, some with old Zaibatsu addresses, or written in coded script (listen up, Info Bros!). Reading can still be a worthwhile skill.

Ueno, Okachimachi:
Surplus military goods, food and drinks at 10%-50% off (at night, you can find synthifish sushi at 90% off!), forged cred chips and IDs.

Shinjuku:
Black-market goods such as Drygs, Handguns, Cyberware, and Programs, Prostitutes. This is a famous Yakuza stronghold in Tokyo. Pretty much anything illegal can be found here. Many Yakuza families share territory here; the boundaries aren't in blocks, but in building to building, room by room. Sometimes you'll see buildings with the Nawabari (sign) of several different clans. This area is pretty safe, as the clans don't fight here, for fear of hurting business. People of any nationality can be found here, dealing or working at Yakuza-owned bars and nightclubs. Even pampees are safe here, as long as they don't get too deep.

Shibuya:
Black-market goods and information. This Teamer gang area, and like Shinjuku, most anything can be found here, but with less of a Yakuza influence. Lone-wolf marketeers who don't want to be Yakuza dominated come here, but inter-gang war is common.

Chiba:
Legal (and illegal) Medtech, Cyberware, Bodybanks. The world's finest Medtechs are here, working on the Cybertech edge. This is also a living-body test ground for Mega-corps; watch out they don't change your name to Subject X.

Komike:
Manga, Anime, VR & films, Braindance, Programs, Info. The world's largest "undergound" market, held every summer and winter at Harumi Int'I Trade Ceneter, Tokyo. Medias are here selling everything from manga and fanzines to the latest anti-Arasaka information. You can sell your own work here by entering as a Circle. Since there are so many Circles here, to find any really good info, you need Streetwise and Expert (Dojin Circle) skills, to know who to talk to. Of course, there are no illegal goods sold here.

Tokyo Aerospace Port-Chiba:
Duty-free &smuggled goods. This is one of the largest AeroSpace ports in the world. The security is incredibly tight... for passengers. Because there are so many people and packages passing through, they only use scanners to inspect baggage. So if you pack big bags with just a little illegal stuff (guns, drugs, etc.), chances are good it'll slip through. Just don't get stupid and greedy.

Tokyo Disney City:
Disney stuff. Nice place to bring your input. Yanks will feel at home in this all-American, incredibly safe wonderland. Everyone is scanned for weapons on entrance by Disney's own Lazarus-trained security team. Rumor has it all the Mice and Ducks are pro guardsmen. The Park itself is in Chiba, but the New VR BBS is at the corporate mainframe in central Tokyo.

Tokyo Disney City
Tokyo Disneyland is a 115-acre theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to be built outside the United States, and it opened on 15 April 1983. In the present day it's the prefect place for Yanks to enjoy All-American traditions and good inexpensive shopping. Disney City is also well known for their groundbreaking technology and out of this world security.

Popular Culture
As the largest population center in Japan and the site of the country's largest broadcasters and studios, Tokyo is frequently the setting for many Japanese movies, television shows, animated series (anime), web comics, light novels, video games, and comic books (manga). In the kaiju (monster movie) genre, landmarks of Tokyo are usually destroyed by giant monsters such as Gojira and Gamera.

Culture
Tokyo has many museums. In Ueno Park, there is the Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest museum and specializing in traditional Japanese art; the National Museum of Western Art and Ueno Zoo. Other museums include the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Odaiba; the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida, across the Sumida River from the center of Tokyo; the Nezu Museum in Aoyama; and the National Diet Library, National Archives, and the National Museum of Modern Art, which are near the Imperial Palace.

Tokyo has many theatres for performing arts. These include national and private theatres for traditional forms of Japanese drama. Noteworthy are the National Noh Theatre for noh and the Kabuki-za for Kabuki. Symphony orchestras and other musical organizations perform modern and traditional music. Tokyo also hosts modern Japanese and international pop, and rock music at venues ranging in size from intimate clubs to internationally known areas such as the Nippon Budokan.

Many different festivals occur throughout Tokyo. Major events include the Sannō at Hie Shrine, the Sanja at Asakusa Shrine, and the biennial Kanda Festivals. The last features a parade with elaborately decorated floats and thousands of people. Annually on the last Saturday of July, an enormous fireworks display over the Sumida River attracts over a million viewers. Once cherry blossoms bloom in spring, many residents gather in Ueno Park, Inokashira Park, and the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden for picnics under the blossoms. Harajuku, a neighbourhood in Shibuya, is known internationally for its youth style, fashion, cyberware, and cosplay.

Behind the Scenes
Tokyo is a real life cyberpunk. Despite having huge influence, Tokyo city can only be read about in the Cyberpunk universe. It is not currently a playable world in a game. However Tokyo still plays a huge part in the lore of Cyberpunk.