Look around Tokyo today, and you’ll see a lot of “new yokochō” （ネオ横丁) – narrow spaces occupied by a large number of eating and drinking spots. Like a mall food court, but Japanese-y.
However, these aren’t the traditional yokochō, like Nonbei and Golden Gai, that most tourists associate with the term and flock to see. Rather, they’re spots like Kotorakomichi in Toranamon Hills, Kankoku Yokochō in Ōkubo, and Senkyaku Banrai in Toyosu.
All of these locations have one thing in common: They’re modern, gaudy, and plastic as fuck. They lack the organic grittiness of locations like Golden Gai that have been molded by history and scarred by circumstance. They’re mall food courts festooned with paper lanterns, the “yokochō” label slapped on them as an afterthought.
Such projects abound in today’s Tokyo, where developers are as anxious as anyone else to separate tourists from their yen. Azabudai Hills and Shibuya’s Sakura Stage are two other recent examples of real estate projects in search of a reason to exist.
Along these same lines, we have Tokyu’s Kabukicho Tower. This assault on the character of Kabukicho, unleashed on the poor red-light district in 2023, hosts a few actual interesting spots.
