Gambling, Dancing, Drinking—What the Entertainment Law Once TargetedGambling, Dancing, Drinking—What the Entertainment Law Once Targeted

In fact, it has been revised 38 times

Right now, revisions to the Entertainment Business Law (Fūeihō) are a major topic of discussion. Under the amended law, which went into effect on June 28, host club romance sales and kickbacks from scouting are now prohibited, and penalties for establishments such as girls’ bars and men’s esthetics salons have been strengthened. As a result, crackdowns are happening one after another across the country. People in the nightlife industry, fearful of the greatly increased fines, are hurriedly painting over signs, changing business formats, or moving their shops, creating a state of uproar. The revisions to the Entertainment Business Law are having such a strong impact that they are transforming the entire atmosphere of nightlife districts.

So then, what exactly is the Fūeihō?

The Entertainment Business Law was first enacted in 1948 under the name “Law Regulating Businesses Affecting Public Morals.” Its purpose was to preserve public order and morals, and to ensure the sound development of young people. The scope and subjects of regulation have shifted with the times, and in response to society’s needs and industrial changes, the law has already been revised 38 times.

In essence, revisions have been made to bring back into the sphere of public order and decency those hospitality establishments and sex-related businesses that tend to push services to extremes in the pursuit of customers. The most recent revision, too, was triggered by the need to crack down on unscrupulous host clubs and scout operations.

With tighter enforcement, many people are now wondering what will happen to entertainment districts and the sex industry going forward. “If you want to know the future, learn from the past,” goes a famous saying by the ancient Chinese thinker Confucius. If that is so, then what kinds of revisions has the Fūeihō gone through until now? How did the industry respond? And what became of nightlife districts as a result? Knowing these things will surely be very useful in predicting the future.

“The past is the key to the future.” In this feature, we will introduce the history of revisions to the Entertainment Business Law, while tracing the social background and changes in the sex-related environment that can be seen through them.

Prostitution Shops Spread in the Legal Loophole

Let us first explain the circumstances that led to the birth of the Entertainment Business Law (Fūeihō).

Behind its enactment was the legal vacuum that emerged after Japan’s defeat in the war. As part of large-scale democratization reforms, a new Police Act came into effect in March 1948. At that time, the authority to regulate entertainment businesses, which had been concentrated in the police, was dispersed, creating a gap.

Because the prewar police had too broad a scope of authority and regulatory powers, the GHQ pressed Japan to “completely reform the old police”, leading to a reorganization of the responsible government bodies. New laws such as the Inns and Hotels Act and the Public Bath Act were established, and jurisdiction was transferred to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and others. Compared to before the war, the regulatory authority of the police became far more limited. However, the effective loss of regulations concerning the sex industry resulted in a legal vacuum, as there was no law governing businesses such as cafés and bars that had not been reassigned to other ministries.

Before the Fūeihō was promulgated and enacted, as many as 3,000 establishments sprang up in Tokyo alone, disguising themselves as drinking shops or short-stay inns while actually conducting prostitution. This lack of regulation brought confusion to society: crime increased, public morals deteriorated, and people’s spirits declined. To restore order in entertainment districts and nightlife areas, the Fūeihō was hurriedly enacted to fill this legal void.

In drafting the law, the police first identified prostitution and gambling as illegal acts. The spirit of the bill was to keep watch over businesses of this type to some extent, in order to prevent such activities in advance.

Thus, the Fūeihō was promulgated on July 10, 1948, and enforced on September 1 of the same year. Businesses that had been licensed under prewar regulations were permitted to retain their vested rights. Even after repeated revisions, the law continued to protect vested rights of businesses that existed prior to each amendment. This is why today’s brick-and-mortar sex-related establishments—such as soaplands, health clubs, and hotel health services—still survive, even though new openings of such businesses have been strictly restricted by subsequent revisions.

The Entertainment Business Law in the Era of the “Red-Line” and “Blue-Line” Districts

The initial targets of regulation were three types of businesses: waiting rooms and cafés classified as hospitality dining establishments, cabarets and dance halls classified as businesses where dancing is conducted, and billiard halls and mahjong parlors classified as gambling.

A major difference from today’s law was that regulation concerning sex-related businesses was weak. At that time, there was still no law prohibiting prostitution, and prefectures, cities, and towns enacted their own ordinances such as “Public Morals Control Ordinances” or “Public Morals Security Ordinances” to punish prostitution. The Prostitution Prevention Law would not be fully enforced until ten years later, in 1958.

Let us now look at the sex industry at the time of the birth of the Fūeihō. In 1946, under GHQ orders, the licensed prostitution system was abolished, but brothel operators continued their prostitution business in the form of special restaurants. In various places, areas where these special restaurants were concentrated were designated, and on maps, these areas were outlined in red, hence the term red-line districts. On the other hand, places that outwardly posed as inns or restaurants but secretly engaged in prostitution were called blue-line districts. The term blue-line district spread after a newspaper reporter referred to them in that way.

