Tag: cyberpunk-red

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.

Narrow roads and frequent alleyways makes it hard to catch anyone on the run, and subsequently underground businesses, not to mention the Discogangers’ vast preference for analog tech. So local authorities rely on uniform-less units to catch out suspicious activity the old fashioned way, like 90s detective movies.

For the longest time, the cops had it tough, the Discogangers were a pain, and if they tried to go after them the ‘ganic way, random Shibuya posergangs popping into town would rough ’em up while they were chrome-less.

This cycle went back and forth until the cops realised they were outmatched, and knew they needed a corp to step in. Segatari had a couple developments in the area, but clearly wanted to expand, one of their main issues was dealing with the same rowdy kids who wanted to keep all their retro gear and shops in the area.

So came the first ‘corporate’ alliance of Shimokitazawa, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police agreed to turn a blind eye to whatever tactics Segatari used, so long as they grounded the discogagner kids for them.

The result was a local corpo-gang war, all out high-tech corp vs urban guerrilla warfare.

The kids used their old retro scrap: glitter bombs, tear gas, speakers so loud your eardrums burst, etc. Even pretty decently put together EMP grenades.

Segatari’s tactics fell flat at first. The Discogangers knew the streets too well, had seen the tech before, and never moved as a single unit. With no leader to target, there was no head to cut off. They ran solo ops, hit and vanished, and fought harder the smaller their numbers got.

Though as they’d been riding high on their horses, the kids ran into a new issue; arcade-obsessed posergangs spilling in from Shibuya for new turf. After catching a hard L in a gang war, fans of the popular Dance Impact! arcade game needed fresh turf to practice. The Shibuya crowd wasn’t handing over the arcade change anymore. Shimokita started looking real appealing.

As they started slipping in, Segatari took advantage of the sich, and started investing in new and improved DI (Dance Impact!) tech in Arcades with strategic positioning, using the Breakers to gain control over their renovation-interest zones.

So, a new challenger, the Discogangers now face the more centralised and big-city Breakers gang (fun fact: they didn’t get the name from their dance moves).

The Breakers are still pretty new in town, and haven’t managed to set up the strongest of HQs, but in the midst of this war, some parts of the Discogangers thought to team-up and centralise, to stand better chances. Particularly the more forward thinking Silver Hands.

But wait! You thought we were done? Yakuza.

Yep. Yakuza. What a shit-show.

Turns out, when corps start messing with real estate, and non-belonging Shibuya gangers go around shaking people up for their lunch money, you start to piss off the old dogs. One day, a big dog of the Kawaguchi family got jumped in an alleyway for his change, all cause his suit didn’t match the town vibe, Breaker kids thought he was a tourist.

Even the Discogangers never poked the hornet’s nest, and now they got an infestation. Kawaguchi goons started roaming the streets with their monowires, katanas and only Arasaka knows what chrome under those fashionable, armoured suits.

And that’s about where we’re at, cops lazing around being useless, Segatari still crawling around, manipulating the scenes, the Breaker kids getting busted by the real owners of the town, while holding out in their neon playgrounds as the Discogangers start thinking to finally reform after all these years of anarchy.

Something’s gotta give. And in Shimokita, it usually explodes first. Shit’s about to get real ugly, choom.

i know I set up that whole TCM area for the setting of this supplement, HOWEVER… I don’t feel like working on it yet. AND I left out a few key areas on purpose, the TCM is meant to be Arasaka’s main territory and ‘heart’ of influence in Tokyo, meaning those who like to lay off their grids need somewhere decent to hide.

there’s a word in Japanese called “Shita-machi” (下町), literally meaning “Under/Down Town”. A shitamachi is an area thats cheap, unsophisticated, rowdy, and maybe a bit hippie or punk-y, think Camden Town or Shoreditch in London, for example. Maybe a bit less gentrified than that though. Some popular shitamachis in Tokyo are Ikebukuro, Ueno, Koenji, Kamata, Sangenjaya and Shimokitazawa.

out of all those, Shimokitazawa (usually abbreviated to Shimokita) is specifically unique, its got a huge hippe and punk culture with tons of thrift shops, vinyl stores, underground DJ bars and listening bars. The main audience there are uni students, young musicians and DJs, and of course locals.

since it’s such a unique spot, I wanted to give it more important role in the setting, Shimokita is right outside the TCM area, just on border with Shibuya ward so its a convenient spot to hideout in if you’re in some corpo trouble nearby.

that being said, say hello to the baddest gang in the area, the Shimokita Discogangers:

A gang of old school tech-obsessed kids busting moves to disco and popular tunes from the 90s and early 2000s, you can imagine their parties. They only dress in 5th hand thrift shop outfits, baggy jeans, old denim and patterned pastel trash that seem like they’ve been dunked in sour fruit shots.

LEDs wrap their clothes, they overuse flip phones, got voice recorders, a bunch’a the kids even go full ‘ganic. Made it pretty rough for the authorities to deal with ’em, now the town’s got a weakened law enforcement, and since so much of their communication is through landlines and even “paper” letters, its a pain in the ass to catch them with modern tech.

The kids ride around in suped-up bicycles, which help traversing the labyrinthian streets of Shimokitazawa. Think to just grab one of em? You’ll think twice next time, especially after getting dismembered by their monowire bike-chains. All while a VHS of Disturbed’s “The Sickness” blasts from their retro, duct-taped speakers.

what’s next for these guys? Well they need clear goals, enemies, important members and preferred means of action.

we can imagine they’d have some split amongst their ranks with kids who prefer the full ‘ganic style and others who like to chip in a little, we can name the chromed ones “Silver Hands”, you get the reference, and they made it on purpose to claim that they can still rebel, even with chrome. The others can be called “Unplugged”, like MTV’s Unplugged sessions, easy enough.

and yeah I did think about calling the former “Radio Heads”, and I still might change my mind.

anyway, we’ll flesh out their inner-workings and Shimokita next time.