In 2021, the World Economic Forum held its Davos Agenda, and this year's theme was "The Great Reset". This tells us that the current world situation is a major turning point in history. The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus in 2020 revealed a variety of problems in society, including economic disparity and climate change. The solidarity cried out in this corona disaster is a sign that the world is more divided than ever. As capitalism based on centralized power approaches its end, we have started to hear the footsteps of a new era, such as the Singularity by AI and Web 3.0 by NFT. However, should our world really have a "Great Reset"?

"NEW GAME+" is a system that allows you to start over from the beginning of a video game you have already completed, while retaining your status. We were severely damaged by the Corona disaster, but our world is neither GAME OVER nor RESET. Can't we consider that we have cleared the social structure once and for all? We have seen the ending of this reality. Then, you can start again with your own status inherited. The story continues. In the street, on the ethernet, i(o)n the field. We have just awakened from our contemporary dream.

Contemporary is the retro games of the future, and this world is under development.

Chapter 1
The Beginning of Computer Games / NEW GAME

In 1958, William Higinbotham of Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), who was researching atomic energy, developed the world's first computer game, "Tennis for Two".* "Tennis for Two" was a game that symbolically imitated the real sport of tennis. Here, we can see the germ of an electro-cerebral symbolism from the deprivation of human corporeality, which would later lead to the future of video games.
In addition, the world's first home video game console, "Odyssey", developed by Ralph Baer and released by Magnavox in 1972, featured "Table Tennis" and the world's first commercially successful computer game, "Pong", released by the Atari Corporation that was established by Nolan Bushnell, who was also inspired by that "Table Tennis", and symbolically imitated the real sport of table tennis.

Our video game field, which continues to this day, can be said to have begun with the simulation of real sports.

* There are many theories about the definition of the world's first computer game.

Chapter 2
The end of the postwar period. Perhaps... / The Tokyo Olympics 1964

24 years after the Tokyo Olympics of 1940, which were cancelled due to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War and the opposition from the military, the first Olympics in Japan and Asia, the Tokyo Olympics 1964, were held. The final runner of the torch was a 19-year-old track and field athlete who was born in Miyoshi City, Hiroshima Prefecture on August 6, 1945, the day of the atomic bombing, as if to show the recovery from the defeat in the Pacific War (1941-1945). The 1956 Economic White Paper stated that Japan would no longer be termed postwar, and this Olympics was the starting point for Japan's progress into a period of rapid economic growth.

The official poster and emblem for the Tokyo Olympics were created by Yusaku Kamekura and Hiromu Hara (logotype), who are considered the fathers of Japanese design, and the prize-winning medal was created by a craftsman from the Mint Bureau of the Ministry of Finance, while the participation medal was designed by Taro Okamoto (front) and Ikko Tanaka (back). It was a gathering of Japan's top creators at the time. Pictograms were also used for the first time in the Tokyo Olympics for guidance and instruction, as well as for the display of competition events. Pictograms, which were developed to connect Japanese people who have difficulty communicating in foreign languages with foreigners, are an example of the symbolic culture of the Japanese people that continues to today. The Japanese, who do not speak any of the world's official languages, have a history of developing a visual language. The development of symbolic visual languages such as manga, anime and games, which are very unique in the world, is a way to overcome the hurdle of not being able to speak the official language as a factor.

With the hosting of the Tokyo Olympics, a variety of infrastructures were developed in Japan. Public transportation, especially the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen, is a notable example. The TV penetration rate reached 87.8%, and it was called the TV Olympics. And at the Olympics, IBM Japan launched the first online system in Japan. The Tokyo Olympics was a major turning point in shaping the lifestyle of the Japanese people today. Japan, shattered by defeat, has begun to reconnect like the Olympic rings.

The "Tokyo Olympics 1964" was the culmination of Japan's culture, technology, and spirituality at the time, and together with the subsequent Osaka World Exposition, it symbolized the glorious ideal future of Japan. However, was it really "no longer be termed postwar"? Are we connected? This question will be foreshadowed in the "Tokyo Olympics 2020" 56 or 57 years later.

