Naked Director Author’s Insight: Midnight Shinjuku Kabukicho, Japan’s Wonderland

The “underworld” still roams the streets of Kabukicho

The Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, a new landmark in Kabukicho, is glaring at the plaza where the “Toyoko Kids” hang out on the street.

Girls from girls’ bars lined up side by side, their bare legs exposed to the cold winds, attracting customers.

Kabukicho is home to many men with a missing left pinky finger. A former hitman I recently met for an interview also had a missing pinky finger.

He swears, “It doesn’t affect my ability to shoot a gun at all.

He is in his late 40s, a mid-level member of a broad-based gang, and a former hitman.

I rarely do target practice under river guards or at sea,” he said. It’s too conspicuous.”

He doesn’t shoot at targets 200 meters away like in “Golgo 13,” but rather shoots at the very last possible moment in order to make a steady kill, so courage is more important than skill.

The thieves’ market still exists in Kabukicho. Brand-name suits, bags, furs, and other items line the shelves at about one-fifth the market price. All items have a reason. Stolen, robbed, and embezzled goods.

And then there is the Chinese restaurant that quietly operates near the border of the other world of Kabukicho. On the surface, the restaurant serves popular food, but secretly it is a hub for counterfeit card groups and is well known in the underground world. The main members of this group are believed to be members of the Shanghai group of the Chinese mafia.

A 50-something member of a Japanese underground organization with close ties to this group confides some disturbing information.

He told us, “We made a lot of money with counterfeit credit cards when the Expo ’90 was held. I used the card to buy tickets to the Expo for less than 100,000 yen at a number of stores, and several of us cashed them in at a money store.

Counterfeit credit cards could be made in as little as five minutes, but it was difficult to counterfeit a card that could be used for cash advances, so they had to resort to rougher methods.

Once we had the information about the person with the money, a separate team would go in and steal it. They would also steal passbooks and seals. In the old days, even if there was no seal, a seal was stamped on the bank book, so they would make a seal based on that. With the stolen bankbook and seal, they withdraw the full amount at the bank counter. If there is also a time deposit, the full amount will be withdrawn. I would also produce a fake driver’s license for the person standing at the counter, and prepare a Japanese person to match the license.

The Chinese restaurant also handled the then-popular yao tou wan, also known as ecstasy, a synthetic drug (MDMA), and delivered it to yao tou wan parties.

When I visited the store the other day, it was already gone and the store was empty.

The Shanghai group’s counterfeit card group later mutated into an Oreore scam and fictitious billing scam group, recruiting young Japanese as subcontractors, according to the report.

Some of the victims are the ones who take the cash and run away with it,” he said. These cases are exposed in a lynching video that is distributed to their friends to make an example of them. Video?　I’ve seen one where they shaved off an ear. ……”

The man stopped talking after saying that much.

The night wind is even more biting.

The nightless city has returned to Kabukicho.