It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon, but it’s not keeping anyone inside. It’s busier now, I think, than it was last night. Fortunately Osaka’s main arcade streets are all covered. It seems like you could walk at least halfway across the city under the protection of a roof, if not inside subway terminals connected by pedestrian tunnels. There is an entire underground mall on the northern end of Shinsaibashi.
Anyways, my intended subject of the day is Nanpa, or the Japanese pickup culture. Not trucks, girls. Well, guys too.
Dotonbori was once a famous pleasure district. Some of that remains, what with all the love hotels that charge by the hour, strip clubs, and hostess bars. Now it’s much lower-key, except at the Ebisubashi bridge. Ebisubashi is just the first, and one of its many, names (Ebisu being the Shinto god of fishing, workmen, and commerce; bashi meaning “bridge”). It has been previously known as Ayatsurishibaibashi (puppet show bridge) and is now called Hikkakebashi (snare/entrapment bridge). The locals just call it Nanpabashi.
Here, the hip and not-so-hip Japanese men come to accost every single female who dares cross the bridge in an attempt to date them and, if possible, take them to one of the local love hotels for some good lovin’ body rockin’ boot knockin’ all night long. It’s not just the men. The women play their game here too (called Gyakunan, or G-girls). Most of the women gaming are professional host bar girls, looking to pull in customers. Some of the men are, as well (yes, there are professional male hosts).
It’s like a colorful mating display; all the men and women alike try to stand out from the standard Japanese with dyed hair, piercings, crazy clothes. You can see anything from Yakuza wanna-be’s to ones who look like characters straight out of Anime. Then there are the goths, who actually use makeup to make their eyes look sad, and wear a perpetual frown, and both groups of goth girls and guys stand around looking mopey and never talking to each other, waiting until one side takes more pity on the other. The Japanese emo/goth girls have literally achieved perfection with the about-to-cry look.
Mmm, long long legs and short short skirts… the Japanese G-girls have perfected this as well.
Even the gaijin are not immune; in just 15 minutes or so watching this phenomenon, I was dragged into 3 throngs of giggling Japanese tourist girls who wanted to take their photo with the giant foreign barbarian.
Ebisubashi aka Nanpabashi
After breaking some hearts, I went back to the Doguyasuji arcade in search of my sushi knife. Ichimonji makes beautiful handforged, handcrafted blades, and they have a shop there. You can even get ones made out of Damascus steel. Anything from huge halberds with which to dismember whales, to samurai swords, to household cutlery. I opted for a more basic single-edged sushi knife, which still cost me more than my entire set of Kitchen-Aid knives back home but it is a piece of art in its own right. And I will get plenty of use out of it. I’ll take a photo of it once I get home; they wrapped it so beautifully in its box, I don’t want to take it out.
expatbob 