From the 1617 licensed Yoshiwara district to Kabukicho’s 2025 street-prostitution crisis — a reported history of Tokyo’s nightlife industry and a practical guide for travellers.

Japan’s tattoo tradition is two thousand years older than the yakuza, detours through firemen, courtesans, Ainu hunters and an 1827 woodblock-print craze, and is about to lose the one group the West most associates with it.

Japan’s largest yakuza syndicate has collapsed from 55,000 members to under 7,500 in fifteen years. The real story of why, what remains, and what travelers actually see.