It used to be a thriving gathering place for Tokyo’s youth. However, thanks to tourism and constant development, Shibuya has changed drastically. Has Tokyo’s former centerpiece gotten boring? And where are the city’s young going now?
“Old man’s town”
Earlier this year, in a comment that garnered around 11K likes, jazz musician Minami Hiroshi lit into what he sees as the boring globalization of Shibuya. “It’s nothing but blocks of global businesses,” he complained. “Realtors have completely destroyed the town’s character.”
Other users echoed Minami’s sentiments. “When I was a kid, I was excited when my parents took me to this town for grown-ups,” one user said. “In my 20s, there were plenty of mini-theaters and bookstores. Now, it’s a vulgar city. Sad.”
Minami and others aren’t the only ones saying this. Social media conversation in recent years has christened Shibuya an “old man’s town” (おじさんの街化; ojisan no machika). People who do go report seeing fewer and fewer young people in the area. More of them are heading instead to Shin-Okubo or Shinjuku.
Tourist traps abound in “Japan’s Times Square”
The change in Shibuya’s makeup has certainly influenced this change. High-end clothing and other global retail stores are targeting tourists and wealthy, older Japanese residents – not young people in their teens and early 20s.
Additionally, Shibuya is practically a must-see location for any tourist coming to the country who can withstand the crowds. Indeed, 67.1% of all inbound tourists visiting Tokyo list Shibuya as a favored destination.
One American visitor who spoke to NHK likened it to “Shibuya’s Times Square.” Others cited the area’s multiple attractions, such as the statue of Hachiko, the Scramble intersection, and the area’s unique stores, such as its massive Don Quixote and fashion center Shibuya 109.
How Shibuya became a town for Tokyo’s youth
How did Shibuya become known as a hotspot for youth in the first place?
According to Tanigashira Kazuki writing for Toyo Keizai Online, that honor used to belong to Shinjuku up until the 1970s. High-profile episodes of gang violence and the rise of high rise buildings sent the young looking elsewhere.
In 1973, Saison Group opened Shibuya Parco. Saison heavily marketed the location as a shopping and cultural nexus, drawing in a younger crowd.
Shibuya 109 opened in 1979. (Pronounced “ichi-maru-kyu” in Japanese; “10” can be pronounced “tou” and “9” is pronounced “kyuu”, making the name a clever reference to its owner. To play even harder into the name, the store operates from 10am until 9pm.) During the 1990s, the store brought in even more young shoppers thanks to the gyaru and ko-gyaru fashion booms. The presence of these fashions around Shibuya led to a burgeoning street culture that became famous across the country.
Add to this the explosion of stores like Tower Records and book/video rental story Tsutaya and it’s easy to see how Shibuya became a home away from home for Japan’s youth.
No Halloween, no fun
The party started ending in the 2010s. A big part of it was that youth culture largely moved online with the birth of social media. That led to less of a need to meet in person to talk with like-minded peers. The public health crisis in 2020 dealt an even deeper death blow to Shibuya as a meetup spot for the young.
The 2010s also saw the birth of a number of mass high-rise projects that now dominate Shibuya’s landscape. Hikarie, Shibuya Stream, Scramble Square, Fukuras, and a wave of office buildings fundamentally changed the character of the area.
The constant building gave visitors the impression that Shibuya was always under construction. Just not quite done – not quite fully baked yet. In addition, most of the new stores in these buildings were high-end brands that targeted people in their 30s to 40s – not the subculture youth who’d previously come to shop at 109.
Shibuya city officials have also done their part to make the area less attractive to people with little money. The last remaining vestige of youth culture in Shibuya was the large – and unsanctioned – Halloween party that occurred every year in Shibuya Scramble.
After years of complaints and fears that tourists would make things worse, the city cracked down on Halloween shenanigans. It then went a step further and banned street drinking year-round.
Project Make Shibuya Not Boring
The loss of youth, the rapid influx of tourists, and the new construction in Shibuya have all contributed to making Shibuya feel bland and dull. There’s a repetitive sameness to these huge, gleaming towers and the high-end brands and restaurants they host.
This problem isn’t specific to Shibuya. Similar ventures from other realtors – such as the new Azabudai Hills building – are replacing local charm with globalized conformity. The result, as author Joe Reynolds said about Azabudai Hills, is that these buildings are in Tokyo but don’t feel like they’re of Tokyo. They feel as though they’ve been air-lifted from Dubai or London and dropped into a random neighborhood, crushing whatever was underneath it.
Tanigashira says that, in his experience, youth culture has moved to various areas around Tokyo: Shin-Okubo, Fukutoshin, Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, and Monzen-nakacho. These areas aren’t as overly developed as Shibuya and have a smaller, more intimate atmosphere. Plus, these tend to be the places in Tokyo where young people actually live.
Sakura Stage attempts to break the mold
However, that doesn’t mean that businesses have given up on getting young people back to Shibuya. In a new piece for Gendai Media, Tanigashira writes about a new Tokyu project, Shibuya Sakura Stage, that’s attempting to bring some creativity back to Shibuya.
Tanigashira says that, when he toured Sakura Stage, he saw very few tourists. The building’s stores – such as Pop-Space by Animate – tend to showcase the more creative, cultural side of Japan. It also hosts an event space, office and conference space, and lifestyle-oriented businesses – everything from coffee seller and food importer Kaldi to a medical clinic.
However, at the end of the day, Sakura Stage is just another glossy building among many. As compelling local culture disappears from Shibuya, more and more locals may decide to stay away – a problem that will probably take more than another high-rise to fix.
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