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It was as this major influx of gay bars and discos hit Nichome that Otsuka found his way to the neighborhood. By the late ‘60s, gay shop owners had moved in, capitalizing on the low property values and centralizing Tokyo’s gay nightlife. occupation forces, anti-prostitution laws in 1958 turned it into a neighborhood of shuttered brothels and cheap rents. While Nichome was a former red-light district for U.S. “It was the first time I could freely be myself,” he remembers. Taq Otsuka first walked through the streets of Nichome in 1970. This slow but significant transformation over the last two decades has been accompanied by forecasts of the death of a once great “gayborhood” and hyperbolic headlines, including “Is Tokyo’s gay district doomed?” and “Is Shinjuku’s ‘gay town’ threatened with extinction?” While those who’ve called Nichome home for decades are less likely to make these predictions, they have been witness to the neighborhood’s culture shifting under their feet. And the more accessible clubs and streetside bars have seen a rise in foreigners and tourist clientele. In recent years the neighborhood has been frequented by straight customers, especially straight cisgender Japanese women.
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But it’s not just Japanese LGBTQ patrons that fill the small and sometimes exclusive venues at the heart of Nichome’s nightlife. Everything from gay wine bars and drag shows, to a queer-friendly cafe and a world-famous gay bathhouse are packed into this tiny neighborhood. Taking up just a few square blocks east of Shinjuku Station, Nichome is home to an estimated 300 LGBTQ establishments. On your average day these are about the only reasons you would assume you’d arrived at the hub of queer nightlife in the most populated city in the world. You may even catch a glimpse of a rainbow flag or two hanging above a doorframe, but that’s not a guarantee. But on closer examination you may notice a stairwell leading to a row of windowless bars, or a poster above an entranceway announcing “Women Only,” or a billboard promoting HIV testing. A local ramen shop feeds hungry patrons on their way home from work, a Lawson konbini stands across from a gravelled public park, and a string of unassuming office and apartment buildings fill in the gaps. To the untrained eye, the streets of Shinjuku Nichome look like any other neighborhood in Tokyo.