Pathway to Japanese Literature

Since Dan-kun’s Naoki Prize-winning novel *Ishikawa Goemon* began serialization, the newspaper *Shin Osaka* had been delivered to me—though not directly from the main office, but from the Tokyo branch office.
To make matters worse, with the new address in Itō being completely wrong, they seemed to take breathers here and there along the way, resulting in such severe disarray in delivery order that reading the serialized novel became utterly impractical.

Still, this newspaper was a riot.
This must be what they meant by Osaka vulgarity.
When you read an article titled “Suddenly Stabbed!”, it described how a girl walking in the dark had a suspicious man appear and—bam!—get stabbed into critical condition.
No doubt about it—“Suddenly Stabbed!” hit the mark.
Or maybe it pierced through with a truth too undeniable to be anything else—but I say some things shouldn’t cling so desperately to reality.
In Japanese, we’d call that sort of thing “karmic tales” or whatnot.
A certain Osaka miss had taught me they particularly called erotically charged vulgarity “ezukuroshii”.
My tongue still trips over that one.
Thanks to devouring *Shin Osaka* all last year, I’d gained quite the education in Osaka’s crude stories and e-zoo-kuro-shi-i scandals long before ever setting foot there.

Last month—that is, January—around the end of the month, a third-rate dance hall of dubious repute urged all its dancers to strive their hardest and awarded medals from first to tenth place based on weekly sales.
Come to think of it, Osaka’s strip shows play the Warship March before they start.
I must say, I really did tour all those worthless places thoroughly.
These medals were genuine ones, ranging from Second Class to Eighth Class.
Number One apparently received the Second Class Medal.
They were being sold in heaps at antique shops—even a Second Class Medal apparently went for about 400 yen.
They bought up a whole stock and put them to effective use.
The girls who received them were apparently delighted.

The day after I saw the photo and article in *Shin Osaka* showing girls lined up in a row with medals hung around their necks, the next day’s edition carried a report about the dance hall manager being hauled over the coals under the Minor Offenses Act.
To my utter cluelessness, I couldn’t grasp why this counted as a minor offense, but after getting someone to spell it out for me, the penny finally dropped.
Turns out while the Kinshi Medal had been scrapped, civil official medals were still kicking around Japan.
Sure enough, we’ve got venerable masters among us who’ve bagged the Order of Culture, but I’d figured those newfangled honors didn’t come with class rankings anymore.
Given how these medals were moldering in heaps at antique shops, I—and probably not just me—had jumped to the conclusion that Japan no longer hosted ceremonies where you’d slap on a silk hat, trot off to the Imperial Palace to collect your medal, then come home to your overjoyed wife basking in reflected glory.

As long as ceremonies still existed where someone received this medal and triumphantly returned home to delight their wife, it was a bit off for dance hall managers to award them to dancers.
They said this amounted to debasing symbols of national honor, but really—if they’d taken something gathering dust in antique shops and used it effectively to motivate the girls, then as a means of repurposing waste, wasn’t that half decent?
I wondered if buying them to take home and award to one’s children would better align with the true purpose of education.
Or did cherishing them under the pretense that they were awarded by the state better align with the true purpose of medals?
Since they were sold at antique shops, they’d already got no more worth than toys.
Was that not precisely the case?

In any case, Osaka was a riot.
Every time I met newspaper reporters in Osaka, I would ask them:
“Where’s that dance hall handing out medals?”
They’d snap back:
“That’s Shin Osaka’s exclusive scoop!”
The social affairs reporters from every paper got chewed out by their editors.
“What kinda reporter misses a story this juicy?!”
“You morons!”

Those morons from every rag were fuming.
Yelled at by their bosses, they grudgingly trooped off to the dance hall—all for nothing.
They came back sulking and reported:
“Even if you go look, there’s nothin’ there.”
“Wasn’t like we didn’t know about it.”
“Shin Osaka’s hacks probably made it up ’cause they were starvin’ for material.”
Blaming others while they whined.
If they really did fabricate it, that just made it funnier.
That grand spirit of doing anything for business—that’s pure Osaka.
There’s something here you’d never imagine gazing over from Tokyo.
Take that Asahi reporter who cooked up meeting Commie bigshots in Takarazuka—from Tokyo, you’d spin theories about his psyche or what drove him to it. But get swallowed by Osaka’s heart? That stuff means nothing.
No logic to it, I tell you.

