History Main / TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' subverts this trope. While the game started out in the fictional Tokyo district of Kamurocho and frequently returns to it, the equally-fictional Osakan district of Sotenbori is also a major setting in some games, and other games even take place in other locations such as Fukuoka, Okinawa and Hiroshima.

[[caption-width-right:350:As if Tokyo Tower's annual paint bill wasn't high enough.[[labelnote:Clockwise from top-left corner]]: [[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster King Ghidorah]], [[Film/KingKongEscapes King Kong, Mechani-Kong]], [[Series/UltramanTaro King Zemira]], [[Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse Gyaos]], [[Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS Godzilla]], [[Film/GiantMonsterGamera Gamera]], Film/{{Mothra}}, [[Series/UltraQ Garamon]].[[/labelnote]].\\
[-Art by ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' monster designer [[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=460179844071421&set=a.446262322129840.1073741829.103402236415852 Shinji Nishikawa]].-]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:As if Tokyo Tower's annual paint bill wasn't high enough.[[labelnote:Clockwise from top-left corner]]: [[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster King Ghidorah]], [[Film/KingKongEscapes King Kong, Mechani-Kong]], [[Series/UltramanTaro King Zemira]], [[Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse Gyaos]], [[Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS Godzilla]], [[Film/GiantMonsterGamera Gamera]], Film/{{Mothra}}, [[Series/UltraQ Garamon]].[[/labelnote]]. Art by ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' monster designer [[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=460179844071421&set=a.446262322129840.1073741829.103402236415852 Shinji Nishikawa]].]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/848dfad67bb31a2debd64164e2787ca4.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:As if Tokyo Tower's annual paint bill wasn't high enough.[[labelnote:Clockwise from top-left corner]]: [[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster King Ghidorah]], [[Film/KingKongEscapes King Kong, Mechani-Kong]], [[Series/UltramanTaro King Zemira]], [[Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse Gyaos]], [[Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS Godzilla]], [[Film/GiantMonsterGamera Gamera]], Film/{{Mothra}}, [[Series/UltraQ Garamon]].[[/labelnote]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:As if Tokyo Tower's annual paint bill wasn't high enough.[[labelnote:Clockwise from top-left corner]]: [[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster King Ghidorah]], [[Film/KingKongEscapes King Kong, Mechani-Kong]], [[Series/UltramanTaro King Zemira]], [[Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse Gyaos]], [[Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS Godzilla]], [[Film/GiantMonsterGamera Gamera]], Film/{{Mothra}}, [[Series/UltraQ Garamon]].[[/labelnote]]]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:As if Tokyo Tower's annual paint bill wasn't high enough.]]

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* Subverted in ''Film/PacificRim''. The {{Kaiju}} Onibaba does attack Tokyo, but it's only the latest in a string of attacks on various Pacific cities. The first city hit was San Francisco. The second was Manila. The third was [[AliensInCardiff Cabo San Lucas, Mexico]]. Other mentioned attacks include ones on Lima in Peru, Los Angeles and Seattle in the US, and Vladivostok in Russia. The film itself shows attempted attacks on Anchorage, Alaska, and Sydney, Australia, and most of the film takes place in Hong Kong.

* Subverted in ''Film/PacificRim''. The {{Kaiju}} Onibaba does attack Tokyo, but it's only the latest in a string of attacks on various Pacific cities. The first city hit was San Francisco. The second was Manila. The third was Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Other mentioned attacks include ones on Lima in Peru, Los Angeles and Seattle in the US, and Vladivostok in Russia. The film itself shows an attempted attack on Anchorage, Alaska, and Sydney, Australia and most of the film takes place in Hong Kong. Played completely straight in ''Film/PacificRimUprising'', where the climactic battle takes place in Tokyo, as the ultimate plan of the Kaiju's creators involves Mount Fuji. [[spoiler:Namely, three Kaiju - [[FusionDance merged into a single Mega Kaiju]] - jumping into the crater would ignite the whole Ring of Fire, causing the extinction of all life on Earth.]]

