Playback ’14] Amateur Women Sitting on the Guardrail in Kabukicho, Shinjuku Ten Years Ago

What did “FRIDAY” report 10, 20, or 30 years ago? In “Playback Friday,” we take a look back at the topics that were hot at the time. This time, we present ” Nurses and cabaret girls sit on benches to make extra money… Shinjuku’s Kabukicho ‘amateur pick-up prostitution’: Is it really that easy?

Since the COVID-19 crisis, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of “stand-up” women in the Shinjuku-Kabukicho and Okubo Park area. Around 2010, these women became known as “koin girls” and became a social problem, and Okubo Park became a famous spot for tourists. The following article describes the situation in Okubo Park 10 years ago (descriptions in parentheses are taken from past articles).

Amateur women engaged in prostitution.

At 8 p.m. on a weekend night, women in their late twenties appear one by one. A municipal park in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo. The park is covered by a fence and is inaccessible at night, but the women sit on the guardrails surrounding the park and begin to play with their phones. Hearing rumors that “amateur women have been engaging in prostitution here recently,” a reporter from this magazine rushed to the park to confirm the truth.

Fifteen minutes later, there were four women in the park, including an older foreign woman, and the number of men began to increase, as if in response. They seemed to be circling around the park, looking at the women. Eventually, a man in his 30s who looked like a businessman sat down next to one of the women, chatted with her for about three minutes, and then disappeared with her to a nearby love hotel. The rumors were true.

Last December, 24 women were arrested in the vicinity of this park for the purpose of prostitution. They were professionals who paid 5,000 yen a day to the backroom gangs and stood on the streets every day. When they were cleared out and things quieted down, we started to see amateur women. They all came only a few days a month for the purpose of earning pocket money. Compared to the professionals, there are fewer of them, and it is hard to tell who is around when. Moreover, they never approach men,” said a restaurant clerk with knowledge of the inner workings of Shinjuku.

When a man and woman who have reached an agreement on negotiations disappear, another woman appears to replace them. The reporter approached a woman in her mid-twenties with long black hair and a resemblance to Yuka.