Wiki Wednesday #173 - Airi Amane / 天音愛莉

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Wiki Wednesday #173 - Airi Amane / 天音愛莉

16 year old girl with pretty pastel design. Airi means Love White Jasmine.

Who is Amane Airi?

official art from wiki

"Supposedly" fictional Chia here.

How does tourism help the Union? I didn't understand it until I sat down with my mother. I was concerned about her efforts to make a communist civilization capitalistic.

The first thing she stressed was that Union money was virtually worthless on our moon. No one outside of her little tourist town would take it. If someone worked in the tourist town, they were paid in Union money and not the local currency. The tourist town only took Union money.

She stopped me as soon as I started to open my mouth. Of course my people were allowed to visit and purchase things from the town. If they didn't work for the Union for Union money, they weren't locked out. Every month, a book of vouchers were sent out. They had no expiration date. You could trade them in for almost anything within reason. Have a hundred free coffee vouchers? That's about the cost of a hotel stay, so have fun staying in the hotel!

The hotel was the biggest attraction. It wasn't that fancy, but it had a perfectly maintained pool. Pools just weren't something that existed before. No one knew how to swim, especially in my area. I lived in the middle of the only continent on my moon. Our only ocean is nearly black and violent enough to destroy almost any wooden boat. No one would be willing to swim in that. We have almost no rivers, and the ones that we do have are nearly as violent.

My mother was so proud that she introduced swimming to our people. If she could get revenue up, she could lobby to get a sports center with a giant, public pool built.

That didn't explain how the Union profited. The first thing she explained was how the Union itself directly profited. 

The first way that the Union profited was by charging to use their portals to travel long distances. The portals require the same amount of maintenance regardless of how many ships pass through them. Making ships pay a fee to go through is pure profit.

The second way was taxes. The governing body was the tourism board. Every time money changed hands, even the vouchers, a tax is paid on it. Buying coffee? Sales tax. Selling the coffee? Income tax. While the majority of those taxes go into developing the tourist towns, enough goes back to the Union to make it worth it.

It was so strange to see the town. The first thing that shocked me was how bright it was. Even during the day, there were large streetlights to make it seem bright and sunny. Walking down the sidewalk, I saw species that I hadn't seen before. My mother lightly elbowed me. I knew it was wrong to gawk, but it was so strange.

We went into a cafe and I stopped in place. Creatures that would never be let into the Union were speaking into translator boxes that output English. At one table, a giant cat-like creature was holding a stilted, translated conversation with a giant bird.

My mother laughed. She explained that even non-Union species worked for the Union. They traded their resources for Union money. On most planets, Union money had replaced the original currency.

It was so strange.

How is Airi Amane's bank?

It is a one pitch CV bank, but hurray! The bank is in hiragana. This is nothing important - the names of the files. But I like seeing the hiragana.

Her voice is of nice quality, though a bit noisy. Her voice is so cute. It is the kind of cute like Haruka Nana, only soft instead of strong. It is a nice voice.

Where can I download Airi Amane?

You can find the download link on Airi's Wiki Page. She is a very nice UTAU.