i guess the time has come to take on the ever-daunting TCM (Tokyo Central Municipality, A.K.A Arasaka’s playground).
I decided to begin somewhere well-known. Shibuya is a packed place, though not the biggest ward of Tokyo, there’s so much going on in every nook and cranny of it.
so let’s start off from one of these corners. Rather than the expanse that is central Shibuya, I’m going to flesh out the trendy fashion district of Harajuku.
once upon a time this area was the central for sub-culture fashion, Lolita, Decora, Thrift, etc. Alongside cute cafes and crepe stands. If you needed something rare, unconventional, stylistically torn, or just wanted to support local alt designers and pop-ups, then Harajuku was the spot.
in 2025, it’s changed a lot…
what’s the current sich?
Takeshita-dori, the once most famous street is now a simple tourist trap destination, the area has been “sanitised”, and though there are signs of the old sub-culture hotspot, it’s all more “market-tested” so-to-speak, commercialised if you will. Even the once thriving boutiques and stands are now replaced with minimalist, influencer-y, and polished stores; to make sure too much personality doesn’t scare the impressionable youth away.
how do I know this? Well I live kinda close, so I just went there. Field research, baby (also I needed new pants).
I’ve visited before on busier days, though Harajuku is never “quiet”. But this time was a Monday afternoon-evening trip, the area dies down pretty fast around night time, late spots are scarce and with central Shibuya just around the corner, people tend to migrate over.
knowing that, my cyberpunk version should intensify and mirror these personalities.
Bringing it to the 2070s
since the area’s becoming more polished and trendy, I thought to have it almost entirely owned by corps, using AI algorithms to create “micro-trends” which change based on the degrading attention span of the local youth. You could have crocodile synth-leather skinny jeans in fashion for a day and then suddenly all the stores are on a casual neon tracksuit phase.
don’t forget, it’s not just clothes. Corps like Ebmitsu are pushing their personality-altering neuralware and social compatibility mods, we all love drugs without drugs don’t we?
of course the impressionable youth follow it like sheep, due to corpo funded “fashion idols” and/or models who push their trends through social media (or SNS as we call it in Japan).
and this stuff ain’t cheap (at least not anymore), so most of these kids are on mommy and daddy’s hard earned newyen, forming little fashion cliques based on which trends they chase the most. And the average kids who wanna join the party? Well, they’ll try to jump in on one of the trends, maybe get some recognition for a bit, popularity, club invites, empty high-fives and SNS followers.
but once the trend passes, they’re stuck. Poorer than they were before, unable to catch up, they gotta get the money for it somehow… I wonder how.
nightlife?
since the area isn’t big on clubs and bars, most of the nightlife would be trendy pop-ups with private invites and members. And if you don’t look the part, you definitely ain’t getting in to any of it.
such events would be run by the local fashion cliques (flashy word for the mini-gangs in this area), who use it for their other less-flashy work behind the scenes.
don’t forget, we’re deep in Arasaka territory now. The TCM is no joke, though corps like Ebmitsu and Glitcheon are showing a lot of face, big brother Arasaka’s keeping tabs. Don’t get mixed in with the wrong crowd, if you do, they’d better be smart.
oh and of course, with so many gentrified, influencer-obsessed corpo garbage, there’s bound to be rats around, thrashing around in it.
conclusion
these initial posts are mental dumps of my ideas, the next one will have more concrete structure and finalised information.
if you (yeah all 0 of you) have any ideas, I promise to read them, and then possibly forget. But maybe I wont, in which case I would be grateful.
you’ve reached the bottom, so, see ya next time.
Leave a Reply