Japan

Virtual travel to Japan in VR180

Walk through vermillion torii gates, beneath autumn maples at ancient temples, and along Osaka’s neon-lit streets after dark. Japan seamlessly blends tradition and modernity: from still garden ponds full of koi to the noise and colour of Dotonbori. Experience Kansai in its most photographed season, all in breathtaking 8K VR180 detail.

Our Japan set has a season, and it is autumn. Most of these were filmed in the maple turn, from Japanese Gardens in Fall through Sunset Over Kyoto Temple to The Hidden Garden, and that is not incidental. A Japanese garden is built to be looked at from one carefully chosen standing point, which happens to be exactly the posture a VR180 headset puts you in. You are not walked past the view. You are put where the view was designed to be seen from, and then left to turn your head.

Geographically this is Kansai. Kyoto supplies the temples and gardens: Torii Gates Trail climbs through thousands of vermillion gates at Fushimi Inari Taisha, Sunset Over Kyoto Temple holds still while the light comes off Kiyomizu-dera above a sea of red maple, and Calming Koi Fish is two minutes of fish, leaves and water. Nara supplies the deer, at sunrise, in The Deer of Nara. Osaka supplies the noise: Osaka Streets and Neon Nights in Dotonbori are both after dark, and a neon canyon is one of the very few urban subjects that genuinely improves in stereo, because the signs hang at a dozen different depths and your eyes can finally tell them apart.

Practically, this is the set to put on when you want density rather than emptiness. There is no wilderness here. The frames are full of gates, lanterns, leaves, water and people, and the pleasure is in looking around rather than looking out. If your instinct usually runs to a fjord or an empty beach, treat Japan as the opposite pole of the library. Late October into early December is when the colour moves down the country, which is the window everything here sits in.

First time in the Japanese set? Start with Torii Gates Trail, the one everybody recognises, and it holds up: a tunnel of gates that only makes sense once it wraps around you. Autumn River Flow is the slow one afterwards, two fixed minutes of boats and birds passing a riverside in full colour.

If you came for the urban half or the quiet half specifically, they also sit in Cities and Still & Calm.