alright, so working on this whole Tokyo 2077 setting, first plan of action was making the behemoth that is the Tokyo Metropolis somewhat manageable.
as an ex Tokyoite, even I never managed to make it to some parts of the metropolis, not to mention that a ton of it is pretty chill copy/paste residential areas anyway. Though living on the west side the whole time, I can confirm that you only ever go east for special occasions (skytree fests or concerts) and to find specific shops (like kitchen tools from kappabashi dori).
what does that mean? means I dont know shit about half the city, which means I can’t accurately imagine what it’ll look like 50 years from now or even 50 years from the OG 2020 lore. So I got to cutting things down.
still with me?
first off, 23 wards is way too much, and again; half of them are kinda boring. This is a campaign setting, gotta keep things fun and moving so as of writing this im thinking to somehow slap together the following wards:
- Chuo – Ginza and all the rich places, also where Arasaka’s HQ is
- Chiyoda – Imperial Palace, what else you need?
- Minato – the plastic luxury of Roppongi, but also Azabu areas
- Shibuya – a classic, even just the scramble is enough
- Shinjuku – red light district, Yakuza history, and Toyoko kids. what a combo
- Taito – obligatory Akihabara area for the weebs and traditional spots for shrines and temples
now, outside of these entire wards, theres others in the relatively central area like Toshima and Bunkyo. But aside from small spots there isnt really that much going on there aside from Tokyo uni and Ikebukuro. We could still explore these areas.
anyway, heres a rough map of this area badly drawn over google maps:
kinda looks like a heart? we can call it the beating heart of Tokyo, which calls for a name. I’ve opted for the Tokyo Central Municipality or TCM for short, sounds official and memorable.
now believe it or not, I already had a good canon excuse to create the TCM, Arasaka’s nationalisation after the 4th corpo war.
idea is that the National Diet had to put Arasaka under wraps, so they basically chained their local budget down to this area as having too much control over the city would just be feeding a fire. Also those are the busiest areas of the city anyway, and need more financial support to keep bustling.
of course we need more and deeper reasons to make all this make sense, but let’s not forget that there ‘s always hidden stuff happening in the background. And who knows which local corps want a sweet piece of Arasaka’s Tokyo pie.
of course theres tons of memorable spots outside of the TCM which we can still use, they just wont be under full Arasaka jurisdiction. e.g. Shimokitazawa, Nakameguro, Ikebukuro, Kamata, and some more here and there.
how does it look? manageable? ugly? confusing? like my writing? maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. Let’s see
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