What do homeless influencers, fantasy boyfriends and around 280 bars crammed into six alleys have in common? They are all a part of Kabukicho, which is either a tourist trap or sleazy red-light district depending on who you ask.

Hosted by Shaun McKenna and produced by Dave Cortez.

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Shaun McKenna 00:09

Welcome to Deep Dive from The Japan Times. I'm your host, Shaun McKenna, and I'm sitting in a pub in a place called Golden Gai. The pub is called Hip, and this is a section of a neighborhood known as Kabukicho in Tokyo central Shinjuku Ward. With me is my producer, Dave Cortez and Japan Times staff writer Alex K.T. Martin.

Alex Martin 00:28

Hey, Shaun.

Dave Cortez 00:29

Hey there.

Shaun McKenna 0:30

So Alex, on today's show, we're going to be talking about some issues that have been making the news in this area over the past half year. But first, I want to talk to you a little bit about Golden Gai, which is located in the southeast corner of Kabukicho. This is an area that's kind of got a somewhat seedy reputation among Japanese people.

Alex Martin 00:49

Well, yeah, I guess, I guess the word "Kabukicho" would oftentimes conjure up the image of red-light districts, sex work, host clubs. But Golden Gai is different, though. Although the address is the same, it's a completely different world down here. Golden Gai itself is six narrow alleys housed with about 280 different drinking establishments, bars, some restaurants, snack bars, as they call them in Japanese, where, you know, female hostesses, greet you and it's, you know, it's been a popular destination for half a century or more. A lot of office workers, after they finish their day, they come over here. Artists come over here. You know, painters, rock ’n’ roll band folks, people like that. So it draws a really widespread clientele from all over the place and the bar. And we're right now Hip, h-i-p, as in, “hip hip hooray,” so I interviewed the owner of this place last December, called Kambayashi-san. He owns another bar downstairs, Skavla, which is quite foreigner friendly. They have their menu in English. This is another place he opened before that, called hip this, I think, sort of caters more towards the local sort of population, you know, people around us, like Tonomura-san sitting next to us. He says he actually moved his home near Golden Gai so he can drink here every night for fun.

Shaun McKenna 02:07

You can hear them in the background speaking.

Alex Martin 02:10

So I had this place in mind when you asked me to do a story about Golden Gai.

Shaun McKenna 02:14

Right, last year at the holidays, we did this piece titled “ Christmas in Shinjuku Golden Gai ,” and for that piece, you kind of went into the history of this area a little bit. Can you talk a little bit more about that history today?

Alex Martin 02:26

So, Golden Gai in Japanese means “golden street,” “gai” is “street.” This area sort of popped up, like a lot of other areas in Tokyo, like Ueno, for example, as a black market after World War II but eventually, the U.S. occupation forces abolished the black markets. And in the late-1950s, or up until the late 1950s, it was known as a place for drinks and prostitution actually, right? So a lot of these bars and these Nagaya tenements actually have three floors, and the top floor would be called the “chon-no-ma,” where sex workers would indulge in their work, right? That's not the case anymore. In 1958, there was a law that banned prostitution and, since then, it sort of transformed into a very artsy sort of neighborhood, which still is the case. But back in the day you would have like these big shot playwrights, novelists, painters, movie directors — you know...

Shaun McKenna 03:21

You’re talking about, like, the 1960s, 1960s-1970s, even till the ’80s, ’90s, before the bubble popped.

Alex Martin 03:26

I think when the asset price bubble popped, this whole area was quite desolated, as well as other sort of like, you know, commercial neighborhoods in Tokyo and elsewhere. But it's been revived since then. So I guess, sort of an important moment in the history of this place was back in the 1960s and ’70s. It sort of became more of an artist’s quarter. So a lot of writers hang out here and, in fact, in January 1976, I think, the news broke that a writer called Ryuzo Saki, he was a Golden Gai regular, his book called “Vengeance is Mine” — it's about ... it's a nonfiction book about a serial killer, If I'm not mistaken — it won the Naoki Prize. Maybe it wasn't nonfiction, it was based on a story about the serial killer. And it was seen basically as a victory for the whole neighborhood, which was sort of under the spotlight till then, but now it really sprung into the national media.

Shaun McKenna 04:16

Basically, OK, so let's set the scene. It's, like, now the 1980s and Japan is in the waning days of the bubble economy. You know, city pop artists rule the charts ... what's going on in Golden Gai at that time?

Alex Martin 04:27

So, like it was, you know, in other neighborhoods in Tokyo, land prices started really climbing really high. But a lot of the property owners here, they were able to hold on to their little slices of land, but there was, like, massive pressure for them to sell from loan sharks and all that. But then, so it became desolate. Over the early 1990s or so, a lot of the bars went closed. I talked to a couple of long-time regulars in this neighborhood who actually began coming here during that period. They said, like, it's nothing like what it is now. It was like, you know, half the alleys are dark, you know, people just couldn't afford, you know, operating in this neighborhood, the economy is really bad. But then towards the 1990s, it sort of sees, starts seeing, like a revival, especially during the 2000s. I think (due to) this retro appeal, you know, you don't see a place like this anywhere else in Japan.