Chapter 3
The Progress and Harmony for Mankind / The World Exposition and Mishima

Under the theme of "Progress and Harmony for Mankind", the Osaka Expo was held as a symbolic event for Japan, which achieved rapid economic growth after World War II and became the second largest economy in the world after the United States. And it was the first international exposition in Japan and Asia. At the time, it was the largest in history, bringing together new technologies and cultures from around the world to create a temporary world of the future. This is the origin of the "retro future" of the Japanese people that continues to the present. While many artists were mobilized for this national project, and some took the opportunity to expand their activities, there was also a movement by artists against the Expo in connection with the debate and opposition to the revision of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan.

As the world of the future stretched out before us, as far as mankind could imagine at the time, the Furukawa Pavilion was a replica of the seven-story pagoda built in front of the Great Buddha Hall at Todaiji Temple in Nara about 1,200 years ago. The theme was "Ancient Dreams and Contemporary Dreams", with a firm focus on the Expo of that time, which was observed from the distant future and would eventually become ancient. In contrast to the ancient exterior, the interior of this pavilion presented a vision of the future of our lives, based on the concept of "Computopia". The first domestic video game, "Train Driving Test", was released. The first video games made in Japan are generally considered to be Sega's "Pong-Tron" and Taito's "Elepong", both of which were released in 1973, so this "Train Driving Test" at the Expo site is the origin of Japanese video games to this day, as well as the origin of Japanese pixel art. The most notable thing about this game is that it is a first-person game, something that Japanese are not very good at. Since the game simulates a train driver's seat, it is not surprising that this would be the case, but it is interesting to note that the first video game made in Japan was an immersive, first-person alternate reality. However, the graphics were very minimalistic, so the actual immersion would have been poor.

"Actually, I don't really like the word 'patriotism'."
These are the words of Yukio Mishima, a leading novelist of his time, who committed suicide on November 25 at the Ichigaya Garrison, about two months after the closing of the World Exposition, where the future world was created and vanished like a dream. Mishima, who aimed at remodeling the nation with the emperor at the center, committed suicide out of concern for the state of affairs in Japan, which at the time was blindly in the midst of rapid economic growth. The progress and harmony under the protection of the United States must have provided a great contrast of light and shade to the Japanese society at that time.

Taro Okamoto's "Tower of the Sun", which was a symbol of the Osaka Expo, still remains at the site of the event, looking to our future.

Chapter 4
The Emergence of the World / Super Mario Bros.

Among the many game titles that made a lasting impression on Japan's golden age of video games, one that can be considered a milestone was Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." released in 1985. Mario was already popular with "Donkey Kong" and "Mario Bros.", but his popularity was cemented with "Super Mario Bros.". This game has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and in 2021 it will still be the 6th best-selling computer game of all time. This was also unique in that it was a side-scrolling platform game, which was still rare at the time. A platform game is the game in which a player makes the character jump from scaffold to scaffold and over obstacles. The change in perception from the fixed screen stages of the past to the continuation of the world beyond was a fresh surprise to boys and girls of the time. Instead of a screen transition of one side or two sides, a true world appeared.

This side-scrolling format was also something that Japanese people were familiar with as part of their culture. It is a picture scroll. The oldest surviving picture scroll is believed to be the "Illustrated Sutra of Cause and Effect" produced in the Nara period (710-794). The "Illustrated Sutra of Cause and Effect" is a kind of sutra that explains the biography of Buddha from his good deeds in his previous life to his enlightenment in this life. In other words, a picture scroll expresses a time axis with its horizontal shape, and the story is advanced by scrolling horizontally. And, it is also easy to physically move that story world around in real space as a scroll.

This is similar to the portability of the Family Computer's cassette.
Japanese are also the people who like to carry their culture with them, as exemplified by onigiri (rice balls) and bento boxes.