Osaka folks all seemed to possess that sort of mentality, I tell you.

★

Osaka was vulgarly, salaciously obscene, yet perhaps inherently possessed an instinct to always maintain a reckless counterreaction against that very quality.
The fact that strip shows began with the Warship March might have owed something to that very dynamic, but I couldn’t help feeling it had the air of someone preaching benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity to children while living a dissolute life themselves.
The police there—the Sonezaki Police Station—had a large neon sign.
Admittedly, it had been turned off for electricity conservation, but when lit, it must have been quite a magnificent sight.

In Osaka, they call what might be streetcar terminals “Terminal.”
Apparently proper English usage.
Though Osaka’s “Terminal” actually refers to the market districts around these terminal stations and newly emerged entertainment quarters they designate as such.
This Terminal reeks of filth and vulgarity everywhere, yet its main tram thoroughfare presents an imposing front.
Barricades sprawl in ruthless grids, enforcing surveillance so thorough it permits not a wisp of freedom—complete lockdown through and through.
While nurturing utterly depraved human cesspools in its back alleys, Osaka’s authorities rigidly regiment main streets into single-file processions—as if its citizens transform into infants beyond city limits, wholly undeserving of trust from officialdom.
I’d thought only national velodromes built barricades and wire nets to corral wayward crowds, yet here stands Osaka Terminal’s main avenue doing precisely that, eh?
Velodrome regulations seem to form Osaka City’s entire civic philosophy.
But these barricades reek of wartime emergency posturing—ugly things at that.
Downright disrespectful toward humanity, no?
Osaka City displays no trace of mutual faith in common sense.
Through sheer enforcement and barked orders, its streets seethe with a wartime spirit—terrifying subjugation of citizens made manifest.

There was a bustling entertainment district called Sennichimae.
Theaters and tasty food shops lined the streets, making it a place similar to Asakusa.
The road measured five or six ken wide.
Teeming with people, vehicles were not permitted to pass.
On Sundays particularly, the bustle became truly exceptional.
Yet on those very Sundays, this pleasure thoroughfare saw an imposing traffic control operation—police officers stood lined up down the center, enforcing right-side passage with such rigor that veering even slightly left would earn you an earful from the cops.
If this had been a road where cars passed, traffic control might have made sense.
Generally speaking, right-side traffic was a method devised from the idea that pedestrians facing vehicles could reduce accidents; all traffic control likely arose inevitably from vehicles and humans crossing paths.
But in Sennichimae? You wouldn’t find cars—hell, not even bicycles passed through.
This wasn’t merely a path for practical transit; walking itself became the amusement—peering into that shop over there, casting glances toward this one here, leisurely sightseeing all the while.
Yet even this leisure got shackled by regulations; they couldn’t rest until forcing people to march in orderly rows like worker ants or soldiers.
Why not at least let people wander freely through entertainment districts as they pleased?
If left unrestrained, would Osaka’s citizens really collide and brawl like Tokyo’s blind folk until chaos reigned?
They kept main streets visible to visitors under military-like discipline where you couldn’t hear so much as a groan—but those back alleys? Now those were appalling.

I also made my way to Suminoe Velodrome.
All structures within the grounds were supposed to be rebuilt using reinforced concrete.
Wire nets were to be erected to prevent intrusions into the track.
The velodrome patrons were viewed as a gathering of riot instigators, subjected to the strictest surveillance and scarcely trusted as human beings—yet curiously, the very velodromes that were supposed to remain closed until all structures were rebuilt in reinforced concrete consisted entirely of wooden buildings.
Eateries filthier than the worst market that once existed in Tokyo’s entertainment districts (now cleared away) stood lined up; shacks filled every view—such squalor!
The only thing built to regulation was the wire netting; in short, there was no trace of velodrome patrons being trusted enough to run amok or being so crushed by oppressive rules that they couldn’t even groan.
It was in fact the gentlemen and ladies of the main streets and Sennichimae who faced incomparably greater distrust than velodrome patrons, their freedom hemmed in by rules as elaborate as those for riot instigators.

