Named after a planned “Kabuki” theatre which has never been built, Japan’s largest red-light district today features countless restaurants, bars, nightclubs, pachinko parlours (gambling joints), love hotels and a wide variety of red-light establishments for all sexes and sexual orientations.

In Japan, the term “organised crime” actually applies because the government understood that trying to eliminate it is simply impossible and hence pointless. Instead, the Yakuza clans are accepted and taken as a “fact of life” and are therefore not left alone. Police officials work closely with them by meeting in “neutral” places around town on a regular basis, thus gaining at least some control. [Part II]