Storyboard Specifications
This episode documents unreleased XR content — storyboard specifications for an immersive experience that was designed but never released. The panels describe what players would have seen and heard as they explored Hashima's company town at the peak of its population.
The Artificial Community
Episode Overview
At its peak in 1959, Hashima Island held 5,259 people — the highest population density anywhere on Earth. Workers from coalfields across Japan lived in concrete apartment blocks rising nine stories above the sea, all owned and operated by Mitsubishi.
This episode explores what life was like inside the company town: how corporate control shaped daily existence, where people gathered, and what happened when the mine closed.
Not a Natural Community
Unlike villages that grew organically over generations, Hashima was an assembled population. Mitsubishi recruited workers from declining coalfields, offering premium wages for dangerous, isolated work. The people who lived here didn't choose their neighbours — they were assigned housing based on job classification and family size.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand how company towns structured daily life and community formation
- Analyse the relationship between corporate control and social organisation
- Recognise the distinction between assembled and organic communities
- Interpret the absence of documentation as historically significant evidence
Company Control
Total Environment
Mitsubishi controlled nearly every aspect of daily life on Hashima. The company owned all buildings, operated the only store, ran the school, managed the hospital, and determined who could live where. A single boat connected the island to Nagasaki — one trip per day, weather permitting.
Housing
Company-assigned apartments based on job rank and family size. No choice of location or neighbours.
Provisioning
Single company store. All food, goods, and supplies arrived by the daily boat from Nagasaki.
Education
Company school for children. Curriculum matched national standards but operated by Mitsubishi.
Entertainment
Company-operated cinema, pachinko parlour, and social facilities. Recreation within company space.
The Shagaichi Model
Hashima exemplifies the Japanese shagaichi (company town) model — but taken to an extreme by the island's isolation and physical constraints. In natural communities, cultural traditions are maintained through autonomous social institutions. On Hashima, every institution was company-operated.
Daily Rhythms
The Mine's Schedule
Life on Hashima was structured by the mine's shift system. Three shifts operated around the clock — the island never truly slept. Workers descended into shafts that extended hundreds of metres below the seabed, working in heat and darkness before emerging to cramped apartments above.
Workers descend into the mine. Families prepare breakfast in small apartment kitchens.
Children attend company school. The rooftop playground is the only outdoor space.
Second shift descends. First shift workers emerge, head to bathhouses.
Streets fill with returning workers, shopping housewives, playing children.
Night shift descends. Cinema and pachinko operate. The island continues.
XR Experience Specification
The time-of-day system would have allowed players to experience different moments in the daily cycle. Evening — shown in the next panel — was selected as the primary experience moment: maximum population activity, families reunited, the contrast with the silent ruins most apparent.
The Street at Evening
Scene Description
The camera descends to street level, placing the player IN the community. No longer an observer above or outside — surrounded by people going about their evening. This is maximum human presence: faces, bodies, movement, life.
The narrow street between apartment blocks fills with the evening crowd. Workers returning from the second shift, still dusty from the mine. Housewives hurrying to the company store before it closes. Children released from homework, chasing each other through the canyon of concrete.
XR Visual Specification
Setting: Street level in the canyon between Buildings 16 and 65, early evening (6:30 PM), fair weather, the day's heat lingering.
Camera: Eye-level, first-person POV, immersed in the crowd. Static or slight drift suggesting the flow of foot traffic.
Composition: 15–25 visible individuals. Foreground figures partial (shoulders, backs of heads). Midground figures full and detailed. Background figures dissolving into the crowd.
The Figures
Returning Worker: Mining company work clothes, tired but not defeated, carrying lunch pail. Age 30s–40s.
Housewife with Shopping: Apron over simple dress, cloth shopping bag, slight hurry. Dinner to prepare.
Children Playing: School clothes or play clothes, animated, in motion. The energy of after-school freedom.
Elderly Woman: Traditional dress, walking stick, slow careful posture. The continuity of generations.
Young Couple: Better dressed, heading toward the entertainment district. A rare moment of leisure.
Spaces of Contact
Where People Gathered
The company controlled formal spaces, but informal contact occurred in the gaps. Where did workers encounter each other outside the hierarchies of the mine and the company housing blocks?
The Sentō (Bathhouse)
Workers encountered each other after shifts — stripped of uniforms and rank, sharing the ritual of bathing. One of the few spaces where hierarchy dissolved.
Drinking Establishments
Informal gathering spaces where off-duty workers relaxed. Conversations, arguments, friendships formed over drinks.
The Rooftop
The school rooftop was the only outdoor recreational space. Children from all backgrounds played together here.
The Pier
Daily arrivals and departures created moments of public gathering. News, goods, and visitors all arrived at the same point.
Informal Networks
Despite company control, people form connections. The bathhouse, the bar, the rooftop playground — these spaces allowed relationships to develop outside official structures. What was said in these spaces, what bonds formed, what conflicts arose — these leave no official record.
The Closure
The End
On 15 January 1974, Mitsubishi announced the mine would close. By April, the final coal had been extracted. Within weeks, the entire population evacuated.
The speed of departure was remarkable. Workers who had lived on Hashima for decades left with what they could carry on the boat. Furniture was abandoned. Photographs were left in drawers. The island was sealed.
Mitsubishi announces the mine will close. Workers begin seeking employment elsewhere.
The last coal is brought to the surface. Nearly a century of mining ends.
Within weeks, all residents depart. The island falls silent.
The island is sealed. Concrete deteriorates. Nature reclaims the spaces between buildings.
Dispersal
The community didn't relocate together. Workers scattered to find new employment — some to other Mitsubishi operations, some to different industries entirely. The social networks that had formed on Hashima dissolved as families moved to different cities across Japan.