Have the streetwalkers disappeared from Okubo Park, Kabukicho?

Is this the end of the streetwalker (tachinbo) phenomenon in Okubo Park? The area on the edge of Kabukicho, Shinjuku, in central Tokyo became notorious during and shortly after the pandemic for young women standing and waiting for men to solicit sex for as little as ¥10,000 a session.

It prompted a moral panic, driven by social media content and mainstream media reports, amid suggestions that most of the young women were doing it to fund their host club debts (at times directly pimped out by hosts) or pay for their expensive fandom (oshi).

Now Shueisha Online reports that the women have shifted away from the streets around Okubo Park to another location.

Police have been arresting dozens of women, many of whom are released without charge, but in a warning to get off the streets. According to Metropolitan Police Department data, 140 individuals were apprehended in 2023, 97 in 2024, and 112 in 2025. Those in their twenties made up the majority, including minors. Article 5 of the Anti-Prostitution Act says that soliciting for the purpose of prostitution is punishable by up to six months of detention or a fine of up to ¥20,000. These are nominal punishments, especially the fine (which could be earned back from two sessions with a customer), and do little to deter women.

The authorities and neighborhood association have also launched joint patrols. Measures were taken to address predatory host club debt practices (or at least demonize host clubs in the media), and the install barriers and increase patrols around the Shinjuku Toho Building, a hangout for the so-called Toyoko kids of delinquents and runaways.

The tactics seem to be working, at least on the surface.

“Two or three years ago, there were times when as many as fifty women would be lined up there, but for about a year now, I hardly see them at all,” says someone who works at a restaurant near Okubo Park quoted in the Shueisha article.

Gone are the rows of young women, standing and glued to their phones. Instead, there are just middle-aged men looking around hopelessly.

The Shueisha reporter goes to check out Okubo Park in July and finds the once-bustling atmosphere has changed. “The area was eerily quiet, save for the voices of drunken patrons leaving nearby bars.”

What was there instead? Streamers. “I also spotted numerous streamers — apparently foreign tourists — carrying handheld cameras in hopes of filming the streetwalkers. However, they appeared bewildered by the unexpected scene, finding absolutely no content to capture.”

The reporter spoke with an official from Shinuku ward, who was cautiously buoyant.

“We are conducting intensified joint patrols involving the local neighborhood association, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and security personnel contracted by Shinjuku ward. The police are also carrying out continuous enforcement actions, and the absolute number of women soliciting on the street has definitely decreased compared to two or three years ago. However, there is a possibility they could return over time, so we intend to strengthen our countermeasures aimed at eradicating the practice while continuing our steady patrol efforts.”

But the same restaurant worker from before observed that the young women were still around, just not clustering in the same location.

“Although the numbers are down, you still see them. They operate from sunset, when middle-aged salarymen finish work, until just before the last train. Since enforcement has tightened recently, they tend to wait in front of hotels rather than hanging around Okubo Park. You see them more often on weekends, when crowds gather, than on weeknights.”

Other spots for women to wait for customers include in front of Okubo Hospital and even in the gaps between buildings in the Kabukicho area.

Indeed, the reporter visited at a weekend and spotted a middle-aged man entering a hotel with a much younger woman, and a woman standing alone outside a Kabukicho love hotel.

The reporter finds out directly from a streetwalker about their new “mobile” tactics.

“The police are around day and night, so it’s hard to stay in one spot. If I’m told to move along, I kill time at a convenience store. I also feel like walking or moving around makes it less likely that I’ll be identified as a streetwalker.” She apparently then broke off her conversation with the reporter for a rendezvous with a middle-aged man.

Osaka has seen a similar attempt to eliminate young streetwalkers.

It comes as the Japanese government makes plans to amend the anti-prostitution law to penalize customers, and not just sex workers and service operators, and police crack down on soapland brothels.

As foreign tourism continues to boom in Japan and Kabukicho undergoes gentrification to make it more family-friendly, the authorities are fearful of the image it projects of a country where so many young women are prostituting themselves in public. No doubt, they are also aware that Japan is already attracting large numbers of male foreign sex tourists, who hear about the availability of tachinbo in Shinjuku from social media.