Creating a Japan where all hospitalized children can meet animals.
STARIUM Inc. aims to bring "AR Zoos" to all pediatric wards across Japan, allowing hospitalized children to experience encounters with life-sized AR animals. This initiative is supported by corporate sponsorships, ensuring medical institutions bear no costs, and fostering smiles and a sense of wonder among children during their hospital stay.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 1, 2026 at 20:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 1, 2026 at 16:47
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 17, 2026 at 04:44 (371h 56m after Collected)
Our company endorses April Dream, an initiative to make April 1st a day to express dreams. This press release is a dream of "STARIUM Inc."
STARIUM Inc. (Headquarters: Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture https://www.arzoo.jp/top) declares its dream of delivering "time to encounter life" to all hospitalized children. Now that we have realized Japan's first permanent "AR Zoo," we are expanding our steps to all pediatric wards nationwide.
[Image caption: AR Zoo: Penguin Walk]
## ■ Background to realizing the dream: A quiet loss in the hospital room
Some children have never been to a zoo. Some children know from textbooks how long a giraffe's neck is, how penguins walk, or how big lions are, but have never seen them in real life. Some children have been promised a trip to the zoo after discharge, but it has not yet come true.
**But we know.**
That even on a hospital bed, we can make children's eyes sparkle.
In the field of pediatric medicine, hospitalization and outpatient visits place a significant burden on the entire family. Children who are suddenly cut off from their daily lives due to hospital life experience feelings of loneliness from not being able to see family and friends, a sense of confinement from not being able to go outside, and fear of examinations and procedures. The longer the hospitalization, the more severe the psychological burden becomes.
In response to these challenges, initiatives to improve children's hospital environment from aspects other than medical treatment have not yet spread sufficiently in Japan. STARIUM believes that by delivering an extraordinary experience of "encountering animals" inside the hospital through AR (Augmented Reality) technology, it can change children's expressions and bring smiles and a sense of security to their hospital lives.
When you hold up a smartphone or tablet, a penguin appears in the hallway. It waddles along. With a hand still attached to an IV drip, a child instinctively reaches out to touch it—such moments are born every day in the ward. By encountering animals, children touch life and create smiles. At that moment, the circle of smiles expands to include the families next to them and the medical staff.
## ■ STARIUM's initiatives: From Japan's first permanent installation to nationwide expansion
This service utilizes AR (Augmented Reality) technology to make real, life-sized animals appear in places and spaces that do not exist in reality, under the supervision of Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa City, Hokkaido, which boasts global popularity. By using "XR CHANNEL" (※2), a location-based AR app that displays AR (Augmented Reality) in everyday spaces with SoVeC Corporation's Visual Positioning System (hereinafter VPS) (※1) technology, it creates an extraordinary experience through smartphones and tablets, as if animals are right in front of them.
Asahiyama Zoo has always cherished showing animals in their natural state. Giraffes stretching their necks, penguins walking, lions breathing—by realistically reproducing these "authentic movements" in life-sized AR, children can encounter "life" rather than just a picture book.
So far, we have held numerous experiential events at medical institutions including the National Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Saitama Children's Medical Center, Nagano Children's Hospital, and Gunma Children's Medical Center, receiving significant feedback from children and medical staff.
Then, in March 2026, we began Japan's first permanent installation in a pediatric ward at Yokosuka City Hospital. Popular Asahiyama Zoo penguins walk in the second-floor pediatric outpatient clinic, and a lion appears in the fourth-floor pediatric ward playroom, providing children with the experience of "meeting animals anytime." This initiative is realized through the sponsorship of companies that empathize with the desire "for the future of children," allowing medical institutions to deliver this "experience" to children without any financial burden.
Currently, preparations for the permanent deployment of the AR Zoo are underway at several other medical institutions. To ensure that such experiences are not divided between "hospitals that have it" and "hospitals that don't," we are building a sustainable model through corporate sponsorship and are earnestly promoting nationwide expansion.
**[Main Installation Achievements]**
National Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Nagano Children's Medical Center, Saitama Children's Medical Center, Gunma Children's Medical Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Kodaira Special Needs School Musashi Branch, and several other facilities nationwide.
## ■ No burden is placed on medical institutions at all
The biggest feature of this initiative is its business model, which does not impose any financial burden on medical institutions. The costs associated with the introduction and operation of "AR Zoo" are covered by national clients and local companies participating as sponsors, thus creating a system where "AR Zoo" is provided free of charge to medical institutions. This is "AR Zoo Children Support."
Medical institutions incur zero costs. The names of sponsoring companies are displayed within the facilities and the app, making their contributions visible to both the medical field and the local community as companies supporting the hospitalized lives of local children. The more sponsors there are, the more hospitals can introduce it—this simple mechanism is the driving force behind nationwide expansion.
## ■ Our dream
## Delivering AR zoos to all pediatric wards nationwide.
To enable children to meet animals anytime, anywhere in Japan, regardless of which hospital room they are in. For hospitalized children not to feel that "there are places they can't go." Creating such a Japan is our dream.
Encountering animals does more than just create smiles. Questions like "Why is this animal endangered now?", "Why are forests being lost?", and "What is life?" reside within children, and these questions become respect for life and imagination for others. The AR Zoo aims to be the entrance to such exploration.
