Nihongai
A posh, gorgeous, and incredibly wealthy district, Nihongai is also called “Little Nippon” due to the large number of residents of Japanese heritage, both immigrants and native-born New Angelinos, who live there. The district’s riches can be attributed to its location—Rutherford’s financial hub sits on Nihongai’s eastern border, and Laguna Velasco’s government center is just to the south—as well as to its aesthetic. Nihongai borders on the Mache-Chindul Ecological Preserve, a historic Ecuadorian park dating from the twentieth century that, while much diminished from its original size, remains a beautiful and peaceful greenspace. Taking the preserve as inspiration, Nihongai’s managers and its Parks Committee have worked tirelessly to incorporate little bits of nature into the rest of the district. Neighborhoods are dotted with microparks, well-tended gardens, and carefully cultivated plant growth on the roofs and walls of its elegant arcologies.
This, in addition to the large population with Japanese ancestry, made Nihongai the logical place for Jinteki Biotech to build its new headquarters when the megacorp relocated to New Angeles twenty years ago. Jinteki’s presence and money have accelerated the district’s beautification and gentrification while ensuring that Nihongai essentially belongs to the megacorp in every unofficial sense. Today, calling Nihongai a company town isn’t too far from the mark.
Nihongai is an expensive place to live. The cost of living ensures the population is dominated by young and rising corporate stars, high-powered lawyers and lobbyists, and captains of government and industry. One exception to this, is Jinteki employees. The megacorp tends to subsidize living expenses for staff who work in its corporate HQ, allowing them to stay in Nihongai rather than commuting in from Esmeraldas. It also maintains extensive clone barracks in Nihongai’s undercity, allowing it to keep its own clone workforce close. Visitors joke that this is probably why the undercity tends to be so clean and well maintained.
This trend toward order and harmony even extends to Nihongai’s criminal element. The yakuza dominate the district’s criminal underworld. Any street gangs not directly affiliated with a yakuza syndicate pay at least one of the groups a tithe or loyalty fee. Any criminals who don’t show fealty to some part of the yakuza tend to end up decapitated as a warning to the rest.
This isn’t to say that there is less crime in Nihongai than in other districts. However, between the yakuza’s influence and the prisec security teams paid by Jinteki and other corps, criminal activity tends to be much quieter and follows a complex and often arcane set of unspoken rules and traditions.
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