From digital towns to games, Asia's metaverse is still going strong.

Even though Meta didn't do well in the West, virtual worlds are growing in places like Japan, the Philippines, and more.

Hitsuzi is a real person. He is 32 years old and works for the Japanese government. He lives alone in a neighborhood north of Tokyo. He usually gets home from work around 8 p.m. and eats a ready-made meal. The fun starts around 10 p.m. He puts on a pair of VR glasses that take him to a huge hall made of clouds where he plays games and talks with friends from around the world until the wee hours of the morning.

Hitsuzi talks to his friends in the virtual world not as a 30-something office worker, but as his image, a girl with purple hair who wears cat ears and a black minidress.
He says that every night he spends time on the virtual site VRChat, where he talks to people from all over the world and goes to virtual events like DJ events.

Hitsuzi told Nikkei Asia, "It's different from talking on the phone because you can see your friend's face and body language, and you feel like they are really there."

Even with his VR glasses on, he sometimes falls asleep in the imaginary world with his friends. He says that the awkward goggles make it hard for him to sleep, but the feeling of being with others makes it worth it. He also said, "Sleeping in virtual reality doesn't heal my body, but it heals my mind because I don't feel lonely."

Hitsuzi is part of a group of people in Asia that spends a lot of their free time in the metaverse. The metaverse is any kind of common, three-dimensional, virtual shared place where users can connect with each other's characters, or digital profiles.