An art space that goes around in a circle! What is “Hibokan,” an amusement park of eroticism and grotesqueness, a legacy of the Showa era?

In the past, many adults flocked to these “hidden treasure museums” on sightseeing buses. Love hotels,” where couples briefly forgot their daily lives with their glittering and gorgeous worldviews. Photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki has collected such roadside cultural legacies, which are now almost completely lost, and his photo collections “Hibokan” and “Love Hotel” (both by Seigensha) have been published and are attracting a lot of attention.

These two books were originally part of a series of books published from 2008 to 2009, based on interviews conducted by Mr. Tsuzuki in the 1990s and early 2000s. This time, it has been updated with newly interviewed content.

From the 1970s to the 2000s, “hibokan” (hidden treasure museums) were tourist facilities scattered throughout Japan. They were 18-restricted amusement facilities that exhibited all kinds of erotic and grotesque items, mainly sex-related “treasures,” including phallic deities, Kama Sutra reliefs, anatomical drawings of female genitalia, skins of mating animals, and sex panoramas using wax dolls. At its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, when group tours were at their peak, it was so popular that tourists visited by bus. However, as group tours declined, the number of amusement centers declined, and of the more than 20 that existed nationwide, only two are still in existence. Mr. Tsuzuki first visited a hidden treasure museum in 1995.

My first visit was to the Toba Museum of Treasures,” he said. I had no idea what was inside. I happened to see a flier or something in a business hotel and learned that there was a big one in Toba, so I went there.

But I didn’t know where it was, and of course there was no website at the time, so I asked the tourist information center in front of the station, “I heard there was a big hidden treasure museum. I asked at the tourist information center in front of the station, “I heard there was a big hidden treasure museum there,” but they were very rude. But in the end, I found it at the entrance to a large shopping street right next to the station. I thought to myself, “This must have brought in a lot of customers in the old days, and the shopping district must have been enriched by this, but they treated me very coldly.

When I actually went there, I found that it was already quite deserted and there were no customers at all. The building was also badly damaged, with holes in the walls and pigeons coming in and out of them. But it was very interesting to know that they were still operating quietly, even though they were despised like that.