Abstract
Japan currently enjoys a "VR boom", a proliferation of commercial virtual reality (VR) programs. As it pertains to disability studies, however, we observe troubling ableist and assimilatory tendencies such as a VR tool for implicit bias training for medical practitioners that promises "simulated experiences" of disabled people, or a VR vocational coaching tool designed to teach disabled people social scripts in professional settings. This article cautions against such stifling and one-dimensional approaches to disability and instead offers more expansive and transformative VR usage based on the creative and pedagogical practices the authors engage with: 1) a VR co-creation approach which revolves around disabled content creators and developers who forge disability-centered community spaces, and 2) a VR intersectional education approach which invites students-regardless of their disability status-to identify their interrelated struggles in an ableist, cisheteronormative, and patriarchal society, realizing their political responsibility for nurturing inclusivity with disabled community members.