A jagged patch of pixels on a brick wall phases in and out, revealing a hidden alleyway beneath a veneer of concealing data. Three children race along a sidewalk, leaping across private fences in search of glimmering ‘meta rocks’. Young lady agents working for master hacker Granny's cyber-detective agency pursue lost virtual pets who have wandered into perilous, illegal ‘obsolete space’. These cute and quirky virtual pets are under constant threat of elimination by toy-robot, anti-piracy enforcers. Yuko Yasako Okonogi, a mild-mannered young newcomer to Daikoku City, wages epic hacker battles and pursues deadly serious ludic quests with and against her new classmates, on the streets, at school, in a hospital, and in an abandoned bus depot. In Daikoku City, digital representations of walls and buildings blend indistinguishably with solid architecture while fantastic creatures and beings float through the city. Artificial life, organic life, and concrete habitations overlap, the infosphere enmeshing the biosphere.

This near future, Japanese city is sketched out across the 26 episodes of Dennou Coil: A Circle of Children, a 2007 animated film conceived, directed, and drawn by artist Mitsuo Iso. In this last chapter, rather than analyzing the playing of actual games, I will analyze an animated science fiction television series recounting the playing of fictional toys and games. To Western eyes, Japanese animations might seem childish cartoons, yet such animations trace their lineage back to graphic novels (Manga) intended for both adult and child readers. Even those series’ with young characters like Dennou Coil's ‘Circle of Children’ often explore difficult themes that speak to an adult viewership.

In the city of Daikoku, according to the back story conveyed in the first half hour episode, the corporation Megamass has distributed costless, light-weight augmented reality glasses to the city dwellers. The entire city's population, including its children, are integrated into a live field experiment in augmented reality, the overlaying of digital graphics and information onto physical spaces, viewable and navigable via electronic glasses. These lightweight gadgets offer their users an enticing array of powerful features, converging the functions of both ‘older’ technologies like phones and laptop computers with newer ‘mixed reality’ effects.