Let's Build: Inside Perxona's Tokyo Hackathon

Tokyo · Saturday, August 8, 2026

Some events need a keynote. This one needed a countdown clock and a stack of pizza boxes.

On Saturday afternoon, builders packed a Tokyo room for the Perxona Hackathon. The brief on the screen was two words long: Let's Build! The Perxona Kit had just gone live in Discord and GitHub, the submission deadline was set for 17:00, and everything in between was up to the people in the room.

The official fuel of every good hackathon.

One kit, one afternoon

The format was simple on purpose. Take the Connect Kit, give your app a face and a voice, and ship something you can demo before the clock runs out. No long briefings. Staff were on the floor and in the event Discord for anyone who got stuck, and the room grew noticeably quieter as 17:00 approached. The good kind of quiet.

Heads down, avatars up.

What got built

Projects landed in the event Discord all afternoon, screenshots first, modesty second. A few that had us passing phones around:

michi. — the travel planner that knows your context

Ask michi. "I want to experience Japanese culture on Sunday, any recommendations?" and it doesn't just list tourist spots. It knows you're two adults traveling with an infant, tracks your trip budget in yen as you plan, and answers with a voice and a face. The demo we saw proposed a private tea ceremony in a Yanaka machiya, a small-group calligraphy lesson, and a washi paper-making workshop. All baby-friendly, all dropped straight into a live itinerary you can rearrange. It even ruled out taiko drumming for being "punishingly loud" with a sleeping baby, and flagged that the plan was running over budget. A context-aware AI travel planner, in the truest sense.

VTuber Live 24/7 — built in under 4 hours

One builder shipped a complete VTuber experience in, by her own account, under four hours. Live mode for always-on streaming, Fortune mode for Mazu-style fortune telling and AI tarot, and a UI that switches between Chinese, Japanese, and English. Custom avatar models made in Blender were flying around the Discord too. The reaction emojis did the judging.

Øue Dojo — comedy training with a scoring system

Possibly the most Japanese project of the afternoon: a scenario-training MVP that teaches you manzai. Pick a scenario like "A Trip to the Convenience Store," listen to your avatar partner set up the joke, spot the contradiction or exaggeration, and deliver your comeback out loud. Your response and your timing both get scored. Language practice, comedy timing, and a mushroom-hatted sparring partner in a single app.

The room did the rest

That's the part no kit can ship: a Saturday's worth of people who chose to spend it building, comparing screens, and reacting to each other's demos. Thank you to every builder who came, and to the team who kept the room, the Discord, and the pizza supply running.