A little about myself: I’m a Japanese-American who has family in Japan. I used to visit them often as a child, but that tapered off in my adult life. I had an opportunity to visit again recently, and discovered there was a legal red-light district not too far from where I was staying.
Being the insatiable twenty-something I was, I knew I had to check this place out. Tobita-Shinchi is an old-fashioned red-light district, and somehow skirts the anti-prostitution laws by operating as ‘Japanese-style restaurants’. These places are no more than a small house with two to three bedrooms. There are no commercial kitchens to be found on premises. The format for the brothels are all the same. The entrance is essentially the showcase, where a young woman sits waiting for customers to come by, while an older mama-san type beckons and calls people passing by to come in. The entire area encompasses a few blocks, and it was great because I got to ride around on my bicycle and check out all of the women on display and take my time picking out the right one. The elderly proprietresses would call out “Onii-chan, Onii-chan” (brother) to me as I rode past, while the younger woman would perk up and smile at me. After two laps, I had found a beautiful girl in her twenties. She had a short bob haircut, C-cup breasts, and a disarming smile. Knowing these people are cautious about foreigners, I asked her in Japanese if it was okay I wasn’t a Japanese resident, explaining I’m actually Japanese-American. Not sure if they were just slow for the day, or my Japanese was good enough, but she said it was fine, and to come on inside.