Review of "Theory of Evolution in Metaverse"／書籍『メタバース進化論』感想の英訳
This article is an English translation of my book review of "Metaverse Shinka-Ron" published in Japan.
Original Japanese review is here: it was a thread of my tweets.
Bibliography
Title: Metabāsu shinka-ron -- kasō genjitsu no kōya ni mebuku "kaihō" to "sōzō" no shin sekai （メタバース進化論 仮想現実の荒野に芽吹く「解放」と「創造」の新世界）
Paperback published at Mar 19th, 2022
E-book published at Mar 16th, 2022
Written by Virtual Girl Nem (バーチャル美少女ねむ)
Published from Gijutsu Hyoronsha （技術評論社）
ISBN 978-4-297-12755-8
130 mm x 188 mm
320p
1980 JPY (1800 JPY + tax 10%)
This English title is according to a journal paper by Bredikhina (2022)[0]. It perfectly follows a pronunciation of the original Japanese title, but I feel this is a bit clumsy. Straightforward translation may be "Theory of Evolution in Metaverse -- a new world of 'liberation' and 'creation' sprouting on a wilderness of virtual reality".
Publisher's website:
Promotion by author:
Motivation of English article
This book is written by a Japanese Vtuber for introducing technologies and impacts of metaverse.
Not only explaining technologies like head-mount display and tracking, but this book also states how metaverse experience radically changes our identity, communication, economy, and body senses. These reports are based on the author's 5-years experience as a Vtuber. Some discussions are also based on a large survey of lifestyle of metaverse users, conducted by the author and Liudmila Bredikhina in 2021. The author claims that metaverse must cause the greatest evolution in the history of mankind.
As we can suppose from author's name, virtual girl ("Bishōjo 美少女" in Japanese) is a core concept of this book. According to Social VR Lifestyle Survey 2021, over 70% of metaverse users used female-like avatars. More precisely, many of these avatars are Bishōjo style, a drawing style seen in fictional characters in Japan. The author discusses Bishōjo as a sort of catalyst in hacking our identity and communication. She -- we miserably don't know other proper personal pronounce to call a Bishōjo -- also claims that the culture of Bishōjo is deeply founded on the context of Japanese traditional arts such as gardening and puppet show.
I think Bishōjo is a key concept of understanding Japanese culture, but it means more. Depiction of female-like character is often misunderstood as a cause of sexual discrimination and crime, but I believe the reality is opposite. Utilizing Bishōjo is a very radical and effective practice to disrupt gender norms, get awareness of our own desire, and understand other persons. It can be a key to solve problems of global society.
Arrival of Vtuber recalled us a long-forgotten aspect of Bishōjo. We can BE that, while we could only see that in the past. It is a revival of an ancient thought of magic, but in much more sophisticated and rational style. The technologies of becoming Bishōjo has now spread in ordinary people and been generating metaverse cultures. This trend is unveiling true benefits of Bishōjo like I mentioned above.
Know Bishōjo. That is why I review this book in English. I hope this book would be translated and published in foreign languages, so I let myself play an opening act with publishing my review.
Also please kindly see my previous article of Bishōjo:
My background
I always eager to protect the liberty of expression (particularly sexual/erotic expressions), and the concept of Bishōjo is inseparable from scenes of arguing this right. I also favor Bishōjo personally. Moreover, I was familiar with practices modifying self-identity through occultism and cross-dressing. Therefore I welcomed the age of "becoming" Bishōjo, which was only for seeing in the past.
However, I was not following the trend of Vtuber. I expressed my opinion when the expressions related to Vtubers were criticized (see articles below), but I did not see their videos in other scenes. It was because I was not interested in performance, while the aspect of show-biz often stood out about Vtubers. Streamers with avatars which I had seen more than one video by August 2022 were only six: Kizuna Ai, Virtual Noja-Loli Kitsune Musume YouTuber Ojisan, Lancia Misumi, Astrophys-Tan Bot, Makenai Otona, and Tojo Rinka. Maybe I saw several poor commentaries of Pokémon but I don't remember streamers' personality at all.