I couldn't imagine that Mario's world had any depth, and thought of the story as a two-dimensional completely flat world. So, I was very surprised when I was able to hide behind obstacles in "Super Mario Bros. 3". It was a moment when I felt the layers in electronic space. If you think about it, some shooting games used to express depth by multiple scrolling of the background. However, I could only relive it myself when the player character experienced it. Recognized that there is depth in electronic space. There is a crucial difference between animation and video games, even in the same two-dimensional representation, and we can experience depth interactively and narratively in our own world. We can feel Metabit, not Superflat, in our pixel world.

Chapter 5
Expanding World / FINAL FANTASY

At the age of 10, Tanaka, the founder of EXCALIBUR, encountered a video game that would later have a profound impact on his life and became the source of the collective's name. It was Square's "Final Fantasy 2" released in 1988. "Final Fantasy" is one of Japan's most popular RPGs (role-playing games), ranking right up there with "Dragon Quest", a national game that was already a huge social phenomenon at the time. The first thing that struck boys and girls at the time was the package illustration. The beautiful and delicate drawings by Yoshitaka Amano, who was highly acclaimed for his fantasy illustrations, were very innovative because of the great divergence from the electronic space in video games, where simple dot pictures were the norm. In contrast to these delicate physical arts, the dot pictures drawn by Kazuko Shibuya, who was later called the master of dots, were digital arts that condensed Japanese KAWAII.

In the 1990s, Japanese kids' culture was dominated by "Chibi Chara", super deformed versions of realistic figures, as exemplified by "SD GUNDAM". The dot picture's chibi characters drawn by Kazuko Shibuya can be seen as a precedent for such characters in the electronic space, although they later led to the "Nendoroid" series of the 2000s. This was a graphic representation that worked backwards from the resolution limitations of video games at the time, and we played the protagonist as a sort of neoteny in electronic space, saving the world.

In this "Final Fantasy" series, Yoshitaka Amano also created image illustrations for ally characters and enemy characters. While the ally characters are super deformed by Kazuko Shibuya's dot pictures, the enemy characters are drawn quite faithfully as photorealistic dot pictures. This screen composition, in which dot pictures of different resolutions coexist equally in the battle screen, is a characteristic of the series. The lack of unity in the dot pictures, which is usually avoided in video games, created a clear difference between the ally and enemy fields, and gave the impression of an invisible wall in the center of the screen. For our players on the ally side, the characters on the enemy side were from another world with different resolutions.

This disruption of the tone and manner of the video game scene would greatly contribute to the creation of subsequent game designs, as well as greatly influence the creativity of boys and girls to expand real from the virtual. I am one of them.

Chapter 6
The Rise of the Inappropriate Game / The Tokyo subway sarin attack

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the bubble economy and the approach of the end of the century, Japan was in the midst of a stagnant social situation that would later become known as the "lost 30 years". Under such social conditions, Aum Shinrikyo has continued to spread as a virtual escape from the chaos of real. One after another, scholars and students from leading universities in Japan joined this virtual community. The reason for the rise of this new religion was not only the global apocalyptic thinking at the end of the century, but also the PC's boom before the spread of the Internet at that time. At the time, Aum Shinrikyo was running a computer store called Maha Posya, which had 6 branches in Japan including Akihabara, as well as branches outside Japan. Because they made their followers work without pay, calling it training, they were able to reduce labor costs more than other stores and sell PCs at a lower price, which resulted in good performance. This became one of the sources of funding for the cult. And, the cult also cited a number of subcultures, such as anime and pop songs, that are favored by young people who are easily drawn to the spiritual world. This feeling of "easy to make a story out of" cut through contemporariness more than the traditional rigid religion.