This may be because Tokyo is [[strike:Japan'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 a province rather than a city) 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. [[WriteWhatYouKnow Many authors are also more familiar with Tokyo than other cities.]]

** [[spoiler:After crossing over into Glass' World, Naofumi encounters The Hunting Hero, Kizuna Kazayama; who also came from Japan, where like with Rens' original world has VRMMOs'; where the one she was playing was used for her healing pod.]]

** UsefulNotes/{{Seoul}} suffers heavily from this trope, since it was the political and cultural center of the [[UsefulNotes/{{South Korea}} Korean]] [[UsefulNotes/{{North Korea}} peninsula]] for centuries and now houses one fifth of the entire population, which if you include the metropolitan area houses half of the country's population.

* Averted in ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'', which takes place in the city that is technically unnamed, but clearly is [[CreatorProvincialism the author's]] [[WriteWhatYouKnow hometown]] of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishinomiya Nishinomiya]] (located in Hyougo, part of the Kansai region). What's interesting, it also avoids the KansaiRegionalAccent, despite the city sitting right between Kobe and Osaka.

* Subverted in ''Film/PacificRim''. The {{Kaiju}} Onibaba does attack Tokyo, but it's only the latest in a string of attacks on various Pacific cities. The first city hit was San Francisco. The second was Manila. The third was Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The film itself shows an attempted attack on Anchorage, Alaska, and most of the film takes place in Hong Kong. Played completely straight in ''Film/PacificRimUprising'', where the climactic battle takes place in Tokyo, as the ultimate plan of the Kaiju's creators involves Mount Fuji. [[spoiler:Namely, three Kaiju - [[FusionDance merged into a single Mega Kaiju]] - jumping into the crater would ignite the whole Ring of Fire, causing the extinction of all life on Earth.]]

* The Alolan season of ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}'' heavily invokes the trope because the setting and current plot heavily revolve around the school setting in Melemele Island, which is an extremely different take on what the games show where the player travels from island to island instead of being grounded in one island for a majority of the time. As such, because Ash doesn't travel to other islands (and because the majority of the Trial Captains - who aren't even Trial Captains but normal students - attend the same school and/or live there in the same island in the anime) but other native creatures live elsewhere than Melemele Island, the anime has the habit of importing non-Melemele Island Pokémon and make episodes of out them for the sake of avoiding constant travel for Ash as he attends the local school. Travels do happen, but only when it is impossible for Melemele Island to have some sort of believable replacement (such as doing a different Island Trial and fighting a Kahuna, or a snowy mountain).

* The setting of the first two ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' games, Inkopolis, is heavily based on Tokyo. The HubLevel of the [[VideoGame/{{Splatoon 1}} first game]] in particular (which also returned in the ''[[VideoGame/Splatoon3 third game]]'' as DownloadableContent), Inkopolis Plaza, is based on the Shibuya district of the city, with many neon signs typical of the place, and the center for battling, Inkopolis Tower, is based on the similar Tokyo Tower. As the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth where rising sea levels killed all terrestrial life and allowed marine invertebrates to evolve, it's possible that Inkopolis really is Tokyo. In fact, ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' very heavily implies this is indeed the case by namedropping the real-life Mount Nantai, which is a few hours away from the city.

* The setting of the first two ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' games, Inkopolis, is heavily based on Tokyo. The HubLevel of the first game in particular, Inkopolis Plaza, is based on the Shibuya district of the city, with many neon signs typical of the place, and the center for battling, Inkopolis Tower, is based on the similar Tokyo Tower. As the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth where rising sea levels killed all terrestrial life and allowed marine invertebrates to evolve, it's possible that Inkopolis really is Tokyo. In fact, ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' very heavily implies this is indeed the case by namedropping the real-life Mount Nantai, which is a few hours away from the city.

-->'''Naofumi:''' So there are parallel worlds with parallel Japans?\\