This dream cannot be achieved by us alone. We want to move forward step by step with companies, medical institutions, and local communities who share the sentiment "for the future of children." We believe that all children, whether hospitalized or not, should have equal opportunities to encounter life. With that dream in mind, we take another step today.
STARIUM Inc. (Headquarters: Yokosuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture https://www.arzoo.jp/top) declares its dream of delivering "time to encounter life" to all hospitalized children. Now that we have realized Japan's first permanent "AR Zoo," we are expanding our steps to all pediatric wards nationwide.
[Image caption: AR Zoo: Penguin Walk]
## ■ Background to realizing the dream: A quiet loss in the hospital room
Some children have never been to a zoo. Some children know from textbooks how long a giraffe's neck is, how penguins walk, or how big lions are, but have never seen them in real life. Some children have been promised a trip to the zoo after discharge, but it has not yet come true.
**But we know.**
That even on a hospital bed, we can make children's eyes sparkle.
In the field of pediatric medicine, hospitalization and outpatient visits place a significant burden on the entire family. Children who are suddenly cut off from their daily lives due to hospital life experience feelings of loneliness from not being able to see family and friends, a sense of confinement from not being able to go outside, and fear of examinations and procedures. The longer the hospitalization, the more severe the psychological burden becomes.
In response to these challenges, initiatives to improve children's hospital environment from aspects other than medical treatment have not yet spread sufficiently in Japan. STARIUM believes that by delivering an extraordinary experience of "encountering animals" inside the hospital through AR (Augmented Reality) technology, it can change children's expressions and bring smiles and a sense of security to their hospital lives.
When you hold up a smartphone or tablet, a penguin appears in the hallway. It waddles along. With a hand still attached to an IV drip, a child instinctively reaches out to touch it—such moments are born every day in the ward. By encountering animals, children touch life and create smiles. At that moment, the circle of smiles expands to include the families next to them and the medical staff.
## ■ STARIUM's initiatives: From Japan's first permanent installation to nationwide expansion
This service utilizes AR (Augmented Reality) technology to make real, life-sized animals appear in places and spaces that do not exist in reality, under the supervision of Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa City, Hokkaido, which boasts global popularity. By using "XR CHANNEL" (※2), a location-based AR app that displays AR (Augmented Reality) in everyday spaces with SoVeC Corporation's Visual Positioning System (hereinafter VPS) (※1) technology, it creates an extraordinary experience through smartphones and tablets, as if animals are right in front of them.
Asahiyama Zoo has always cherished showing animals in their natural state. Giraffes stretching their necks, penguins walking, lions breathing—by realistically reproducing these "authentic movements" in life-sized AR, children can encounter "life" rather than just a picture book.
So far, we have held numerous experiential events at medical institutions including the National Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Saitama Children's Medical Center, Nagano Children's Hospital, and Gunma Children's Medical Center, receiving significant feedback from children and medical staff.
Then, in March 2026, we began Japan's first permanent installation in a pediatric ward at Yokosuka City Hospital. Popular Asahiyama Zoo penguins walk in the second-floor pediatric outpatient clinic, and a lion appears in the fourth-floor pediatric ward playroom, providing children with the experience of "meeting animals anytime." This initiative is realized through the sponsorship of companies that empathize with the desire "for the future of children," allowing medical institutions to deliver this "experience" to children without any financial burden.
Currently, preparations for the permanent deployment of the AR Zoo are underway at several other medical institutions. To ensure that such experiences are not divided between "hospitals that have it" and "hospitals that don't," we are building a sustainable model through corporate sponsorship and are earnestly promoting nationwide expansion.
**[Main Installation Achievements]**
National Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Nagano Children's Medical Center, Saitama Children's Medical Center, Gunma Children's Medical Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Kodaira Special Needs School Musashi Branch, and several other facilities nationwide.
## ■ No burden is placed on medical institutions at all
The biggest feature of this initiative is its business model, which does not impose any financial burden on medical institutions. The costs associated with the introduction and operation of "AR Zoo" are covered by national clients and local companies participating as sponsors, thus creating a system where "AR Zoo" is provided free of charge to medical institutions. This is "AR Zoo Children Support."
Medical institutions incur zero costs. The names of sponsoring companies are displayed within the facilities and the app, making their contributions visible to both the medical field and the local community as companies supporting the hospitalized lives of local children. The more sponsors there are, the more hospitals can introduce it—this simple mechanism is the driving force behind nationwide expansion.
## ■ Our dream
## Delivering AR zoos to all pediatric wards nationwide.
To enable children to meet animals anytime, anywhere in Japan, regardless of which hospital room they are in. For hospitalized children not to feel that "there are places they can't go." Creating such a Japan is our dream.
Encountering animals does more than just create smiles. Questions like "Why is this animal endangered now?", "Why are forests being lost?", and "What is life?" reside within children, and these questions become respect for life and imagination for others. The AR Zoo aims to be the entrance to such exploration.
This dream cannot be achieved by us alone. We want to move forward step by step with companies, medical institutions, and local communities who share the sentiment "for the future of children." We believe that all children, whether hospitalized or not, should have equal opportunities to encounter life. With that dream in mind, we take another step today.