A series of articles by Tanji Yoshinobu noticed me that communities of VR users were growing to a remarkable scale [1-4]. People began to cautiously talk about the mysterious functions VR avatar has -- function of transforming self-recognition by changing appearance, function of probing one's deepest nature by simulating various desires and social roles, and function that I have been used to treat through occultism, cross-dressing, and sexual arts. At that time, I felt these articles were the elder's struggling to attract the young.
After a few years, VR gradually invaded my neighbors when Virtual Rights, a Japanese NPO, showed up its aggressive actions in a region of liberty of expression. At that time, I felt these actions were laps behind me as a liberation of spiritual potential of human. Before VR interested me as a communication tool for ordinary people, I had to wait for a well-summarized book published in a name of Bishōjo.
Review
Optimism of electronic metaverse
I have just read "Theory of Evolution in Metaverse" by Virtual Girl Nem. I think some statements in this book are quite optimistic from the perspective of the global society. It requires complete automation of primary industries and abundant electricity. If we wish going this way, we have to achieve the singularity before lack of resources or inequality of wealth reach to a critical point.
Automation of producing foods and mining fuels are not major problems. It seems achievable for my thought. Rather I was concerned for two issues. First, if our civilization loses electricity due to lack of fuels or war in oil-producing countries, what metaverse can leave for us? Second, does it cause frictions with billions of people in the world who cannot afford PC and VR headset if we praise metaverse as "an evolution in the history of mankind".
So far at February 2023, I expect that somewhat new thoughts grow in metaverse would solve these problems. If people in developed countries learn to modify their identities, then it will produce brand new idea and affect to overall global politics and economy. I would call this "trickle down of soul evolution". In this scenario, we have to achieve an irreversible changes in our thinking and structure of society to find new theories or technologies against catastrophe. I stick on this way because I no longer can abandon the culture of Bishōjo.
Acting for identity may be a sort of luxury in today's world. I believe, however, continuous "know yourself." makes human and all values and developments.
Transforming identity
On the other hand, I agree with outline of author's forecast about what happens on humans if metaverse is sustainable. Author mentions to three "cosplays" in identity, communication, and economic acts. This term "cosplay" implies "switching characters". Although technical issues has some uncertainties, innovations must go along with "idenity cosplay". Author spends a lot of pages in the description of it. This is a key concept of entire discussion in this book.
However, I think the author's true novelty as a virtual person owes to her suggestion of "economy cosplay".
Transforming one's own identity is possible without other people nor Bishōjo style. New communication styles can be tried in a small community. They are what we have ever done without VR technology. But maintaining them requires raising money. Author suggests so called "Dividual" economy to realize earning money with the cosplayed identity and their community. Establishing the dividual economy requires a revolution of the entire society. Then Bishōjo style can be a standard format to express dividuals because of its universal attraction.
Note that the author is leading "Human Bishōjonization Plan" from the beginning of her career as a Vtuber. Its big object, "human", is supported by a concept of economy cosplay. I think her frequent crowdfunding and releasing press are for making precedents of public involvement with a name of Bishōjo.
Introductory chapters
Chapters 1, 2, and 3 describe basic information of metaverse, but they did not impressed me so much. For example, I had already known about VRM when Custom Cast was released. And I cannot misunderstand the point that metaverse and NFT are independent because the first impression of metaverse to me was in the aspect of psychic transformation by using VR avatars.
It was new to me that there were social VR platforms other than VRChat, even services provided by Japanese companies. In addition, I was surprised at the data showing the large percentage of social VR users was 20s. I think infrastructure of the Bishōjo culture in Japan should depend on foreign capitals as less as possible. And I guess most of the social VR users of 20s might be university students in urban area.
Dividual and animism
Author emphasizes that a self is plastic enough to "be what you want to be" and prefers to let multiple selves coexist as "dividuals" instead of overwriting old ones. I have the same opinion. In my word, these idea are equivalent to the principle of alchemy, "Solve et Coagula (Separate and Merge)", and also equivalent to the quantum Bishōjo field theory that I propose to express segmentation of concepts as creation of new spirits or Bishōjos.
