Just south of Osaka Zoo is Tobita Shinchi, Japan’s...

Just south of Osaka Zoo is Tobita Shinchi, Japan’s largest prostitution district.

Technically, prostitution is against the law in Japan. These establishments pose as “restaurants”.

When I give visiting friends my Alternative Osaka tour, I take them to Tobita Shinchi and the homeless area just to the West.

Compared with Red Light districts in the West, this place has a safe, tidy ambience. The one thing you absolutely can’t do is take photographs.

When Google Streetview passed along the streets of Tobita Shinchi, it just happened — conveniently enough for the Japanese authorities — to be the early hours of New Year’s day 2010. Very few of the prostitutes were on show.

Nevertheless, a doorway here and there is visible. You can see the standard Tobita Shinchi presentation format: an older lady sitting in the door, beckoning customers, and the prostitute herself, sitting on a raised platform, lit from below in pink and white, surrounded often by lucky charms (maneki neko, flowers, toys, slippers, gifts).

Tobita Shinchi isn’t a sexy experience; I’m more likely to go skydiving than take one of these girls upstairs (11,000 yen for fifteen minutes, it says).

What interests me is the presentation. Just like the Chit-Chat magazine entry, the doorways of Tobita Shinchi present a series of variations on a distinctive theme.

Walking past the doorways, you feel as if you’re flipping through a calendar, or seeing a series of tableaux vivants trundle by on carnival floats.

While the panders beckon, the girls themselves seem spectral, reacting only minimally to passersby.

The low-angled lighting adds to the strange impression. The doorways of Tobita Shinchi are holographic portals to the ukiyo, Japan’s ancient floating world.