The Tragedy of the Stand-up and the Marines - The True Faces of Men and Women in Kabukicho, 1998

The Tragedy of the Stand-up and the Marines - The True Faces of Men and Women in Kabukicho, 1998

The February 1998 incident in Kabukicho involving a "stand-up job and a Marine Self-Defense Force member" was symbolic of the contradictions that the nightlife district faces. A young third-ranked marine sergeant of the Maritime Self-Defense Force got involved with a woman standing on a street corner for prostitution, and after an argument at a hotel, he was stabbed to death. The fact that a Self Defense Force officer, who was in a position to protect the nation, lost his life in a whirlpool of lust and sex sent shockwaves through society.

At the time, Kabukicho was in the midst of a recession following the bursting of the bubble economy, and runaway girls and even minors wandered the streets as stand-up girls, and during long vacations such as summer vacation, there was an influx of people from the countryside. The city's daily intermingling of adult entertainment and male-female relationships became a hotbed for the kind of anonymity that only a downtown area with a high degree of anonymity can provide, and police control of the situation was insufficiently effective.

This incident condensed the problems of Kabukicho at the end of the 1990s, such as economic stagnation, the existence of adult entertainment that circumvented regulations, the lack of a place for young people, and deteriorating public safety, and influenced public opinion leading to "Operation Cleanup" in 2003. The incident is recorded as an incident that made visible to society that the downtown area is not only a "town of entertainment" but also a "town of men and women.