The end of the century, which comes around every 100 years, tends to cast a dark shadow over people's minds. Outside of Japan, there have been several cults that have gone on to commit mass suicide, such as the Ordre du Temple Solaire in 1994-1997 and Heaven's Gate in 1997, but in Japan, the outbursts have not only been within the community, but also outside of it. That was the Tokyo subway sarin attack. On March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo sprayed sarin gas, a nerve agent, inside a subway train in Tokyo, causing 14 deaths and 6,300 injuries in simultaneous terrorist attacks. This incident was very selfish. It was largely triggered by the unjustified resentment against society due to the disastrous election defeat that Shoko Asahara, the guru, had run for. However, this paradoxically non-political structure that leads to heinous crimes without much principle or ideology is very typical of Japan.

Then, an inappropriate game called "Kasumigaseki" is released based on this Tokyo subway sarin attack. An inappropriate game is a coterie computer game that is published based on a high-profile incident and aims to make fun of that incident. It is a genre that has existed for a long time as a coterie game, but this incident has exposed it. "Kasumigaseki" is a simulation game with a subway map as the main screen. The game is to play how many casualties can be caused by spreading the sarin gas while paying attention to the number of passengers at each station and the area of effect of the sarin.
The real and the virtual naturally overlap, but there is no religious ideology or political message, it is just a story to make fun of. In other words, this inappropriate game was "Aum Shinrikyo" itself. All the doctrines, holy names in this cult were set up for the game, and training could be anything as the stage progressed, and they PR(L)AYed toward the "easy to make a story out of", the apocalypse. However, there is no need to involve people who have no intention of participating in the game. There should be no continuation in this game. Aum Shinrikyo is then actually dismantled. Aum Shinrikyo is then actually dismantled. This series of events caused a great deal of trauma to spirituality and the spiritual world throughout Japan, and the genre of inappropriate games also hid in the dark.

However, inappropriate games continued into the Internet culture that followed, and developed in unexpected ways. Around 2010, when the derogatory term "Japanese devil child (rìběn guǐzi)" flooded the Internet, there was a widespread movement for Japanese people to create their own Moe Chara with the name "Japanese devil child (Hinomoto Oniko)", giving another meaning to the term "Japanese devil child". An even more striking example is the 2015 incident in which the Islamic State, a Middle Eastern terrorist group, demanded $200 million for the hostage of 2 Japanese nationals. In response to their radical provocations, the Japanese posted a collage image of a masked terrorist man and 2 Japanese hostages on SNS with the hashtag "#ISISCrappyCollageGrandPrix". What started out as nothing more than an inappropriate game that seemed to simply make fun of the incident, quickly spread around the world on SNS and became a resistance movement against terrorism through inappropriate laughter. In recent years, inappropriate games have also become a forum for expressing political will in online games. Compared to the dawn of the Internet in the past, real has greatly overlapped with virtual, and it has become a natural world to express one's thoughts in the real world in game spaces. The inappropriate games have been dissolved into satirical games.

Chapter 7
The game is made of the energy of the bright future / The Great East Japan Earthquake

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake centered in Japan's northeastern region on March 11, 2011 at 14:46 (JST) led to a tsunami of up to 40.1 meters in height and left 18,425 people dead or missing. This was the second largest earthquake damage in Japan since the Meiji era, after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Japan is an earthquake-prone country, and seismic disasters are not uncommon. We Japanese are always aware of disasters and live in harmony with "fluctuation". However, there was a clear difference between the Great East Japan Earthquake and previous earthquake disasters. The meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was caused by the loss of power due to the massive tsunami.
This nuclear accident was classified as a Level 7 accident, the worst on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the only two Level 7 accidents being the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accidents. Due to the radioactive contamination caused by the accident, people have been unable to return to their homes in an area of 337 square kilometers (about 3 times the size of Paris). The decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is still ongoing, and if all goes well, it is expected to be completed between 2041 and 2051. It is only an estimate.

