was also selected to host a number of games for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and the Paralympics which had to be rescheduled to the summer of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. In popular culture As the largest population center in Japan and the site of the country's largest broadcasters and studios, Tokyo is frequently the setting for many Japanese movies, television shows, animated series (anime), web comics, light novels, video games, and comic books (manga). In the kaiju (monster movie) genre, landmarks of Tokyo are usually destroyed by giant monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera. Some Hollywood directors have turned to Tokyo as a backdrop for movies set in Japan. Postwar examples include Tokyo Joe, My Geisha, Tokyo Story and the James Bond film You Only Live Twice; recent examples include Kill Bill, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Lost in Translation, Babel, Inception, The Wolverine and Avengers: Endgame. Japanese author Haruki Murakami has based some of his novels in Tokyo (including Norwegian Wood), and David Mitchell's first two novels (number9dream and Ghostwritten) featured the city. Contemporary British painter Carl Randall spent 10 years living in Tokyo as an artist, creating a body of work depicting the city's crowded streets and public spaces. International relations Tokyo is the founding member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 and is a member of the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. Tokyo was also a founding member of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Sister cities and states , Tokyo has twinning or friendship agreements with the following twelve cities and states: New York City, United States (since February 1960) Beijing, China (since March 1979) Paris, France (since July 1982) New South Wales, Australia (since May 1984) Seoul, South Korea (since September 1988) Jakarta, Indonesia (since October 1989) São Paulo State, Brazil (since June 1990) Cairo, Egypt (since October 1990) Moscow, Russia (since July 1991) Berlin, Germany (since May 1994) Rome, Italy (since July 1996) London, United Kingdom (since October 2015) Friendship and cooperation agreements Tomsk Oblast, Russia (since May 2015) Brussels, Belgium (since October 2016) Mumbai, India (since November 2016) Los Angeles County, United States (since August 2021) International academic and scientific research Research and development in Japan and the Japanese space program are globally represented by several of Tokyo's medical and scientific facilities, including the University