A half-open door is a sign of “business”… An “underground explorer” talks about “what they were selling” at “an izakaya where you can’t drink”.
Disappearing “Night Streets” across Japan
A single “warning sign” has wiped out a neon district that had existed for 70 years.
On November 1, 2009, about 36 stores that had been operating in Kannami Shinchi, a “chon-no-ma-gai” in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, closed all at once. On the same day, a representative of the union was summoned by the police and received a “warning letter” demanding the cessation of illegal business. The letter pointed out that the Kannami Shinchi restaurants were in fact restaurants, but in fact offered sexual services by female employees. It is often written on the Internet that the restaurant was “destroyed by a police investigation,” but in reality, the restaurant decided to close down before it was discovered.
Kannami Shinchi was a restaurant with only a counter on the first floor, and women in revealing miniskirts and one-piece dresses sat in the doorway of the restaurant during business hours from the evening until midnight. Park-gai,” which was established in the mid-1950s as an illegal entertainment district called “Aosen,” was its predecessor, and together with Tobita Shinchi in Osaka, it was known as a “chonma-gai” with a history of about 70 years.
However, after November 1 three years ago, Kannami Shinchi was never lit up with neon lights again. All the “chon-no-Ma” businesses were closed and the land was acquired by the city to prevent the reopening of illegal businesses. As of November ’23, the acquisition of 31 houses was completed, and partial demolition work began the following January ’24. The city plans to turn the site into a plaza or renovate the building and turn it into a limited-time retail store.
At first glance, the “store” does not look like such a store.
The “chon-no-Ma” is a place where people can do their business in a short period of time, and it is called “Chon-no-Ma. In 1956, the Anti-Prostitution Law was enacted, making it illegal to operate such establishments, and “chon-no-Ma” ostensibly disappeared.
The representative places that remain today are the “five major new areas,” including Tobita in Osaka. Koganecho in Yokohama, Horinouchi in Kawasaki, Watakanojima in Mie, and Maebaru in Okinawa were also famous in the past, but have disappeared due to exposures. Other “chon-no-ma” existed throughout the country, but their number has been decreasing year by year.
Pineapple Urach (hereafter, Pineapple), an “underground explorer” YouTuber, has been going undercover to cover the backstage entertainment areas in various parts of Japan, and he sometimes encounters mysterious places that are not recognizable as backstage entertainment areas at a glance. He says that most of them are remnants of the former “red line” and “blue line” establishments that are still operating in a small way.
I once visited a town in Shikoku,” he said. I once visited a town in Shikoku, where there are several “izakayas” that don’t serve alcohol. What they do when you can’t drink alcohol is to offer women’s services, a kind of “backstreet entertainment. At first glance, they really look like taverns, but there is one unnatural thing about them. The doors are half-open for some reason. And that is a sign of prostitution business.
This “half-open door (or slightly open door) style” is sometimes seen in establishments that operate behind the scenes, such as Minamimachi in Kawasaki, Tamamizu Shinchi in Kochi, and Koike Amusement Center in Toyohashi (destroyed in 1947). But to someone completely unaware of the situation, it looks like just another izakaya.”
The paid version of “FRIDAY GOLD” carries details of “Izakayas where you can’t drink alcohol” that are still in business today, as well as an undercover report by Mr. Pinappo.
