Even though Ako Tamaki had just said that the equipment she, U, M, and R got from dungeon runs was worth a million yen, without Utaha Kasumigaoka's reminder, it was difficult for Yukino Yukinoshita and the others to make the connection that gaming could also make money.
It couldn't be helped. Japan's class structure had long since solidified. "Work for a living, live to work, workers are the masters of all"—that had become the standard here...
Even University of Tokyo graduates, if they lacked capital backing, could only start out as corporate drones. At most, their starting point would be higher than ordinary people's, and the class they could eventually reach would be somewhat higher as well. To become part of the upper-class elite still required generations of effort.
It wasn't like the Celestial Empire, where everything was waiting to be rebuilt and business opportunities were everywhere. As long as you surpassed most ordinary people in any given field, you could make a living from it. If your luck was extraordinary, you might even build a fortune on it.
Yet such things rarely happened in Japan. Take Koshien, for example—the dream of most high school students...
But even among the teams that made it to Koshien, only a scant few could attract the attention of capital. For most high school students, reaching Koshien led only to an ending where they faded into the crowd.
School idols were another example, and an even more blatant case of exploitation by capital. Investors used the school idol project to draw countless eyeballs and tremendous hype, but what did they give in return? You could say they gave nothing at all. After all, they merely gave the school idols a stage. As for prize money...
Heh heh.
School idols were students at the end