In this sense, previous self does not need to vanish after we become to what we want to be. Note that I never dislike the catastrophic transsexual comics that illustrate a new pattern of thought appears in a new body and invade the previous self. But I prefer the way to let contradictory things coexist equally. This attitude is called "swallow both of clean and muddy water" in Japanese.
There is a difference between me and the author for treatment of equally coexisting personalities. I wish extracting huge energy by merging contradictory things, like nuclear fusion. This is "Solve et Coagula" in alchemy. On the other hand, the author seems to prefer keeping them separated as dividuals. I guess it is because the author values communication in various environments.
The concept of dividual implies to regard a bundle of information -- what was regarded as merely a fragment of a personality -- as a unit of person. I notice it is analogous to the nature of spirits and gods in animism. Our understanding of the world owes to our cognitive ability of assuming that non-human things (even abstract concepts) have intentions as if they were humans-like subjects. Today Bishōjo trend stands on this great lineage. I am trying to mathematically formalize this phenomenon with analogy of the quantum field theory, which describes generation of physical particles from a formless "fields".
In the book and my original Japanese review, we use a word "Mitate (見立て)" to describe a technique to consider something as if it is a different thing. I found much difficulty to translate this word into English. This is a word used in Japanese traditional arts. For example, Kare-Sansui (a gardening style of Zen-Buddhism) represent river and sea by sand and stones. This kind of garden forces people to activate their imagination to invert dry into moist, and static into dynamic.
Another example is Joruri (a kind of puppet show), in which people empathize with characters without pointing out players in black clothes behind the puppets. Mitate is not just finding analogy and but an active attitude of cognition and thought to switch our interpretation of the world.
Politics of Bishōjo
Here we face a criticism -- Why do we wish to be a Bishōjo? Can we justify it?
We must answer to this question for political initiative in near future. Those who favor Bishōjo style may claim "Bishōjo is not a representation of real female, but a symbol of goodness realized by techniques of Mitate".
Culture of praising Bishōjo is often criticized as a sort of sexual discrimination because it looks like simplifying real female and not treating them equally to male. We must answer to this if we want to defense Bishōjo expressions. Saying just "we don't intend discrimination" is not enough because unconscious discrimination is rather worse.
Effective objections are 1) Bishōjo does not represent female in any sense, 2) Bishōjo can represent female in some senses but it doesn't cause discrimination, 3) Bishōjo can represent female in some senses and it can cause discrimination but this is acceptable in some cases. I don't think 1 is realistic, and author seems to be between 1 and 2 but rather close to 2. Generally saying, I favor a way that we take a thing considered negative but say it is actually not negative, like a following quotation from the book.
In a society where everyone must accept themselves as the "immature", we should have a new value replacing the "pride as an adult". I think the value of "Kawaii", which admires "immatureness" of each other, is such an alternative.
I think this is a good summary of our idea.
Independently from her statements, sentences of this author have a lot of brackets. But it is acceptable because these brackets are not dividing clauses of words.
Kawaii Voice
Voice cosplay is related to this political issue too. I have seen an article discussing a technique of making female's voice as an usurpation from physical female[5]. This criticism may have been caused by the situation that voice is less apart from real female than illustration because of limitations of technology and our experience.
I often say about illustration of Bishōjo, "Moe-illustration is not a 2nd fan art of real female…it is a 200000000th fan art…!". It means these illustrations are already too apart from its initial model to reflect any effect to the model. However, this logic is difficult to apply to voice. We have to appoint a real female to utilize kawaii voice, unless we are not a rare "amphivocal" (who can make both male and female voices) or an expert of voice changer. It is normal that Illustrations of Bishōjo are created by male, but voice is not. Moreover, classification of voice is still not precise as illustration. Therefore, it is not far distant from its historical model so that it has not formed a closed ecosystem of reproduction. But I think time will change this if voice changer develops and becomes more popular.
