Tokyo's Security Worst Zone/"Kabukicho"

 

Really dangerous?

Forever alive and dynamic, Kabukicho made its name up to the popular culture. We will find it in the video game Ryu ga Gotoku, the mangas Gintama and City Hunter, or even in the novel Tokyo Vice from Jake Adelstein. A dark and sometimes threatening district is depicted, where Japanese triads (yakuza), along with their Chinese counterparts control and set the rule of the survival of the fittest. What is making authorities worrying, in reality, are the swindles organized by unscrupulous tenants, whose touts are now particularly targeting foreign visitors. The attractive receipt of the beginning can then be multiplied by dozens and at the end of the night, the clients drugged.

To prevent yourself from such a situation, one simple rule: do not accept the invitation of these pullers sometimes (too) insisting. The district police, brave but not reckless, will not be such a good help for the hurt gaijin. Entering in these institutions will therefore remain at your own risks. But Kabukicho should be without danger if you just pass by without stopping in front of the most creepy doors. Indeed, numerous are the tourists walking by its streets days and nights without any fear.

As an evidence of a district being transformed, at the beginning of 2013 was inaugurated the expensive and famous Robot Restaurant: a way too touristy attraction in the basement, where the very common bento 🍱 is equal to the weird taste of its one and half hours show. Plan 5,000 ¥ (~US$47.99) per person to be able to attend it. Even more recently, it is Godzilla which reveals itself in the corner of a building, ornamenting the funny Gracery Hotel.