The “Chon-no-Ma” town that “disappeared without a trace” and “revitalized and became a tourist spot” – the strange “aftermath” of each.

In Osaka, “five major new areas” including Tobita-shinchi are still in business, but “chon-noma,” an illegal entertainment district, is always in danger of “disappearing. In this second part, sex journalist Akira Ikoma explains about the “chon-noma” areas that have disappeared over the past 20 years. The first one is “Kannami Shinchi,” which is said to disappear completely after being redeveloped after the exposé.

Part 1: The present-day Tobita Shinchi, which is “more successful than the Expo,” and on the other hand… the lost scenery of the “Chon-noma” zone that has disappeared.

Half of the buildings still remain…Kannami Shinchi in Amagasaki

In Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, an illegal entertainment district called “Kannami Shinchi” existed until the winter of 2009, after the COVID-19 crisis occurred. On November 1 of the same year, Amagasaki City and the Amagasaki Minami Police Department jointly issued a notice to the local residents, stating that “the living environment is deteriorating” and that “the area is a no-operation zone for sex stores and entertainment establishments. The city of Amagasaki and the Amagasaki South Police Station jointly issued a letter of warning to the effect that “the area is a no-operating zone for sexually oriented businesses, so the business must cease immediately. In response, the stores all stopped operating at once, bringing an end to their 70-year history.

The prostitution districts began as street prostitutes who began to stand on street corners immediately after the end of the war and gradually transformed themselves into stores, creating the so-called “blue line,” an illegal brothel district that continued to exist even after the Anti-Prostitution Law was fully enforced in 1958. During the “Nojigiku Hyogo National Athletic Meet” held in 2006, the city and prefectural police stepped up their crackdown under the banner of “Entertainment Area Cleanup,” but the “chon-noma” remained after all. The “weasel game” of having a single store caught but having it immediately reopen for business is said to have been a source of concern to the investigators.

The warning letter issued in November 2009 was based on three factors: the spread of social networking services and the Internet, urban development, and the elimination of gangs. Other illegal entertainment districts that once existed in the city were already gone, and it was said that “ it is a miracle that (Kannami Shinchi) has not collapsed until now, which is the strangest thing of all” and “it is a mystery that the lawless area was left unattended for so long.

The city plans to acquire all the land and sell it as cleared land in order to improve the local environment, and has begun demolition work on the already acquired sites. The city plans to turn the demolished site into a plaza that can be used for events and other purposes.

We visited the site in late May to check the current status. About half of the building had been demolished, but the rest was still standing. When we spoke to a person at the site, he told us, “Some people still live there, so we can’t tear it down. Negotiations between the city of Amagasaki and the residents are ongoing. The building used as a “chonoma” was more stubborn than expected.

More than 250 establishments operated in the “dark side of Yokohama”…Koganecho, Yokohama

Lastly, we would like to introduce two examples of how, even after the “chon-no-Ma” was busted, the remaining buildings were successfully reused to create a new image of the city without being razed to the ground.

Koganecho in Yokohama used to be one of the three “chon-noma” districts in Japan, along with Tobita Shinchi in Osaka and Maebaru Shakai-gai in Okinawa, and was a major colorful district. After the war, the area flourished as an illegal blue-light district, and during the period of rapid economic growth, brothels were crowded under the elevated railway tracks. As an area symbolizing the “dark side of Yokohama,” Koganecho was vividly depicted in Akira Kurosawa’s classic film “Heaven and Hell” (released in 1963) as a hive of prostitutes and drug addicts.

In the past, most of the women were Japanese, but in the 1950s (1975-) the number of migrant women from Taiwan began to increase, and in the 1960s from Thailand and the Philippines. Later, women from China, Korea, and even South America and Eastern Europe swept the town. The exodus of Japanese women to Akebono-cho, a legal brothel across the river, was also a factor in this transition.

The number of brothels has not improved over the years, and after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, stores that were shut out from under the elevated railroad line due to seismic reinforcement seeped into the row-home buildings along the line, and at one point more than 250 brothels lined the Keikyu Line elevated railway line. It is estimated that there were more than 1,000 prostitutes at one time, based on simple calculations. Foreign women who had been saddled with large debts in their home countries were selling spring for around 10,000 yen.

