Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Difference between revisions
Related trope
(Related trope) |
|||
Line 27:
This is not merely a [[Japanese Media Tropes|Japanese Media Trope]] but a cliche. For some reason, Tokyo is not only a [[Weirdness Magnet]], but [[Up to Eleven|a superconductive multi-million-tesla]] [[Weirdness Magnet]]. It's expected that things will mostly take place in Japan, since the story is created by the Japanese, but it will usually always be Tokyo. The rest of Japan barely exists and the rest of the world might as well not be there at all, because this is the [[City of Adventure]].
This may or may not be due to the fact that Tokyo is <s>Japan's</s> the world's most populous metropolitan and urban area (one-quarter of Japan's population lives in the area, enough that the area is technically governed more like a county than a city)<ref>The population of Tokyo is approximately the same as the population of [[Canada]], so this might be the only way to govern it effectively.</ref> and most manga publishing houses and movie production firms are located there. Setting a story elsewhere often ''requires'' that the location be specifically relevant rather than chance. [[Write What You Know|Many authors are also more familiar with Tokyo than other cities.]]
Koji Okada, creator of the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' series, explains Tokyo as a setting by describing it as "a city playing out the cycle of destruction and rebirth", in the historical, political and economic sense.
Line 33:
Interestingly, this affects the characters within the area. Being from Tokyo often gives you a generic "default" personality compared to the usual regional stereotypes. You won't see ''their'' stereotype as obviously, unless the story takes place elsewhere in the country. If it ''is'' set away from Tokyo, the city's "normal" residents will instead be meek, overworked, and stuffy—which just so happens to be the American stereotype of Japanese people in general.
In the rare cases Tokyo technically can't exist, you can substitute any of the main three locations that were historically capitals: Nara (most of the 8th Century AD), Kyoto (from the end of the 8th Century, officially to the 1860s), or Edo (Tokyo before it was renamed; the ''de facto'' capital from the 17th Century onward). SF series set when Tokyo has ''already'' met [[The Tokyo Fireball|the logical outcome]] of this trope tend to name their new city after the old one, just with some prefix or suffix to indicate it's not the original
Similar tendencies can be seen in American media, particularly involving [[Los Angeles]]. Entire books have been written on why fiction writers make Los Angeles a magnet for violence and natural disasters. Sometimes San Francisco. New York sometimes, especially in Marvel Comics (sometimes lampshaded that New Yorkers tend to be more used to superhero fighting than anyone else). These cities also share many similar traits with Tokyo. See [[Big Applesauce]]. Likewise, in British media [[Britain Is Only London|London Is The Centre Of The Universe]]. [[Canada, Eh?|Canadians]] who refer to [[Toronto]] as such, however, are being self-deprecatingly sarcastic (if they live in that area themselves) or just plain sarcastic (if they're from anywhere else in Canada).
| |||