West Japan’s largest strip club in Osaka raided by police for public indecency

Back in 2019, we lamented the (fortunately temporary) closure of Osaka’s red-light district Tobita Shinchi in a bid to stave off a crackdown by the authorities ahead of the G-20 summit. (Because the 2020 Olympics ended up being held in 2021 and with basically no visitors, the Tokyo Games ultimately did not involve as much of a crackdown on porn and sex services as expected.

There’s nothing we hate more than hypocrisy and trying to hide what society is truly like, but Osaka is at it again.

With next year’s expo fast approaching, Osaka police have raided a strip club called the Toyo Show Gekijo in Tenma, in the north of the city, arresting the staff on a charge of public indecency, including the 66-year-old owner.

Toyo Show Gekijo is the the largest strip club in West Japan, seating around 90 people. It opened in 1985 in the area of Osaka just north of the castle. It holds four shows a day (at least, it did until police shut it down) and, according to an NTV report, would make around ¥700,000 in sales a day. Apparently as much as 10% of its customers are foreigners as the tourism continues to boom in Japan. Residents have also complained about the strip club.

Ten members of staff were arrested. The charges stem from allegations that dancers showed their lower genitalia to customers. Showing the naked lower half of the body at a strip club (though it would seem to the whole point) is dangerous as, for curious reasons, the general, rather arbitary interpretation of Japan’s indecency/obscenity law is that it applies only when showing a penis or vulva, hence the pixellation in porn and mainstream movies, but all other nudity is acceptable.

Full-frontal nudity is tolerated for certain kinds of photo books deemed artistic, but a strip show would struggle to make this argument.

Strip clubs are a dying breed in Japan, especially the old cabaret-style ones. It seems that Osaka is determined to stamp them out locally before the world descends on Kansai for the world expo.

We expect this will scare after strip clubs in the area to close during the expo (Toyo Gekijo did during the G20 summit in 2019, for instance).

The expo is unpopular, behind schedule, and massively over-budget. As if we didn’t dislike it enough already, this is another reason to go on the list.