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STRANGER THAN HEAVEN unfolds across five cities and five eras of modern Japan, each a distinct chapter in Makoto Daito's fifty-year journey. The story begins earlier still, in San Francisco in 1915, before Makoto departs for Japan.
The Eras
Year | City | Setting |
|---|---|---|
1915 | Kokura | An industrial town in Fukuoka, home to one of the world's largest foundries |
1929 | Kure | A port in Hiroshima dominated by Japan's largest naval arsenal |
1943 | Minami, Osaka | Western Japan's largest entertainment district, set against the rising tension of a world already at war |
1951 | Atami | A postwar seaside resort in Shizuoka, synonymous with tourism |
1965 | Shinjuku, Tokyo | Japan's most iconic pleasure district, and the saga's finale |
A Changing Japan
Each era reflects its moment in history, from industry and wartime to postwar recovery. The 1951 Atami chapter in particular highlights the American cultural influence sweeping postwar Japan. As the decades pass, the world and its characters change around Makoto.
Released material for the 1951 chapter shows a hot-spring resort arcade in full tourist season: a decorated shopping-street gate, souvenir shops, sellers of hot-spring steamed buns, a photography studio, and lodging signage, with crowds in a mix of Western and Japanese dress crossing a stone balustrade bridge.
The developers have said they favor a believable dramatization over strict historical accuracy. The cities are not exact replicas of their real-world counterparts, and real events from each era are generally left out unless they tie directly into Makoto's story.
Entertainment Through the Decades
Each era carries its own culture and its own amusements, and the game leans on that contrast. In 1915 Kokura, a town crowded with foundry workers and without modern entertainment, the diversions on offer are drinking, gambling, and buying pleasure. By 1929 Kure, foreign culture has begun to filter into the port, and the entertainment on offer changes with it. Later chapters continue the pattern, so what there is to do in a city is part of how each era is characterised. See Side Activities for the wider list of pastimes.
Kamurocho in the 1965 Chapter
Official listings describe the fifth chapter's setting as Shinjuku, Tokyo. Screenshots released for that chapter show its entertainment quarter signed as Kamurocho, on an illuminated arch that also names the street running beneath it, Tenkaichi Street, and marks the quarter as an entertainment centre in Shinjuku. The wider Shinjuku setting is the labelled location; Kamurocho is the district within it that the released material puts on screen.
Beginnings in San Francisco
The opening in 1915 San Francisco establishes Makoto's origins and the prejudice that sets him on the path to Japan. It serves as the starting point of the story rather than one of the five main Japanese chapters.
The five eras have also been used as the organising idea for an exhibit: a walk-through museum built around them is part of the game's showing at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2026.