On the contrary, I wonder if we can imagine a Bishōjo without any visualization. It sounds possible, but I don't know any example. Even if a bundle of information does not have a visual at a certain moment, as soon as we notice it, we cannot do without imagining it visually. It is well known that human owes most of their sense to sight, even information sensed by other organs seems to be integrated into sight images. Senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch, are they merely handmaids of sight? Of course this implies that we can cause illusions of four senses just by hacking sight. This illusion is called phantom sense in this book.
I surprised at the result of survey showing 8% of social VR users are "muted". It was more than I expected and I wondered how they communicate. If technology of changing voice develops in future, it might also discover advantages of muted communication.
It often happens that values of doing nothing is recognized when we can do everything. Verbal communication may experience it too. Nekomasu talked in 2018[3]:
Not choosing voice chat makes its character look so pure.
Using word inevitably indicates our specific intention, but lack of word makes abstract and pure impression.
A non-verbal character can play a specific role in a group. This is what that person WROTE. I have never heard that person's voice.
As a communication way of Bishōjo, I think muted full-tracking is "stronger" than desktop mode with a perfect voice changer because of the advantage of sight mentioned above. But it is up to community.
Threshold of VR experience
When the author includes immersion as a requirement of metaverse and suggests transformation of identity (and a view of identity), it results to not focusing on a desktop mode at all and not empathizing with complaints about prices of devices. She says the price is negligible if we compare it with values of experience. I think so too. To experience such a drastic transformation, we may need full-tracking.
I think this is one of the most unique points of this book. If one aims to sell products or raise stock price of related industries, it is reasonable to pioneer new customer segments by emphasizing a smartphone mode, a desktop mode, and rental services. But the author does not care about it. This reflects her policy that, I think, the transformation of mind and body senses through immersion into VR is the core of metaverse experience and only those who can invest in that experience deserve to be early adapters. A conscious revolutionist must always be an elitist.
The word "a view of identity" implies that there can be "views" of identity. Particularly I focus on "a view relating to whether one thinks identity can be designed or not". Plasticity and choosability of identity are not trivial to the extent that identity is politicized by words of cultural appropriation or usurpation of gender.
The word "we may need full-tracking" means "we may need at least 3-points tracking with head-mount display". The reason why I say it before any VR experience is from a memory of disappointing experience of a desktop 3D avatar world service I played in the past. It was ai sp@ce.
Like even a household on welfare buys a smartphone of thousands of yens today, VR devices will be bought too if it is regarded as a necessary expense for life and public participation. I think author and others are preparing theories and negotiations for the popularization.
Explore our desire
The phrase "become what you want to be" is still low resolution. Epilogue of this book contains further insight. No matter how much technologies develops, we can only get "means of exploring to know what we want to be".
I think the core value of computer technology is speeding up everything, and its most important usage is simulation. We are gradually simulating not only industrial products and natural phenomena, but also realization of desire and way of life.
I have been arguing to protect sexual expressions from the perspective of training ourselves to recognize and verbalize our own desire. From this experience, I know how difficult to explore what we want to do and want to be. It requires us some intelligence, patience, and luck. What we want to do/be cannot be shown by others because possibility of human is not so narrow. So rare is who can find its true desire, and who satisfy it is further rare. I think one's deepest desire is essentially impossible to satisfy (not just because new desires appear one after another). However, noticing possibilities of living in different ways and knowing there is an unexplored depth inside ourselves must add delight to our life. As a result, it will cause a new development of society.
The review is contaminated by my own thought, but I want to say this book is satisfactory in contents. It starts from a definition of metaverse, then overviews major services and technologies, and introduces actual feeling of life in metaverse. It is up to your experience whether you are surprised at them. Can we believe attractive descriptions in this book? We never know it until we go there.
For me, the contents was not surprising but the fact that they were written in a book and commercially supplied. The author might feel so too. An advanced technology is indistinguishable from spiritualism. More precisely, both technology and spiritualism come from human's mind and may go to the same goal.
