Black Hunting and Warfare - The Clash of Different Cultures in Kabukicho, 1990s

Black Hunting and Warfare - The Clash of Different Cultures in Kabukicho, 1990s

In Kabukicho in the 1990s, a conflict between the underworld and foreign powers came to the surface as a result of repeated violent incidents by yakuza gangs known as "black hunts. While the domestic labor market stagnated due to the recession that followed the bursting of the bubble economy, foreigners from Africa and the Middle East poured into the nightlife district, engaging in touting, night business, and drug dealing. This eroded the territory of the Japanese yakuza and worsened public safety. As a result, violent exclusion was called "order maintenance," and clashes on the streets became the norm.

One foreigner testified, "I just stood on the street to eat, but my friends were suddenly attacked and the police turned a blind eye," indicating the reality that they were targeted as they worked for survival. In contrast, the Yakuza said, "If the foreigners raided the place, we would lose face. That's why we cleaned it up," he said, justifying the maintenance of their territory with violence. The words of both men tell of a head-on collision between their desperation to survive and the logic of the organization.

The "hunt for blacks" was a symbol of the friction lurking in a multicultural city and a proof that Japanese society was beginning to face the challenges of immigration and multicultural conviviality. 2003's "Operation Purification" attempted to eliminate foreign touts, but the background was riddled with anxiety and prejudice over nationality and race. Kabukicho was at this time not only a town of desire, but also a stage for clashes as a microcosm of the international community.