Toppan Holds VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ Metaverse Event

Launching an event business showcasing the culture and allure of Japan to people around the world to create a Cool Japan economic zone driven by the metaverse

Tokyo – July 21, 2023 – Toppan (TYO: 7911), a global leader in communication, security, packaging, décor materials, and electronics solutions, will hold a metaverse event entitled VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ to showcase the culture and allure of Japan to people all over the world.

VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ will run from July 21 through September 18. It is open to users from all over the world and aims to maximize interest in Japan. A metaverse space of distinctive Japanese landscapes will be constructed, and event participants will be able to enjoy Toppan-produced virtual reality (VR) content featuring valuable Japanese cultural assets, Japanese festival experiences, and live music performances in a magical setting filled with tradition.

Businesses, organizations, and local governments will be able to use the metaverse space as a place to disseminate information on events and exhibitions to users from around the globe.

Through the event business, Toppan will support companies’ overseas business by connecting them with users from all over the world. By integrating real experiences as well as immersive metaverse experiences transcending distance, Toppan also aims to drive a hybrid approach to creating a Cool Japan economic zone by demonstrating Japan’s culture and charms to users everywhere.

In a collaboration with HYPER JAPAN Festival 2023 (organized by CROSS MEDIA LTD.), one of the U.K.’s largest comprehensive Japanese culture events, which will be held in London from July 21 to 23, Japanese cultural content from exhibiting companies will be showcased at HYPER JAPAN through VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™.

Toppan will also run a booth at HYPER JAPAN, allowing visitors to experience VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™. In addition to leading visitors into the metaverse, Toppan will promote the appeal of Japanese culture through the sale of a range of goods.

■ Background

Toppan is advancing a digital transformation (DX) business under its Erhoeht-X™ brand, a concept for supporting digital innovation of society and companies as well as driving Toppan’s own digital transformation. In the digital content business, Toppan is aiming to expand by supplying digital content to growth markets, such as VR and the metaverse, based on such technologies as 3-D measurement for precise digitization of an object’s shape as well as color management and high-definition image processing developed in the field of printing.

In 2018, Toppan opened NIPPON GALLERY TABIDO MARUNOUCHI™ in Marunouchi, Tokyo, as a space for co-creating and delivering new value for Japan. Toppan showcases the charms of Japan by using a range of cutting-edge technologies. These include Meet Japan!™, a proprietary high-quality 4K video library, and Street Museum™,1 an evolved information platform that revitalizes tourist areas by using VR content on historical sites as a tourism resource. Toppan also provides content that allows users from all over the world to experience the allure of Japan by utilizing the metaverse.

■ Main content of VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™

1. VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ main castle town area (free area)

Main castle town area

A fantastic castle town that fuses Hikone Castle with a modern city has been created and will feature festival-related content such as shooting games and omikuji (fortune telling). Users can enter the metaverse space for free in the form of an avatar and walk around the town.

2. HYPER JAPAN area (free area)

Content from multiple companies exhibiting at HYPER JAPAN Festival 2023 in London will subsequently be reproduced in the metaverse space, enabling people who could not make it to the site to also enjoy the event. The effectiveness of the metaverse event in the hybrid real-digital format will be verified by making the content available as a digital archive after the real event is over.

3. Hikone Castle Area (free area)

Hikone Castle area

The vivid, high-definition Hikone Castle extended reality (XR) content used in Street Museum™, an interactive XR sightseeing application provided by Toppan, will be transplanted to the metaverse. Using avatars, visitors can enjoy Hikone Castle from perspectives not normally available. The content uses Toppan’s VR technology to reproduce the castle area, including the castle keep, which is a national treasure, based on data from high-definition photography of the existing castle and a historical map.

4. LIVE area (paid area)

Key visual for virtual live performance by FLOW ©AMUSE INC. ©Gugenka

Gugenka will host a virtual live performance by the rock band FLOW (Amuse). The members of FLOW, which has performed theme songs for numerous anime productions and enjoys considerable popularity overseas, will transform into avatars and deliver a dynamic live performance to fans around the world, combined with digital effects that cannot be experienced in the real world.

Details of Toppan Booth at HYPER JAPAN Festival 2023

Toppan’s booth will be a showcase for Japanese culture. In addition to leading users into the metaverse via the interactive VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ corner, Toppan will display its high-quality reproduction of Scenes In and Around Kyoto (Funaki version), a painted folding screen that is a Japanese national treasure, and a Fist of the North Star (COAMIX) photo booth. In collaboration with business partner Anique, Toppan will also exhibit illustrations and sell goods related to Attack on Titan (original and animation) and Blue Lock (animation).

The future

Toppan will continue to hold VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™ events on a regular basis to provide a platform for delivering information and winning fans to all kinds of companies, organizations, and local government agencies aiming to drive business overseas by promoting Japanese culture.

Toppan will verify the effectiveness of a business model that integrates real and digital events through the current project and aims to add Web3 and other elements in the future.

About VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN™

Dates: July 21 to September 18, 2023
Location: Special world in VRChat
Organizer: Toppan (Live performance by FLOW hosted by Gugenka)
Admission: General admission is free of charge. Charges are applicable for the LIVE area.
Tickets for live performance:
Sponsor ticket 25,000 yen　
Gold Ticket 10,000 yen
Pair ticket 6,000 yen
Standard ticket: 3,500 yen

*For details, please visit the official website. https://virtualremixjapan.com/en/

About HYPER JAPAN Festival 2023

Dates: July 21 to July 23, 2023
Venue: Olympia London, London, U.K.
Organizer: CROSS MEDIA
Admission: Paid
https://hyperjapan.co.uk/festival/

Street Museum™, an interactive XR sightseeing application, is a platform and app that combines XR and GPS. It reproduces castles and other historical sites that no longer exist with vivid, high-definition XR content and allows visitors to experience the history of a particular area or site through a linkup with information on their current location via smartphones and tablet devices. As of July 2023, Street Museum™ features 45 historical sites that can be viewed via a single sightseeing app, including Hikone Castle, Matsumoto Castle, and other national treasures and historical sites from regions throughout Japan.

*IOS is a registered trademark or trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and is used under license.
*Android is a trademark of Google LLC.

About Toppan

Established in Tokyo in 1900, Toppan is a leading and diversified global provider committed to delivering sustainable, integrated solutions in fields including printing, communications, security, packaging, décor materials, electronics, and digital transformation. Toppan’s global team of more than 50,000 employees offers optimal solutions enabled by industry-leading expertise and technologies to address the diverse challenges of every business sector and society and contribute to the achievement of shared sustainability goals.

For more information, visit https://www.toppan.com/en/ or follow Toppan on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/toppan/.