Tokyo’s red alert

The authorities are cleaning up Tokyo’s red light district for the city’s 2016 Olympic bid. But a new audio tour seeks to dispel stereotypes about the area

• Justin McCurry
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 January 2009 11.27 GMT

As I recently reported, Tokyo’s authorities have stepped up their campaign to turn Japan’s biggest red-light district, Kabukicho, into somewhere visitors can take the children without corrupting them for good. With Japan eager to host the 2016 Olympics and the city’s governor keen to clean away sleaze and crime, the ramshackle collection of ageing buildings housing bars and clubs catering to every sexual proclivity is in the authorities’ firing line.

But Kabukicho is an asault on the senses that no visitor to Tokyo should miss and, thankfully, for older tourists curious about the underbelly of one of the world’s major cities, the big clean-up is encountering fierce resistance from the locals.

To help visitors find their way around the maze of narrow streets occupying a tiny, but expensive, chunk of prime Tokyo real estate, Max Hodges, the American expat founder of White Rabbit Press, spent more than a year trawling every inch of Kabukicho to produce an audio package he describes as “a museum guide, only outdoors”.

“Kabukicho’s one of the most fascinating parts of Tokyo,” Hodges says on the website. “It has an interesting history and the most diverse kinds of places, and there are a lot of real characters in the area. You see a lot of hysterical stuff here … It’s almost a carnival-like atmosphere.” Read the rest of this entry »

TOKYO JOURNAL Magazine

Sounds of Kabukicho: White Rabbit Press takes you on an audio tour

by Brett Bull

There has been some buzz lately about Max Hodges and his new audio guided Kabukicho walking tour. Brett Bull caught up with the man, and is asking all the right questions.

Why did you choose Kabukicho for your first audio tour?

I just think Kabukicho’s one of the most fascinating parts of Tokyo. It has an interesting history, and the most diverse kinds of places, and there are a lot of real characters in the area. You see a lot of hysterical stuff here.

Places like Shibuya and Ginza are nice places to go to and dine and drink, but Kabukicho just has a different atmosphere altogether. There’s just a special kind of excitement in the air. A kind of giddiness. It’s almost a carnival-like atmosphere.

Also, I wanted to dispel some of the stereotypes about the area. When people think of Kabukicho they think of commercial sex and gangsters, but there’s really a lot of diverse things to do here, like go to movie theaters, batting cages, billiard rooms, restaurants and bars, spas, and hotels for all purposes. People come here to unwind and to have fun, and their light-hearted attitude is refreshing.

I recorded a lot of sounds and ambiences which I mixed into the program, and if I had to identify a single distinctive sound which defines Kabukicho, it would have to be laughter. You hear people laughing everywhere here.

What was your goal for this project?

MH: Your typical travel guide is basically a book of lists – lists of places to stay, lists of places to eat and lists of places to shop. But when you arrive in Tokyo, who wants to stand around and read a book? You want to get out on the street and experience the place. The problem is that Tokyo can be a bit bewildering for a lot of people. They don’t know what they’re seeing; they don’t know who these people are and what the heck they’re doing. So I wanted to create a personal guided tour, which takes you though the city and breaks everything down for you from an insider’s perspective.

If I wanted to just tell people facts and tidbits I could have written a book, but my goal for the tours is to create a unique way of experiencing the city, to create an experience that visitors will remember years later.

The sound design mixes narration and interviews with music, sound effects and location ambiences so I had a lot of ways to keep it interesting. The goal was to create an immersive experience that captures the vibe on the street, and the way in which the tour audio overlaps and merges with the real-life sounds can be a bit surreal in at times.

Who do you interview during the tour?

MH: Lee Xiao Mu was very helpful and supportive. Read the rest of this entry »

Hostesses, bars, mobsters, and love hotels

Last Friday night found me walking through Shinjuku’s Kabukicho listening to an audio tour by Tokyo Realtime. I was a little skeptical at first, but right away it answered a question I’ve always been too lazy to look up: How a place with no Kabuki Theaters came to be called Kabukicho.

Like any good guide, the narrator balances history and current commentary well, letting you see not only what Kabukicho is today, but how it became that way. The audio also includes interesting interviews of shop owners and commentary from people who work in Kabukicho. The narrator even interviews an S&M ‘artist’ who works at one of the clubs.

The route takes you through the most interesting parts of the district and is pretty interactive, walking you through the lobby of a love hotel and some dark alleys. It also goes into the Golden-Gai, a fantastically cool cluster of one-room shanty like bars.

I really enjoyed the tour and managed to finish it without getting lost once. The only real annoyance was being constantly interrupted by people selling sex and beer. Some became especially persistent after seeing me walking through the same area twice because of the tour. All part of the charm of Kabukicho though, and can even be enjoyable if you are mellow about it. I actually had a conversation with a Nigerian pusher who seemed genuinely confused that i was not interested in prostitution, stripping, alcohol, weed, or cocaine. Turns out he was saving up money to get his music career off the ground, and hoped to return to Nigeria next year.

The publisher has provided a samples of the tour and some photo’s on their website. The tour was fantastic, and if you are interested in seeing an interesting part of Shinjuku, you should check it out.

Japan books for your holiday reading list

Tokyo Realtime : Kabukicho - not exactly a book, but still very cool. White Rabbit Press has put together an audio walking tour of Tokyo’s famous red light district, splicing together traditional tour narration with interviews and stories from experts and locals. The audio sample at TokyoRealtime.com will give you a good idea of its excellent production value.

Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho. Guided By Voices

Recently, Max Hodges of White Rabbit Press has been pretty busy. With a camera and a microphone he started documenting the street life of Tokyo for Tokyo Realtime, a new series of English audio-guided walking tours of the city’s neighbourhoods that mix narration and interviews with music, sound-effects and sounds captured on the streets. The first audio CD is about Kabukicho, Shinjuku’s red-light district, that also includes a map and a booklet with tons of nice, glossy photos of the area. PingMag took the one-hour audio tour to get a first-hand experience and had a little chat with Max on location.

Written by Andrew Lee

I took the Tokyo Realtime:Kabukicho tour on a Saturday night around 7 p.m., and was instantly drawn into the surreal experience of navigating the bustling streets with a voice guiding me along. To hear Max talk is to fall under his spell and I was reminded a little of Ryu Murakami’s novel In the Miso Soup.

In the book, Frank, an American, visits Kabukicho and is shown around by a young Japanese guy who gives sex tours. The story meanders through the back streets of the area much as the Realtime tour does, and at times Max’s Texan-drawl made me feel like I was following in Frank’s footsteps, except that Frank, as it turns out, is a serial killer. Luckily Max is a much more reliable companion! Read the rest of this entry »