Discussion 1: Alchemy
I mentioned to alchemy in the review. Alchemy has a hidden aspect of spiritual training behind that of forging fake gold. The "philosopher's stone" meant a perfect self obtained by applying "Solve et Coagula (Separate and Merge)" repeatedly to practitioner's mind.
I think elements of metaverse enables these separation and merger more easily and thoroughly. First, roughly separate a part of self by a name, an avatar, and voice. Second, stimulate this separated character to stand independently by economy and communication. Third, re-integrate it with the self on the original body by tracking.
I respect a process of re-integration, but what if we abandon our bodies as thrones of soul in future? What happens to our identity, if we learn to digitizing our consciousness and memory to save them on a cloud network[6]? Maybe hash values is assigned to each data to synchronize it over multiple computers, and it will carry an identity of person. If such kind of system is not deployed, we cannot keep continuity of memory and separation of me from others. Only volatile bubbles of data on each address and one thinking process composed by these bubbles will remain. Then a group of computers which runs this thinking process will mean a new "body". It will interact with environment, feel restriction, and start a next extension. I don't say body is a cage. What behaves as a cage, it is called body.
Tanji Yoshinobu has already reported that an image of avatar ("kawaii" in this case) can feedback to an operator's emotion, thanks to tracking of face and gesture[1]. I have been trying a similar transformation of self by imagination and cross-dressing, but VR may provide more efficient way of that.
This feedback only force one to get along with the separated selves but does not tell how to get along with. We need another technique to do that. Occultists in all over the world have warned this for a long time.
In my understanding, the "abyss" that Éliphas Lévi warns in "Introduction" of The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic basically means this[7].
We must not set out rashly along the path of the transcendent sciences, but, once started, we must reach the end or perish. To doubt is to become a fool; to pause is to fall; to recoil is to cast one’s self into an abyss.
Mentioning to another example, techniques of tulpa is very similar to a transformation of identity using avatar. Therefore risks of tulpa (getting a dissociative identity disorder or falling into a spiral of negative emotion) can also occur in avatar. But I expect communication with other users may prevent us from losing a control of avatar.
In spite of some risks, I believe we will find evolution of mankind beyond this abyss. We should know ourselves and keep the meant of it. Under this theme, I have been arguing freedom of expression and discussing a psychiatric view of Pokémon.
Psychiatric view of Pokémon:
Discussion 2: Social contract and Shakugan no Shana
Metaverse users come from a world of different physics law, show themselves in an appearance reflecting their essence, modify structures of the world, and make mysterious phenomena. I know similar characters. Of course it is "Guze no Tomogara" (which means "residence of crimson world") in Shakugan no Shana. I find many resemblance between social VR and Shana.
In modern Shana studies, it is popular to understand Jizaihō (mysterious arts) in an analogy of computer programming. Unity in VR corresponds to it. Tools for making humanoid avatar like VRoid Studio is Jinka (show themselves in a humanoid appearance). Official update, ban, and announcement may correspond to the three laws of world.
These are example of understanding Shana through social VR, but we can also estimate development of social VR by comparison with Shana. Based on what I heard, it seems to me that the current situation of social VR is close to right before establishment of Royal Play in the old world or period of chaos in the new world.
Some people are already acting in similar ways with Peripatetic World Preacher (who wanders to propose coexistence of human and lives from another world) or Bal Masqué (a mutual aid association of immigrants from another world). First by feelings and lynch, and second by system, social VR community will seek a border line between what should be allowed and what should be not. Then they will establish a common framework of security. This process should be the same as what the physical world experienced.
Again the principle of "know yourself" will be a key here. Freedom of expression is necessary to be secured systematically and supported theoretically. Furthermore, I think platforms should be decentralized. That's why I am not willing to buy devices from Meta no matter how their price is low.
A given fact of "can do anything" and questioning "what do we want to do" are a pair of wheels of development of intellectual beings. Unless we try to clarify what we want to do, we cannot maintain the environment where we can do anything. And unless the environment where we can do anything, we cannot fully explore what we want to do.