The direct cause of this nuclear accident was, of course, the tsunami caused by the earthquake, but an indirect cause was the U.S. control system that has been in place in Japan since its defeat in the Pacific War. The land for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was originally owned by the Tsutsumi family called Kokudo Keikaku Kogyo. In 1956, Matsutaro Shoriki, the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, which was established in response to international pressure from the U.S. to promote nuclear power (the Cold War), connected Yasujiro Tsutsumi, an old acquaintance of his, with Tokyo Electric Power Company for a potential site to build a nuclear power plant. In the country where atomic bombs were dropped twice, "Atoms for Peace" is also a history of self-interest among politicians taking advantage of the U.S. ruling system. However, many Japanese at the time had no way of knowing this, and were forced to blindly believe in the bright future of nuclear power by the slogan "Atomic Energy: The Energy of the Bright Future" and the characters represented by Astro Boy and Draemon*.

The meltdown that many Japanese experienced over the Internet in 2011 also melted the "big story" that had grown during the high economic growth of the 1950s-1970s and the bubble economy of the 1980s. No, in fact, it started to melt in the 1990s. Art critic Midori Matsui advocates "Micropop" as the trend of Japanese artists in the 1990s. The term "Micropop" refers to the trend of artists spinning fragmented "small stories" in Japan, which has become a poor country in the 2 lost decades following the collapse of the bubble economy. The great earthquake disasters in 2011 was a turning point in which the narrative shared by the majority of Japanese people as a matter of course turned out to be mostly wrong, and the vulnerability of the postwar Japanese "nation" was decisively exposed.

After this, the Japanese people, to a greater or lesser extent, despaired of the idea of a nation, and they sought a "community" within their reach. This thought may also be related to the popularity of regional art in Japan and the accompanying rise of socially-engaged art. The idea of seeking a communal illusion that differs from the existing state is not limited to Japan, in response to the Internet and SNS, but is also connected to the imagination of an imaginary state, so to speak. And now we describe a new "small stories", tied to the blockchain. Each chain will threaten the existing state system while gaining an economic and cultural sphere equivalent to those of the nation. Ironically, however, it takes a lot of power from existing nations to operate the chain. Will the world continue to be "Atomic Energy: The Energy of the Bright Future"?

* Osamu Tezuka, the creator of "Astro Boy", clearly stated in his later years that he was anti-nuclear power, and explained that Astro Boy is not nuclear fission, but nuclear fusion energy. In 2012, Doraemon's setting that "whatever he eats becomes nuclear energy" was removed.

Chapter 8
From Chara to Character / Hatsune Miku and Virtual Characters

Launched in 2007 by Crypton Future Media, a music company based in Hokkaido, "Hatsune Miku" is a software sound source that utilizes the VOCALOID voice synthesis system developed by Yamaha. In order to increase the reality of what was only a software sound source, Hatsune Miku was given a setting and a "character" as a virtual idol.
The term "virtual idol" has existed since the 1990s, and this is closely related to the time when computer graphics evolved from dot pictures to 3DCG. In terms of chara/character by manga critic Go Ito, drawing with dot pictures is "like a personality" with symbolic iconography, while drawing with 3DCG is "like a person" with a sense of life and living against the background of a story. With 3DCG, it has become possible to acquire characters that were difficult to acquire with symbolic dot drawings alone. And with the evolution of computers, it has become possible to implement the "voice" that is important for acquiring characters as idols.

The majority of virtual characters who get their voice will make their CD debut. Songs that are layered with narrative make viewers associate them with the chara's life and lifestyle, and as a result, they are easy to acquire the character. And the virtual characters who sing the songs become virtual idols. In this time, game charas were debuting one after another as virtual idols. Examples narrowed down to video games include Wimbee in 1993's "TwinBee", Shiori Fujisaki in 1994's "Tokimeki Memorial", Serani Poji in 2000's "ROOMMANIA#203", and "THE IDOLM@STER" in 2005.