In this manner, a containment system was enforced, confining acts of prostitution within a designated space. Even in the postwar era of democratization, both the police and operators sought to preserve the prewar brothel system on the grounds that “it is more convenient if everything is gathered in one place.”

For the police, reasons included “being able to reduce the costs required for crackdowns” and “making it easier to suppress the spread of venereal disease.” For operators, it was because “market monopolization would result.” Thus, this “concentrated prostitution system” was inherited. This spatial regulation would later be carried over into the Fūeihō.

While street prostitution was strictly policed during the same period, voluntary prostitution within the old brothel districts was regarded as an “unavoidable social evil” and was tacitly permitted. The main purpose of the Fūeihō was to crack down on clandestine prostitution outside the red-line districts.

Neon lights near Shimbashi Station. It is noted, “There are many simple and inexpensive bars and eateries here, so when companies and shops close in the evening, salarymen from the backstreets of Ginza often come all the way here” (Great Tokyo Photo Album, 1952, National Diet Library collection).

Crackdown strengthened on dance halls where prostitution was rampant

The first revision took place in 1954, when pachinko parlors, which had been subject to social criticism as inciting a gambling spirit and causing idleness and divorce, were brought under regulation. It has also been said that because they were so popular, there was an intention to make them a taxable target.

On the other hand, in the following year’s 1955 revision, billiard halls, which had been regarded as gambling venues, were excluded from regulation as a wholesome sport. Behind this was the shift in popularity toward other forms of gambling such as public bicycle racing and pachinko.

In 1959, the year after the Prostitution Prevention Law was fully enforced, a major revision of the Entertainment Business Law was carried out. At the time, ballroom dancing had become a nationwide boom, but problems of public morals were arising. Dancing created a hedonistic atmosphere between men and women, and many cases of prostitution occurred in dance halls.

To address this, the categories of regulated businesses were expanded and subdivided, making seven in total: cabarets, bars, dance halls, mahjong parlors, and others. Through this revision, a distinction was drawn between spaces for dance as entertainment and dance studios that only provided lessons.

At that time, cabarets and dance halls overlapped; some establishments operated as cabarets at night, but offered dance lessons as studios during the daytime. It was also common for the same female employees to serve as dance teachers by day and as dancers entertaining customers by night. In Tokyo, dance halls were being absorbed into cabarets. Because cabarets ran dance-hall-style operations during the day, the distinction between the two became blurred.

Amid this situation, the revision of the Entertainment Business Law threw the cabaret and dance hall industry in Tokyo into chaos over issues such as which business license—cabaret or dance hall—they should obtain. While cabarets offered all three—dance, food and drink, and hostess services—facilities that provided only dance without food, drink, or hostessing called themselves pure dance halls.

There was even a movement claiming that dance is a wholesome sport and should be excluded from regulation, but that demand was not accepted. Pure dance halls, which lacked the glamour as entertainment and the profitability as a business, gradually declined, and many establishments converted into cabarets. Cabarets became larger, more popularized, and blossomed into the centerpiece of entertainment districts during Japan’s period of rapid economic growth, drawing huge crowds.

In addition, midnight cafés—which had become a hotbed of juvenile delinquency—were subjected to regulation. In 1956, cafés where entry was allowed only for mixed-gender couples (called “avec cafés”, the old term for couple cafés), and candle cafés lit only by candlelight, became a huge fad. In June of that year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested 33 proprietors, saying the cafés were places of impure associations for youth, and took 16 boys and girls into custody. From this revision onward, the rhetoric of protecting children came to be emphasized within regulations.

[Part II] touches on the process by which sex-related businesses such as Turkish baths (soaplands) that had intensified after the enactment of the Prostitution Prevention Law came under regulation.

References:

Definitive Edition: Regulation of the Sex-Related Entertainment Business — Yoshikazu Nagai, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2015

Chronological Table of Sexual Customs: Showa [Postwar] Edition — edited by Koji Shimokawa, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2007

Sexual Customs in Japan: Showa and Heisei — Mitsuru Shirakawa, Tenbo-sha, 2007

State Control of Sexuality — Yutaka Fujino, Fuji Shuppan, 2001

Police and the State/Regions in Modern and Contemporary Japan — Sumio Obinata, Nihon Hyoronsha, 2024

Numerous other books and online sources were also consulted.

[Part II] 1966 Revision: When Sex-Related Businesses such as Turkish Baths and Nude Studios Were First Regulated

Cabaret. Many establishments functioned as dance halls during the day and cabarets at night, blurring the line between the two. They were also hotbeds of prostitution (Great Tokyo Photo Album, 1952, National Diet Library collection).