Roppongi Crossing: The Demise of a Tokyo Nightclub District and the Reshaping of a Global City (review)

Roppongi is one of the best-known commercial areas in Tokyo. It is especially popular among foreigners from Western countries due to its distinctive “international” or Western character. Minato ward in which Roppongi is located has attracted more than 20,000 residents from overseas since 2007. About ten per cent of the residents in Minato ward are non-Japanese, whereas about three per cent of the total population within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is foreign. More striking is the fact that U.S. citizens are disproportionately concentrated in Minato ward, where two per cent of the residents were Americans while only 0.14 per cent of Tokyoites were U.S. citizens at the beginning of 2010.

Roman Cybriwsky’s book, Roppongi Crossing, is not demography but an ethnography on a neighborhood surrounding the intersection called Roppongi Crossing. The author happened to move to the area in 2001 and has become familiar with the nightlife district located around the intersection. He also witnessed three famous redevelopment projects adjacent to the district: Roppongi Hills by the Mori Building Company, completed in 2003, and Tokyo Midtown by Mitsui Fudōsan and the National Art Center, both completed in 2007. Thus, Roppongi Crossing focuses on the entertainment district on the one hand and the redevelopment projects, particularly Roppongi Hills, on the other and discusses the relationship between the two.

The book is composed of a preface and seven chapters. After describing in the preface how he has gotten to know the neighborhood, the author briefly introduces in chapter 1 his study area and how he conducted his field-work. Chapter 2, “Roppongi Contexts,” deals with the social and ecological contexts in which Roppongi is situated and with other topics including Roppongi as a prestigious “high city” neighborhood, its nearness to Japan’s political and economic centers, the place in the context of Japan’s “construction state” character, its tradition of nighttime entertainment districts, and foreigners in Japan (p. 42). In chapter 3, “Roppongi Rises,” Cybriwsky outlines the history of Roppongi, tracing its origin back to the residences of feudal lords in the Tokugawa era, which were later taken over by Japan’s Imperial Army in the Meiji era. The presence of the army is very important in understanding the local development and ecology. The barracks were occupied by U.S. forces after 1945 and attracted bars, restaurants, prostitutes, and gangsters during the 1950s, forming a nightlife district with an international flavor during what is described by Cybriwsky as “the American era.” This chapter goes through the subsequent development of Roppongi from the 1960s to the 1980s, “Roppongi’s Heyday,” by citing various episodes of nightclub scenes. The chapter closes with “Beyond the Bubble,” the passing of the good old days of the entertainment district in the 1990s, though the author gives a vivid description of his own experience watching the World Cup 2002 in a sports bar in Roppongi.

In chapter 4, “Roppongi Rhythms, Recently,” Cybriwsky delves into personal encounters in the neighborhood. He takes readers around Roppongi’s nightlife district, visiting several spots and telling stories about interesting places as well as the life and work of service workers of various nationalities whom he observed, got to know, and listened to directly or indirectly. Then, chapter 5, “Roppongi Troubles,” focuses on the dark side of Roppongi by illustrating crime, drug abuse, gang activities, and its bad reputation among many Japanese as well as local policing and anticrime campaigns in the area. The entertainment district, he argues, is declining; the old Roppongi is displaced by a new one. The author’s description is filled with interesting episodes, but the reasoning is ambiguous and dubious, as I discuss later.

Chapter 6, “Roppongi Remade,” deals with the trend of redevelopment in and around Roppongi and focuses on three big...