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 and Asahi Rem Tech corporations.

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.

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.