The latest measures to detect the “foreigners as customers” and “smokers as targets” are revealed by the revived Okubo Park stand-up bar.

In April, about 20 girls were lined up in a corner of the park, leaning against a guardrail and playing with their phones under the light of a street lamp.

In Okubo Park in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, the number of “tachimbo” girls waiting on the street for a prostitute is on the rise again. The Metropolitan Police Department stepped up detection over the past year.’ More than 140 people were arrested last year, compared to 51 in 2010. Perhaps because of this, the number of girls standing on the street at the end of last year has decreased drastically. However, I guess it’s all in the throat ……. The girls who stand on the streets continue to make money on the streets, taking their own “countermeasures”.

What if I get caught?　What can I do? I wonder if the police don’t have anything else to do.

I don’t think the police have anything else to do,” said the 26-year-old, dressed in a black-and-white gothic lolita outfit. She was caught in a sting operation last November and held in police custody for about 10 days. He came out crying, saying, “I won’t do it again,” but after the new year, he started standing again.

He said, “You have to earn money to survive. Even if they catch us or the host, it won’t make any difference. I can’t get caught again so soon, so I’m taking precautions to choose the right customers.

Although she says she does it to survive, most of the nearly 1 million yen she earns a month goes to host clubs. She has taken measures against the police by targeting “foreign customers.

I’m definitely not a cop,” she says. I’ve never seen a foreign police officer. To be honest, I didn’t like it because I didn’t understand the language well and there were a lot of troubles, but I couldn’t say so. The number of foreign tourists who come in groups is increasing, and the payment is not as bad as it used to be.

On the same day, he went to a hotel with a Chinese man who spoke to him in broken Japanese for “Ho-betsu 2 (20,000 yen in addition to the hotel charge). With the COVID-19 crisis behind us, foreign tourists have returned to Kabukicho, a popular tourist spot that is now overflowing with visitors from China, Europe, and the United States. Some foreign websites refer to Kabukicho as a “prostitution area,” and not a few foreigners visit the area to “hold a Japanese girl.

Many Asian people are gentle and not scary, and because they don’t speak the local language, there is less unnecessary chatter. If you go there, they will give you 20,000 yen, which is 100 times better than Japanese old men who try to bargain with you.

Another measure that is different from targeting foreigners is stressed by a 22-year-old who has been playing stand-up for four years. She, too, has been caught by the police in the past.

If I get caught a second time, they might call my parents’ house, and if the detention period is extended, I might even be kicked out of my apartment. There are certain traits of people who are definitely not detectives, so I try to only have those people as clients.”

The characteristics she describes are “wearing flip-flops,” “smoking cigarettes,” and “being an old man.

I once went to a hotel with an 82-year-old. I feel safe with a grandfather. If something goes wrong, I can get away with it.

Most of the arrests by the police are made by investigators posing as guests. In order to avoid the situation where the police handbook is produced at the entrance of the hotel where the guest is headed, it is necessary to distinguish between the guest and the investigator.

No one is dressed like a cop, but there are no flip-flop wearers or street smokers. You can go to a hotel with those people without any worries.

I can go to a hotel with them in peace,” the woman said. Another reason for the return of women looking for prostitution is the fact that police investigations have cooled down from the feverish pace of the past few years.

Since last summer, when the Kabukicho stand-up gangs became a social problem, the Metropolitan Police Department has been intensively cracking down on them, arresting 140 in one year. Compared to the year before last, this is nearly triple the number. The girls disappeared en masse for a time. However, the police are now also concentrating on investigating the “Tokuryu” (anonymous and fluid criminal groups), which are semi-gangs and scout groups. In Toyoko Plaza, there was a roundup in time for the spring break, but I think the prostitution business has slowed to a crawl,” said a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.

The number of women who were rarely seen on the streets at the end of the year began to surge again around March. The previously absent girls are now overflowing onto the sidewalk one block away from Okubo Park. The crackdown has weakened, and the girls have become more vigilant in taking countermeasures. For the time being, it seems unlikely that the standing handcuffs will disappear from Kabukicho.