With the local residents living in a normal environment across one street, the negative impact on the residents’ lives in general was at its peak by this time.’ In the 2000s, the anger of local residents who could no longer stand the chaos of the city reached a critical point.

They complained that their children were commuting to school with the sex industry on the side, and as a result, the police and government authorities were mobilized to carry out “Operation Bye-Bye” from January 2005. The name of the operation is a combination of the English word for “good-bye” and the word for “prostitution.

The “chon-no-ma” business is so lucrative that the owner can earn several million yen a month, so even if each store is busted, new stores will appear one after another. In order to put a stop to this, riot police were stationed in the city 24 hours a day, surrounded the city with armored vehicles, and questioned every single customer who visited. The entire city was sealed off to cut off the flow of customers, make it difficult for the stores to operate, and drive the brothels into a corner. As a result, the brothels that had been operating illegally were closed one after another, and the prostitution industry was swept out of Koganecho.

The town would have become a ghost town if the shelled-out brothels were left as they were, so after the roundup, a movement to restore the town’s liveliness through art began. The efforts of many people bore fruit, and the town was revitalized with art at its core. Today, Koganecho is known as a town of art.

Gojo Rakuen” is now an Instagram-worthy tourist spot… in Kyoto

Until about 15 years ago, there was a “chonoma” area called “Gojo Rakuen” in Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture. It is located on the south side of the Gojo Ohashi Bridge, about a 15-minute walk northeast of Kyoto Station, in the middle of a strip of land between the Kamo River and the Takase River.

It is said to have been a brothel since the Heian period (794-1185) and flourished especially from the late Edo period through the Meiji and Taisho periods (1912-1926). Around 1935, the area was the most colorful entertainment district in Kyoto, with about 1,000 prostitutes.

After the war, the area became a red-light district, and even after the Anti-Prostitution Law was fully enforced in 1958, the name was changed to “Gojo Rakuen” and prostitution continued in some areas. The style of prostitution was to go up to the store, wait in a room, and then be visited by a woman dressed in kimono.

Although it had been operating quietly for many years, one of the triggers was the publication of information about prostitution in weekly magazines and on the Internet, which led to a crackdown by the Kyoto Prefectural Police in October and November of October and November of 1985. The general managers and managers of the teahouses and okiya were arrested on suspicion of violating the Anti-Prostitution Law, and were forced to close their businesses simultaneously. In March of the following year, 2011, the Gojo Rakuen teahouse association was dissolved and its history came to an end.

Later, when a certain regional gang based in the area was ordered by Kyoto City in 2005 not to use its headquarters, the area disappeared, and development proceeded. Restaurants, shops, and lodging facilities renovated using the structure of private rooms of former brothels and café buildings built in the Meiji and Taisho eras opened one after another, transforming the area into a “new cultural center.

Currently, the area has become popular, especially among foreign tourists and young people, as an “Instagram-worthy tourist spot” and “a town full of nostalgia and individuality,” with the atmosphere of a former flower town, including old teahouses and Okiya, and retro and valuable modern buildings such as Karahafu entranceways and stylishly designed tiles and glass windows. Koganecho and Gojo Rakuen are the two most popular areas in the city.

Koganecho and Gojo Rakuen are rare examples of “chonen” districts that have regained their liveliness in a healthy way that is welcomed by all, while retaining their former buildings. It is a rare example of a “chonen” district that has successfully transformed its image from a “deep color district” to a tourist attraction.

Looking at the past examples, the “chon-noma” areas that have been exposed have a similarity in that they have disappeared because the local residents have been disgusted by the illegal brothels as “an obstacle to the society. This clearly shows that “acceptance by the community” is an indispensable factor for the continued existence of a colorful town. This is probably the reason why the five major new districts in Osaka have continued to exist even after the Expo was held.

However, we do not know how long the five new areas will be around. As I have described in this article, the legally gray colored areas are “fleeting.

Tobita Shinchi, which attracts many visitors from all over the world, is especially valuable historically in that it preserves the atmosphere of the former brothels. One can only hope that it will continue to operate forever, making a significant contribution to the community through proper tax payments and the ripple effect on the local economy.