Just a few days after we reported on the ongoing police crackdown in Kabukicho over drugs, prostitution, and delinquency. These reports appear literally almost daily now. Hosts arrested for extracting debt payments in dubious ways, such as introducing women to pimps. Young women arrested for soliciting on the street. It's a never-ending conveyor belt of moral outrage, dutifully reported in the mainstream media. The most shocking stories are those that involve underage girls: some hosts are so desperate for money and so unscrupulous that they exploit minors. The latest story is in a similar ...

The police crackdown continues on the phenomenon known as Toyoko kids, referring to the young delinquents gathering in the main plaza in Kabukicho at night. Delinquency in Shinjuku's Kabukicho is absolutely nothing new but the current issue was sparked, in part, by the pandemic and is spatially different now, with young people gathering in one main location and the optics at nighttime contrasting with the "clean" Kabukicho. The crackdown is linked to the attempts to gentrify Kabukicho and turn it into a tourist-friendly destination, even at night, which is ongoing for several years, and the ...

The media-driven moral panic over visible prostitution in Okubo Park has sparked a crackdown on host clubs, since at least some of the young woman engaged in selling their body in the area near Kabukicho, Tokyo, are doing it to pay their debts at host clubs. There is a similar moral panic over the youngsters who gather at Toyoko, though young people up to no good in Kabukicho is totally in keeping with the history of the area -- it just jars with the attempts by the Shinjuku government and land developers to gentrify the district. The so-called Toyoko kids at Toyoko are rumored to be ...

More bad news coverage about male hosts as the moral panic over this industry continues. A Kabukicho host was arrested early last week for allegedly exploiting and prostituting a junior high school student who owed his club around ¥6 million. The 22-year-old host Renji (Yuya Inaba) works at the appropriately named Worst Over in Kabukicho, central Tokyo. He is also accused of bringing the girl into his club when she was just 15 years old and serving her alcohol, including a very expensive "champagne tower" order. The student used her mother's credit card and cash from her grandmother to ...