Presumably, everyone feels they have experienced another difficult year regardless of countries they live in. What’s wrong with the pandemic, I think, is that it has accelerated the widening divide between haves and have-nots around the world, rather than that it can be regarded a main culprit of all bad things.

Japan was supposed to enjoy one of its best years in history in 2020. But disruptions caused by the pandemic forced the nation to postpone the Tokyo Olympics to the next year. Many people, including myself, were apparently surprised at the coincidence that the Japanese sci-fi manga AKIRA, which was released in the 1980s, depicted a dystopian world unfolding in Tokyo in 2019, the previous year of the Tokyo Olympics that was supposed to take place in 2020 in AKIRA’s imaginary settings. Meanwhile, it seems somewhat ironic that the age of private space tourism, which remained a major theme in the world of science fiction, arrived in the same year.

In sci-fi movies, when mankind suffers attacks from an alien life and falls into difficulties, they often band together across national borders to stand up against the common crises. We can pull together to fight against common enemies. Now is the right time for us to do the same thing to fight against the pandemic.

What works as a force to unite people in the real world is the power of communication that helps promote mutual understandings while resolving misunderstandings. Charismatic leaderships are not the only solution. I believe design has the power to make things more comprehensible even when they are not understandable or hard to understand. As a designer, I hope to do my best in playing this role of design in this difficult time.

Hiroshi Sakagame

Product Design Dept.

Design Director