"Like those newcomers, you indulged in a pleasure of CAN DO, didn't you?"
(…)
"In the new world Xanadu, was IT you truly wanted to do? You just rushed into it, excited by a possibility of CAN BE it, didn't you?"
I think it is inevitable that most users will be involved in organization or alliance in social VR, like most people in the physical world belongs to company or school. This occurs even on dividuals, even without constraint of distance, even in an open metaverse.
Group function was deployed in VRChat in December 2022. I was afraid that it would change main actor from user to groups. But an user suggested to me that the main benefit of the group function was make it easy to seek friends' location and my concern was needless.
Besides, requirements to make unlimited space an utopia are described in A/B Extreme, by the same author of Shana. They are stable energy supply, stable food supply, security after dropout from society, and recognition of adult independent from age. These requires collaboration with the physical world.
Shana reflects the history of this physical world. It enables us discussion above. In metaverse, some parts must follow the same process of the physical world. Now they are seeking with prediction and operation on site, where such a part is and how integrate it with other parts.
Cover of the book
なんとなくメタバース本だから表紙はやっぱり「メタバース構図」(⬇こんなの) かな？ と思っていたので、初め表紙見た時は自分のドアップでビックリしたw
— バーチャル美少女ねむ/Nem⚡大賞作家&Forbes注目のクリエイター100 (@nemchan_nel) October 30, 2022
結果的に、この路線だったら危うく他のメタバース本と被りまくっていたので正解デザインだったなと #メタバース進化論 pic.twitter.com/7N01EkhLPi
I have something to say about the cover of "Theory of Evolution in Metaverse" from the perspective of outreaching VR cultures. She should show there is a citizens in metaverse and it must contain Bishōjo because of the core statements of this book, but a poppy style could let them being looked down. Eventually the cover kept a good balance. This cover was drawn by Hotate Yuuki, a comic artist in Japan.
Since I was not following the trend of Vtuber, the author's portrait I recognized at the first time was the one on this book cover. It gave an impression me like a hitman, rather than a cute idol.
This cover is mysterious because it changes its impression by angle, distance, lighting, resolution, and reader's feelings. In a way to decrease resolution around her mouth, such as an extremely high/low angle or low resolution or small size figure, it looks like smiling rebelliously. Decreasing resolution further, it looks like staring fiercely. However, once we see it from the front with high resolution, it looks like just opening her mouth to say "Well, well, you are such a guy, I understand." (like a novel by Hermann Hesse). Shortly saying, it is an expression of pity. A monochrome portrait on the title page looks like denying any objection. But mental condition of a reader affects more. When we are positive to ourselves it looks smiling, and if not it looks showing pity. I think this portrait works as a charm against evils if we enlarge it to life-size and put it on a wall. I would call it "Metaverse Shōki" (Shōki is a house guardian god of Taoism).
Simulation of life
"Accelerate mind"
精神を加速させろ pic.twitter.com/sfqj85ZCeO
— バーチャル美少女ねむ/Nem⚡大賞作家&Forbes注目のクリエイター100 (@nemchan_nel) July 29, 2022
"Soul recycling"
魂のリサイクル pic.twitter.com/F2GdRV7Z18
— バーチャル美少女ねむ/Nem⚡大賞作家&Forbes注目のクリエイター100 (@nemchan_nel) July 29, 2022
First drawing is reasonable as a feedback from one body to another, but we have to carefully think of the second drawing. Even if we discover various possibilities of ourselves, we cannot vanish pleasure and suffering coming from unrepeatable feature of life. The entire process including recycling soul will be newly defined as "one" cycle of life.
Unrepeatable feature of life cannot be spoiled by just living forever. It is because countless number of unchosen possibilities are generated as long as the life goes on. Therefore I guess the ideal beyond the singularity would be a mind to calmly accept only one life, like "A cat which lived a million lives" (a Japanese illustrated book).
Recycling soul may contribute to this by statistically extracting some invariant essence through an ensemble of many cycles. Then we direct the later cycles to fully realize that essence, and bring a life to the end when we realize it (or when we understand it is impossible to realize).