Based on Ito's critique, Hatsune Miku was a chara when she was first released. However, the rise of the Internet and SNS coincided with the era of user generated content, in which consumers became producers, and the fragments of Hatsune Miku's story that were posted in large numbers by users eventually turned her into a character. This point is where she differs greatly from other virtual characters. Most virtual characters are created by the primary producers who create the stories and characters.
As an aside, in recent years, Virtual YouTubers (VTubers) have been active on video sharing services, but the character of VTubers is similar to that of before Hatsune Miku. VTubers on their own are the content, not a platform like Hatsune Miku. In the future, platform-type virtual characters with user generated content will be created in conjunction with NFT and the Metaverse. Perhaps it has already been born.

Chapter 9
The Emergence of Alternate Reality / ARGs, Real Riddle Solving Games, and Pokémon GO

In the 2000s, "Alternate Reality Game" emerged in the U.S. as a form of experiential play intersecting the real and the virtual. It is incorporated with the everyday world as part of the game. This culture became popular in Japan in the 2010s as a "Real Riddle Solving Game". In both games, players solve cryptic fragments of information to advance the game in the everyday world in real time. This Alternate Reality Game (Real Riddle Solving Game) seems to have died out in the 2020s, but in fact it has not. In the present age of the coronavirus crisis, where the real and the virtual have intersected too much, the entire everyday world that has caused an information overflow becomes a society of Alternate Reality Games where is full of cryptic fragments of information. This is the true nature of the "New Normal" in today's society. We are living in an age of non-contact in a coronavirus crisis society. The fact is that it is not physical non-contact but information non-contact. We are traveling in a world where we are no longer in touch with true information.

One of the reasons why Alternate Reality Games have not become popular in Japan is that the Japanese are a people who find enjoyment in a bird's eye view rather than immersion. In the old days, even in Yamato-e and Ukiyo-e paintings, there was no intention to make the outlines and flatness resemble reality as in Western paintings. They are people who want to have fun while understanding the virtual as virtual. In video games, third-person 2D games have taken the world by storm. This is also the reason why They are lagging behind the world in first-person 3D games featuring immersive experiences today. Fundamentalist Alternate Reality Games assume immersion, and proceed without specifying that they are games. Because the story proceeds as if it were actually happening in real space, it was very incompatible with the Japanese. In contrast, Real Riddle Solving Games do not assume immersion and clearly state that they are games. Hence, the Japanese can enjoy them as virtual entertainment in real space. Even if the 4th wall between the performer and the viewer is removed, the people would like to create a 5th wall between their own body and spirit.

These Alternate Reality Games (Real Riddle Solving Game) in the 2000s became a milestone, leading to the huge popularity of Niantic's "Ingress" and "Pokémon GO" in the 2010s. This was well liked by the Japanese, as it made the smartphone a natural item to appear in the story world, while using AR technology to layer the real and virtual in an appropriate balance. The people around you were just looking at their smartphones. The walls created by smartphones were very comfortable for us. The popularity of this series of real games is largely due to the fact that they have reacquired a physicality that had been diluted since the Internet.

Our bodies have been floating between the real and the virtual for a long time. However, in the future society, virtual space with physicality will be even more important. When body and spirit overlap seamlessly in a game space, where will our 5th wall be built?

Chapter 10
The Whereabouts of the Souls of Digital Data / NFT

It appeared out of nowhere, as if it announced the dawn of a new form of expression in the 2020s. The NFT is it. NFT is the application of blockchain technology, a distributed public ledger, to tie authenticity to a variety of goods and services, including digital data. It was tied to image data on Ethereum, one of blockchains from around 2017, and became a global trend in early 2021 as NFT art. However, this authenticity or uniqueness depends on the credibility of the issuer.

