Word: kabuki
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During a thundershower of biblical proportions, hundreds of people dash from a train station in the Tokyo suburb of Kawaguchi, across a bricked plaza and into a modern civic center. Inside, there are English lessons on the 11th floor, "welcome to kabuki world" on the first floor, a seminar on working at home on the sixth floor. It's a busy night for the self-improvement crowd. But the main attraction on this Tuesday night in late June is holding forth in the auditorium. There, more than 2,000 people have gathered to see a man whom they believe possesses...
...more innocent end of the scale are venues called omiai clubs. Omiai refers to marriage matchmaking, but in Kabuki-cho, Tokyo's famed red-light district, it takes on a raunchier meaning. At one such place popular with runaways, girls pay $2 for unlimited access to free sandwiches, juice and karaoke. Male customers pay $30 to make a "match"?a no-strings date?which the girls are free to refuse. At the more lurid end are a dizzying range of brothels called health, cabaret or image clubs. Many market their staff as minors. A Kabuki-cho club made famous...
...yakuza runs these joints, and it lures girls into them with live bait. Handsome young men called "catch" hover in the alleys of Shibuya and Kabuki-cho, swooping down on young targets. They're pretty boys who begin by flattering a girl, acting unthreatening, and then moving swiftly to temptation by dangling the promise of quick money and easy work. It's a lucrative job, says Eiji, a bottle-blond catch with a bronzed face wearing a skinny black suit. Once he reels a girl in to his employer, he collects up to $200. "The younger and cuter," Eiji explains...
After dark, take a subway or taxi to Shinjuku station and walk east to Kabuki-cho, the red-light district, where tipsy businessmen and fashionable coeds frolic alongside transvestite hookers. The area is Disney-safe, but if it's trouble you want, look for a square bordered by cineplexes where a boxer lets patrons pummel him for a charge. From there, walk west to Green Plaza Shinjuku, across from Seibu Shinjuku station. The entrance is cheesy, but the 10-story, 24-hour spa is clean, respectable and welcomes foreigners. It features a gem on its roof: the rotenburo, or outdoor...
...three notable moments. The first was a series of solos—initially, DJ Sid “#0” (who wears a gas-mask), a turntable master, scratched and spun in an ever-quickening crescendo as strobe lights flickered; the second spotlighted the drummer—the kabuki-masked musician drummed at a hellish pace while his drum set floated upside down and rotated above the stage. Slipknot’s second highlight was their final track, “Surfacing,” a song which they claim is the “new national anthem?...