Needless to say, Japanese Bishōjo pornography users are running huge number of cycles to extract "core of individual sexual desire". Following the author's word, we are "walking countless sexual behaviors in a supersonic speed". This is the core idea of my discussion to protect sexual expressions.
Some people suspect that, humans are ranked by intelligence and personality even if they equally appear as Bishōjos. Therefore the feedback from Bishōjo body to soul is not enough. That's a reasonable concern. If an appearance of Bishōjo ensures the minimum recognition from others, and if this recognition is enough for loving ourselves, it will give the expected relief. I am pessimistic of this "basic income of recognition" by Bishōjo style but I still have a hope.
By the way, my opinion about "walking countless lives in a supersonic speed" above agrees with Exodrive (a Japanese online novel).
Wilderness
In 2018, I said on Twitter:
"Though I say that Bishōjo is a symbol of truth, good, and beauty, I have no vision of appearance what I should be. If I have to choose, I would model my real body and claim that 'This is Bishōjo'. I will join when it becomes more interesting."
[0] Liudmila Bredikhina. Virtual “sweet relationships” in Japan: Navigating affection through technology. Communal practices, behaviors, and latent socio-cultural meaning. Comunifé, 22(XXII), 53–62, 2022 https://doi.org/10.33539/comunife.2022.n22.2684
[1] Tanji Yoshinobu. "Bishōjo" grown up in an ojisan's mind and an alternative future carried by VR, Original title: 丹治吉順『おじさんの心に芽生えた「美少女」 VRがもたらす、もう一つの未来』、「withnews」、2018.03.29更新、https://withnews.jp/article/f0180329000qq000000000000000W00g10701qq000017016A 、2023.02.16閲覧
[2] Tanji Yoshinobu. What is happening in a "paradise" of Bishōjo ojisans…Rapidly growing VR world, Original title: 丹治吉順『美少女おじさんたちの「楽園」で起きていること…急成長するVRの世界』、「withnews」、2018.03.30更新、https://withnews.jp/article/f0180330001qq000000000000000W00g10701qq000017035A 、2023.02.15閲覧
[3] Tanji Yoshinobu. "Hope living in a virtual world forever…" Horizon a virtual YouTuber sees, Original title: 丹治吉順『「できるならずっと仮想の世界に…」バーチャルYouTuberが見た境地』、「withnews」、2018.03.31更新、https://withnews.jp/article/f0180331000qq000000000000000W00g10701qq000017019A 、2023.02.15閲覧
[4] Tanji Yoshinobu. Technology to make an ojisan Bishōjo and "VR world" seen from advanced psychology, Original title: 丹治吉順『おじさんを美少女化したテクノロジー 先端心理学が語る「VRの世界」』、「withnews」、2018.04.01更新、https://withnews.jp/article/f0180401000qq000000000000000W00g10701qq000017020A 、2023.02.15閲覧
[5'] Kurosaki So. Voice translation -- What "Babiniku" incarnates? Latter part, Original title: 黒嵜想『ボイス・トランスレーションーー“バ美肉”は何を受肉するのか？：後編』、「リアルサウンド テック」、2018.10.28更新、https://realsound.jp/tech/2018/10/post-269907.html 、2023.03.22閲覧
[6] Lancia Misumi. Liberation by abolishing body! What is Misumism? - Transhuman, Original title: 蘭茶みすみ『肉体廃止で自由を獲得！ミスミズムって何だろう？-トランスヒューマン』、「note」、2021.02.08更新、https://note.com/lancia_misumi/n/n53a92fc4fbff 、2023.02.16閲覧
[7] Éliphas Lévi. The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, Japanese title: エリファス・レヴィ著、生田耕作訳『高等魔術の教理と祭儀 教理篇』、国書刊行会、1994
[8] Takahashi Yashichiro. Shakugan no Shana Quiddity, Original title: 高橋弥七郎『灼眼のシャナ クィディティ』、「電撃文庫MAGAZINE 2020年5月号」、KADOKAWA、2020
fin.