Comments on: Is Shibuya Tokyo’s new sin city?

By: Max Hodges

Max Hodges — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:44:36 +0000

@Jake, inre: Pet Shops

I heard the pets shops here in Shibuya, in Kabukicho, and probably in Ikebukuro too now, are a sort of scam hostess girls pull on their customers. The dogs can costs a couple thousand bucks or more, so hostess who are able to talk a customer into buying them one of these god-forsaken creatures as a gift or birthday present can make a quite profit by selling the dog back to the pet shop. This is also why you’ll find pawn shops of luxury bags in these same areas.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:54:52 +0000

Antonio- If they want you, they will come ask you. Otherwise you probably are not a desired customer, unless you are with Japanese friends.

Beyond the progression of all this in Shibuya I feel more and more, even monthly, that Shinjuku has a shifting dynamic that is more like Roppongi. A lot more foreign friendly clubs both for dancing and for “meeting” women seem to have come up in the last year or two, far more than I saw 3 or 4 years ago, anyway. Even the legit customer traffic in foreign friendly bar’s looks different than it used too.
My friend’s and I get much more unwanted attention from both “catchers” and from women working the street in Kabukichou than we do in Shibuya, but it was not so much like that just a couple year’s ago.

By: Antonio

Antonio — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:00:12 +0000

Stupid question, but do these kind of businesses accept foreign customers? I’m not interested in visiting this kind of establishment but I always understood that they were strictly for Japanese only. However I briefly lived in Japan a few years back, and while walking down the street I sometimes had people from what seemed to be these kind of establishments try and lure me inside. However my japanese is extremely limited, and it was probably likely it was just some sort of club offering extremely over priced drinks and so on.

Being a foreigner in Japan you never quite know what kind of reception you are going to get. I’ve had the tissue handing out people suddenly snatch the tissues away when they noticed I wasn’t japanese.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:31:16 +0000

I think Shibuya has gotten seedier in the last 8 or 9 years. I have noticed the Soapland behind the koban/police box near Tokyu Hands for a few years though, and many similar places were listed in Manzoku magazine (my friend showed me in 2003), and I was shocked that these types of places exist on every station on the Yamanote line.

Also if you keep going up Dogenzaka near the Hakata ramen shop and 7-11, you will likely be offered a massage.

By: Jake Adelstein

Jake Adelstein — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:10:32 +0000

We think the pet shop is for those who are into bestiality but we’re not sure.

By: Lou

Lou — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:03:16 +0000

I will take a puppy to go, and I’ll have some pussy for here.

ありがとうございました