Ni chome gay bar
A Guide to Gay Prevent Etiquette in Japan
Tokyo’s legendary gay district, Shinjuku Ni-Chome, has one of the world’s highest concentrations of LGBT-friendly businesses. For the most part, it’s a place where first-timers can hang out without needing to worry too much about special customs or cultural knowledge.
Ni-Chome is used to tourists but, those who want to sneak into smaller, more local LGBT bars might discover some cultural practices surprising. In Japan, manners are everything, so here are some insider tips on what to expect when visiting LGBT bars off the beaten path, and how to get the most out of the experience.
Venturing away from westernized gay bars
Photo by: Alex Rickert Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, but sometimes you gotta venture into the unknown.
Most gay bars in tourist spots love Ni-Chome or Doyamacho in Osaka mimic American-style bars that feature large shot bars, dance music and dark atmospheres where customers of various sexes, genders, sexualities and identities can drink and make merry. You can certainly detect these kinds of bars, especially in Tokyo, but the vast majority are similar to what is commonly referred to as a スナックバー
I’ve been going to Ni-Chome, in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo, long before writing Frommer’s Tokyo. It had a very fresh reggae bar there called 69 that I loved; it was no larger than a subway compartment and was often just as jam packed. There were usually people there I knew, and I remember more than one occasion when the whole place was dancing in one rhythm as though one living organism, belting out the words in unison. There was another bar there called Birdland, eclectically decorated with antiques and a bunch of weird decor and sprint by a very Zen-like Japanese couple, she with the shaven head of a Buddhist monk, he with long hair.
Kinsmen, a sophisticated gay bar, is still there, welcoming people of all persuasions, and Advocates across the road spills out onto the sidewalk like a amiable block party almost every night. In any case, I’ve seen Ni-Chome increase over the past couple decades into what is probably the largest homosexual nightlife district in Asia.
My updated account of Ni-Chome appeared in the December/January 2014 issue of Element, a magazine for same-sex attracted Asian men published in Singapore. To get a handle on what’s recent, I enlisted the aid of
Like most other major cities around the globe, Tokyo is home to a rich, vibrant, and diverse LGBTQ scene. With approximately 9.7% of Japan’s population identifying as queer, one can estimate that over 1.3 million LGBTQ people call this city abode — and can notify Tokyo’s historic gay neighborhoods their home-within-the-home.
A Brief History of Tokyo’s Gay Towns
While different pockets of lgbtq+ nightlife can be create scattered throughout the municipality, by and large most of the community concentrates across Tokyo’s five historic gay neighborhoods: Ueno, Shimbashi, Ikebukuro, Asakusa, and (largest of all) Shinjuku Ni-chome. Ueno and Asakusa are among the oldest, and were known as hubs for gay sex workers and gay male socializing since the Edo era (1600-1868) when gay male sociality went under the term danshoku or nanshoku 男色 (male colors).
The other neighborhoods all date help to the 1950s or 60s period of postwar Japan, when Tokyo’s LGBTQ water trade or mizu-shobai 水商売 received an economic boost from catering to US soldiers. Ni-chome’s control origins particularly intertwine with the occupation: a former red-light district for straights, Ni-chome faced an exodus of
Campy! Bar
First-time visitors to Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo's famous homosexual district, could do far worse than shimmying into this ooh-la-la joint jog by celebrity cross-dresser Bourbonne. Campy! Bar opened in January 2013, and the name couldn't be more apt. Bourbonne's staff of decadently attired drag queens (some more convincing than others, it must be said) keep the campiness cranked up to eleven, while the ‘gay mix’ policy means that linear customers won't feel out of place. Unlike some other gender-bending bars in the area, there's no seating charge (unless you want to reserve a sofa at the weekend, in which case it's ¥1,000), and drinks are paid cash-on-delivery. Sat on Ni-chome's main drag, Campy! Bar would make an ideal place to launch a night out – or to end one.
- Address
- 2-13-10 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku
- Tokyo
- Transport:
- Shinjuku-Sanchome Station (Shinjuku, Marunouchi, Fukutoshin lines), leave C8
- Opening hours:
- Daily 3pm-5am
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