Hioki City Took Its Taiko Odori Worlds To VRChat For An Overseas Audience
A municipal tourism office is now using a VRChat world as recurring infrastructure for inbound outreach, not as a one-off campaign, which is the template other towns facing the same decline in cultural bearers could copy.
Reporting from 1 source: PANORA.
V Inc. supported a Taiko Odori experience event hosted by Hioki City, Kagoshima Prefecture on VRChat on Saturday, August 29, 2026. The event ran inside the Taiko Odori world released in January 2026 and was staged with VRC EN-JP, a language exchange community. Participants in Japan and abroad used avatars to try the dance's movements, heard about the local festival Myoenji Mairi, and received guidance in Japanese and English. Organizers gathered participant impressions and interest in visiting.
Hioki City released three VRChat worlds in January 2026 recreating Izaku Taiko Odori, Ota Taiko Odori, and Tokushige Gabara Taiko Odori, all intangible folk cultural properties designated by Kagoshima Prefecture. The August 29 event ran inside that existing space rather than a new build, with VRC EN-JP bringing overseas users into the same instance as Japanese participants.
Support was bilingual, and the session mixed dance practice with tourism material, including the Myoenji Mairi event. Organizers collected participant feedback on impressions of the city and intent to visit.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.