Tokyopia was born from the desire to put a real community online. The founders are a close-knit circle of friends living and working in the Japanese media and video game industry. We are journalists, artists, designers, editors, composers... and everything in-between.

For a few years now, our little group has gotten together over cold Asahis and chatted about what's happening in our respective scenes. Each of us brings our own set of perspectives from a particular corner of the industry.

Tokyopia is a logical online extension of that. It's an informal space to post our community photos, observations, and thoughts from Tokyo.

The concept grew from inception to include many of our non-Japanese friends, gamers in the US, UK, Hong Kong and Australia with tastes drawn from all kinds of eclectic.

Tokyopia is not, and never will be a news site with regular updates. It is a community, an online focal point for a group of friends.

For those reading, the site may also provide some industry commentary from Japan, some insider goings on, and some light-hearted editorial on an ongoing basis.

The current version of the site has been entirely rebuilt for the moveable type blog system. While speeding things up in general, it also allows cross-posting from the blogs of various site founders (including Justin Keeling, John Ricciardi, Andrew Vestal, et al). Most importantly, it takes the content focus off big, cornerstone articles and allows us to more easily post smaller tidbits, photos, and info on a more regular basis.

Tokyopia has been fortunate enough to blossom into a huge weekly Tokyo social gathering, complete with celebrity guests and an intimidatingly busy mailing list. We hope the new system will help us reflect this active community in the online space.

Dig around -- the forum is faster, and we're also happy to feature headlines from David and Jonny's fantastic Game-Science. It's not all finished, and there are bound to be some issues. Let us know your thoughts. And enjoy the new site.

And just to reiterate: there will be no advertising on Tokyopia, and no third party links. Ever.

We hope you'll check back once in a while for updates, and keep an eye on our forums, which are populated by a range of friendly insiders resident in and out of Japan.

Welcome to Tokyopia!

Justin Keeling

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