Between the Nights: Scouts Missing in Kabukicho, 2003-2010

Between the Nights: Scouts Missing in Kabukicho, 2003-2010

Kabukicho in the early 2000s was a microcosm of a city of lights and shadows. Behind the neon lights of the main street, men called "scouts" were out daily to chat up young women. After the "Kabukicho Cleanup" of 2003, the scouting business became a source of funding for gangsters, and the city's darkness deepened. Then, one scout suddenly disappears. Even after the tightening of regulations in 2007, the pimping structure continued to exist in a different form, expanding again through social networking services and cell phones. Scouting is not just a profession, but a dangerous form of survival engulfed by the city. Someone disappears and someone else appears. The repetition of this process still breathes the night of Kabukicho.