We EXCALIBUR are involved in the NFT from a perspective that we have had for a long time, "the whereabouts of the souls of digital data". Digital data continues to be reproduced in a form that is identical to the original, and output on a variety of devices. The output is not only digital, but sometimes physical as well. Digital data, whether images or video, is decoded so that it is visible to humans when it is output. By nature, digital data takes on a different form that we cannot recognize. In a sense, the digital data we see can be said to be a temporary form to hide from the world. NFT is a way to get to the bottom of the characteristics of such digital data. A copy of digital data is indistinguishable from the original because there is no deterioration during reproduction. A copy of digital data is not a copy, in fact, it is all original. NFT is a way to guarantee the originality of digital data by attaching a certificate of authenticity to what is considered to be the original, but this is only the case when 1 NFT is attached to each 1 data. However, the only thing that is determined when NFTs are tied together is "time".
Since the distributed public ledger of blockchain technology is difficult to falsify, the moment an NFT is tied to it, the authenticity becomes very high. We think of this as the act of setting up a "home" for that digital data. And, we think of it as the act of describing the birthplace of Ethereum in the soul of digital data. Even 100 or 200 years from now, or even farther into the future, we will be able to think about the whereabouts of the souls of digital data.

Currently, the NFT has gone from being a platform-driven market by artists to a SNS-driven market by creators. In artistic terms, it would be said that we are in the multiple phase. NFT art can be seen as a communal activity like Fluxus rather than an individual artist's activity. The growing global distrust of the nation has led to the value of crypto assets, and this community is advancing the economic sphere of the new age. There have been signs of this since the 2010s, when it became common for creators to earn money for their own production paid by customers. The flow of user generated content mentioned in the section on Internet, SNS, and Hatsune Miku are connected to the creator economy of the NFT.

Although there are some negative opinions that the NFT market is a money game, crypto assets are more like game money. NFT is an item in the coming Metaverse, a game space (field) where real and virtual overlap, and NFT art is the furniture in that space. The only difference is that the in-game currency is redeemable for cash, and in essence, it is a serious game against nations. At the root of crypto assets is a movement called cypherpunk, which seeks to change existing society and politics, and the ideas of this movement lead to the current Metaverse community. And NFT is a magic to summon the existing real world into a new game space.

Chapter 11
Let's Play Real / Tokyo Olympics 2020 (2021)

After a year of postponement due to the corona disaster, the "Tokyo Olympics 2020", which started on July 23, 2021, was result in being held in the midst of the corona disaster. And that was basically a spectator-free event, making it a very virtual event that people around the world watched through monitors. 57 years ago, the atmosphere during the Olympics must have been felt not only in Tokyo, but all over Japan. However, in 2021, it was no different from a normal urban landscape, to the point where I doubted whether the Olympics were really being held. The narrative of real sports with physicality did not reach us with physicality, and the narrative that proceeded only through mass media and the Internet became, in a sense, a symbolic competition of the times. This can be felt from the "Olympic Virtual Series (OVS)", the IOC's first e-sports event that was held as a pre-event for the Tokyo Olympics.

What was held instead? It is an Alternate Reality Game by the people who criticize the old agency-led interest structure and want to cancel the Olympics at any cost. The condition for completing the game was to cancel the Olympics, and the enemy characters of the regime were defeated one after another (even if only temporarily) in order to complete the game. The main platform was SNS. Unfortunately, the second Tokyo Olympics was held. Although the game was not completed, my impression as a spectator was that it was a good fight to the end. That is how Japan's connection that was questioned over 57 years ended. There was no connection to anything, rather.

What did the Japanese people gain from the second Tokyo Olympics, when they acquired the virtual world of video games and the Internet from TOKYO 1964 and EXPO '70, and acquired the feeling of being connected to someone at any time, and solidarity was loudly called for due to the corona disaster? What has been left in your heart? The virtual game of the Japanese government and the Japanese people regarding the Tokyo Olympics was e-sports, which was in the end of the lost 30 years, with a sense of emptiness.

However, perhaps TOKYO 1964 and EXPO '70 are also retro futures that have been beautified by the regime. We need to correctly describe this year 2021 as the future that could have been. We should draw a real game, with transparency that can never be falsified, and without the convenience of centralized power.