We launched Toyonaka Navi, an AI chatbot specializing in local information for Toyonaka City, Osaka, in March 2026. Two AI characters with distinct personalities are ready to answer any question about Toyonaka — from restaurants, sightseeing, and sports to parenting, city services, and administrative procedures.
Available on PC web browsers and smartphones
Service Overview
“Toyonaka Navi” is an AI chatbot service that provides real-time answers to questions about Toyonaka City. Two characters share responsibilities to cover a wide range of topics.
🏉 Toyo-Bot (TY-BT)
《Character Profile》
Born and raised in Toyonaka, working as a university researcher in the city. Covers everything about town life — restaurants, cafés, sightseeing, events, and rugby — with an energetic Osaka flair.
🌸 Toyo-Mi (TY-MI)
《Character Profile》
A former nursery school teacher and mother of two. Provides warm and thoughtful guidance on everyday life topics — parenting, childcare, education, city procedures, healthcare, and social welfare.
Features
At the heart of Toyonaka Navi is “search that understands meaning.” This is a fundamentally different approach from conventional search.
This is nothing like simply throwing a question at ChatGPT.
The system incorporates two distinct AI roles: one that “answers intelligently” and one that “searches intelligently.”
No matter how much quality information is stored in the database, it’s useless if the AI can’t accurately understand the intent behind a question. What sets Toyonaka Navi apart is that it uses an AI capable of understanding the meaning of Japanese-language queries — not just matching keywords.
It accurately grasps Japanese-specific expressions and concepts such as “nursery school,” “childcare support,” and “waitlisted children.”
Since Japanese is the primary language of Toyonaka Navi, this semantic precision directly determines the quality of every answer.
Ask “I need somewhere to leave my child” and you’ll get information about nursery schools.
Even without the word “café,” it picks up on intent like “I want to relax” or “I need a place to work.”
“Surfacing relevant information even when the keywords don’t match” — this is the approach that redefines conventional search, and the mechanism that lets us truly respond to what users are looking for.
The processing system is built on three layers
| Layer 1 (Language Processing) | Responds in a human-like way using Osaka dialect, character personality, and contextual understanding |
| Layer 2 (Embedding) | Understands meaning to “find the right information” |
| Layer 3 (RAG / Database) | Accurately stores and delivers Toyonaka-specific data |
Technology Stack
Built on a combination of modern web frontend technologies and AI APIs, the system is designed to be secure and scalable.
| Category | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | Next.js 15 / React 19 (App Router) |
| Hosting | Vercel (GitHub integration · Auto Deploy) |
| AI Chat | Anthropic Claude API (claude-sonnet-4-6) |
| AI Character Routing | Anthropic Claude API (claude-haiku-4-5) |
| Text Embedding | Voyage AI — voyage-multilingual-2 (1024 dimensions) |
| Vector Database | Supabase pgvector |
| Domain | toyo-navi.jp |
| Admin Dashboard | Next.js /admin/dashboard + recharts (Pie / Bar / Line) |
| Usage Log DB | Supabase query_logs table (RLS enabled · No IP address storage) |
| Admin Authentication | Environment variable-based (managed via Vercel) |
| Analytics | Google Analytics 4 |
System Flow (Overview)
Here is the processing pipeline from the moment a user submits a question to when the answer is delivered.
- Question Received & Character Assignment
The AI analyzes the content of the user’s question and automatically determines whether Toyo-Bot (TY-BT) or Toyo-Mi (TY-MI) should respond. - RAG Search (Knowledge Base Lookup)
The question is converted into vector data and used to perform a high-speed search of the Toyonaka City information database stored in Supabase. - Response Generation
Using the retrieved information as context, Anthropic Claude generates a response that reflects each character’s persona. - Response Display
The answer is delivered to the user alongside the character’s icon, in natural Osaka-style Japanese.
Privacy Design
The guiding philosophy behind our system design: “Privacy-conscious data collection”
- ❌ No IP address collection
- ❌ No detailed user-agent collection
- ❌ No personally identifiable information collected
- ❌ No location data collected
- ✅ session_id is an anonymous UUID generated in the browser’s localStorage (not linked server-side)
- ✅ device_type is limited to two values — mobile / desktop (based on broad UA detection)
- ✅ Question category is recorded
- ✅ Question text is recorded (used to grow the knowledge base)
- ✅ Response outcome is recorded (used to verify information completeness and accuracy)
Data Sources
The information referenced by Toyonaka Navi is built from the following reliable, publicly available sources.
- Toyonaka City Open Data (Official City of Toyonaka)
We utilize publicly released facility information, administrative data, and statistics published by the city. - Toyonaka Hodo (Local news website)
A richly curated source of local news, events, and community stories from within Toyonaka City. - Toyonaka Rugby School Official Website
Referenced as a source for sports and rugby-related information.
This data is periodically collected by a BFS (breadth-first search) crawler, split into chunks, and stored in a vector database. During response generation, relevant chunks are automatically retrieved to ensure accurate, up-to-date information delivery.
Disclaimer
The information provided by Toyonaka Navi is AI-generated based on the publicly available data sources listed above. Please note the following.
- The accuracy of responses depends on the quality and currency of each data source. Information may differ from the most current details.
- AI-generated responses may contain errors or inaccuracies. For matters of importance, please verify directly with the relevant official organizations or service counters.
- The service may be temporarily unavailable during periods of high traffic or system maintenance.
- The operator accepts no responsibility for any damages arising from the use of information provided by this service.
Afterword — My Connection to Toyonaka, and What This Service Means to Me
I’ve lived in Toyonaka for nearly thirty years. Two children were born here, grew up here, and have since gone out into the world as working adults. Looking back, I can count so many moments during those parenting years when I thought, “I’m glad we’re in Toyonaka.” As a place to live, and as a place for my children to grow, this city has given us so much.
With the busiest years of parenting behind me, I found myself asking: “What can I actually do for this city?”
Having spent my career moving between creative direction and systems integration, the only means of “delivering” something that came to mind was digital content. And so I thought — if I could use that to share what makes Toyonaka special, maybe I could play a small part in helping this city thrive. That feeling is what led me to start building this application.
The core of the information comes from Toyonaka City’s official open data. For local news and community buzz, I draw on the wonderfully comprehensive Toyonaka Hodo website, and for sports content, the Toyonaka Rugby School website — an organization my children and I have both been involved with for many years. While grounding everything in accurate information, I’ve made it a priority to keep things fun and engaging.
As a self-operated web app, there are real challenges — managing server load during traffic spikes, maintaining response quality as AI token usage fluctuates, and keeping operational costs in check. Even so, I keep this running as my way of giving back to the city that has given me so much — hoping it brings a little joy to as many people as possible.
AS DESIGN ASSOCIATES Inc.
President & Creative Director, Shotaro Sawada