NABC Store Manager's Diary — Saturday, September 26, 2026

Today we had two events, at 2:00 PM and 6:30 PM. Last night, after the evening "Yūnagi" song gathering, I was doing the venue setup, but the 2:00 PM event, "Intro to the Nakamura Yūkaku for Beginners — Session 1," had sold out its 35 seats, so I came in a bit earlier to leave myself some margin since handling registrations alone would be tough. A package from Nippan (book distributor) had arrived; when I opened it, it was the book I had ordered by phone the other day — Hitsuji Shobo's "Living in the Yūkaku / Remembering the Yūkaku" by Harumi Kato! What timing. I'm glad it arrived in time. The lecturer, Kotobuki (SNS name), also arrived; we set up the laptop and projector and checked that the screen displayed correctly, then I went back down to the first floor. After putting the extra copies on the shelf and settling down, participants began to arrive little by little. By the start time I went up to the second floor and it was nearly full. No wonder the register was busy. Because we announced the venue as the second floor, some people occasionally go up the stairs without checking in at the counter. We need to make sure to tell people to register on the first floor in advance. Today the seat count and register sales didn't quite match, but after the session someone who had bought a book also paid their participation fee at the counter, so that was a relief. I proposed this course and asked that the theme be an introduction to the yūkaku. People tend to have fragmentary images of yūkaku but probably haven't learned about them formally, and there aren't many easy-to-read introductory books, so without guidance they often view yūkaku through a kind of retro-romantic lens. I wanted to start from the basics. I think it's wrong to feel a sense of "retro romance" about a system that is part of the sex industry and that monetizes women's sexuality to drive the economy. I hope that learning the history of the Nakamura Yūkaku will provide an opportunity for deeper reflection. As a bookstore manager, I was a bit relieved — the register was as busy as I've ever seen after a lecture, perhaps the best single-day sales for related books. That's all thanks to the lecturer, Kotobuki. Thank you. For the second session on November 28 there were still seats available before today's lecture, but by tonight it's already nearly full. After the course ended, Kotobuki and I discussed plans for a third session. I'll announce the details once they're decided. The other event today, at 6:30 PM, was a lecture to commemorate the publication of Shinichi Ikeo's book "Children on Provisional Release: Targets of 'Japan First'" — Ikeo is an editorial writer for the Tokyo Shimbun. He spoke about the reality and problems faced when children born and raised in Japan who only speak Japanese are suddenly deported with their families to their parents' countries because of their parents' residency status. How should we view the fact that Japan, which has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is ignoring "the best interests of the child"? The children appearing in this book seem to have their rights neglected. It's not that it doesn't concern us because they are foreign children — friends who were in the same classroom or club yesterday can be suddenly detained by the authorities and put on a plane. That's unbearably cruel. It cannot be said to be in the "best interests" of the child. When I worked as a librarian I provided children's services and worked on multicultural services, but I feel I should have learned more about the situations and challenges faced by foreign-national children who are the targets of those services. Between the two events, the popular tanka poet Soichi Chigusa stopped by the store! I had him sign his new collection "April Zōshi." I spoke with him a little; he said a relative once had a business near the Asahiro brothel in the Nakamura Yūkaku. I'd like to hear more about that story. That said, holding two major events in half a day was exhausting. I'm not as young as I used to be, so I need to think about that a bit more. But I don't want to miss opportunities.