But Osaka’s velodromes are fascinating.
The day I went was a Sunday—tens of thousands of people packed in so tightly you couldn’t watch the races—a full-house spectacle. Yet when the races ended, those heading to buy betting tickets numbered less than a fifth of that crowd.
Even so, with about fifty thousand tickets sold per race, the total attendance was truly astonishing.
In other words, it seemed many were day-trippers driven by recreational spirit rather than gambling purposes.
Tokyo-area velodromes have such visitors too, but the scale differs entirely.
Osaka people overflow with leisure-seeking vitality.
In this regard, they could be considered an exceedingly sound race.

I once became obsessed with velodrome racing, ordering materials like regional data, magazines, and cyclist directories to pore over them with intense scrutiny.
Tokyo’s velodrome magazines were atrociously riddled with misprints.
The number of typos per page was so high that one couldn’t even begin to guess how many there were.
When data fundamentally relied on minute numerical values as precise as one-tenth of a second, velodrome magazines riddled with misprints became utterly meaningless.
The assessments of athletes' abilities in Tokyo-published directories were slipshod, being especially careless regarding athletes from regions unfamiliar to Tokyoites like Kansai or Kyushu and Shikoku; but even for Tokyo-area athletes, they relied solely on readily available data for slapdash work—not a trace of earnest effort could be found.
In comparing ascent times between athletes, they’d list one at 200 and another at 250—entirely incomparable figures—and call it a day with this slipshod approach; everything was settled through superficial formality.

Kansai’s magazines and directories were not like this. The publication I reviewed—titled *Keirin Derby*—showed scarcely any misprints, while its comparisons of athletes’ capabilities had established data and methodologies sufficiently convincing to satisfy any reader. Maintaining branches nationwide, it published not merely the rankings and times from regional velodrome races but included elements imperceptible in surface records through branch reports on actual race dynamics. It had collected nearly all results from monthly races across the country. This nearly achieved the pinnacle of substantive refinement beyond which one could scarcely aspire. Though races remained as mercurial as water—making precision unattainable even through such measures—as predictive reference material, there lingered a strong sense that efforts had been exerted to the utmost limits within human reach.

This was Osaka’s redeeming quality.
Substantive without pretense of decorum.
The terminal’s barricades and Sennichimae’s traffic controls—whether deemed superficial propriety or military-style regimentation—remained excessively formalistic in nature. Yet when confronted with profit-driven keirin operations, Osakans’ pragmatic spirit erupted with formidable rigor.
Unlike Tokyoites who readily accepted losses, Osakans purchasing betting tickets based on keirin magazines would fly into rages—filing complaints when losing money—and above all refusing to repurchase the same publications.
Osakans proved surprisingly reasonable; while making no vulgar demands for absolute accuracy in gambling forecasts, they required visible traces of earnest effort and minimally reasonable substance before deeming any product commercially viable.

This pragmatic spirit and rational spirit are Osaka’s strengths.
The existence of a commoners’ spirit that allows typo-ridden keirin magazines to circulate is not something to celebrate.

At "Some-Tarō" in Asakusa, they often served something called hormonyaki (offal grill).
It was sauce-grilled entrails.
I was even made to eat bull’s testicles once there.
"Some-Tarō" had been the stage name of a deceased manzai comedian.
At that proprietress’s hormonyaki shop—a cheap and beloved spot among Asakusa entertainers.

“Today’s special is hormonyaki.”

When the proprietress said this,

“Thank goodness.”
“That’s settled!”

Leaning forward with a knee propped up, the entertainers broke into broad grins.
What remains most vividly etched in my eyes is Yodobashi Taro.
The way this man guzzled and gobbled made mouths water.
He’d open his mouth wide and sink his teeth into offal hissing with rising smoke.
He’d devour it ravenously, attack it—that was his style of eating.
And how delicious!
he would let out an exclamation like that.
However, this way of eating was not unique to Yodobashi Taro alone; it seemed to be a common style displayed by people assaulting their hormonyaki in general.
They might simply be answering an inevitable demand—to devour it while freshly grilled and scalding hot.

I’ve never quite taken to hormonyaki.
There are times when I think, “This is tasty,” but my inability to attack it voraciously ultimately stems from not truly liking it.
In other words, I am a person who cannot discern flavors.
In countries with developed cuisines like China and France, I hear offal costs more than meat.
Cow brains and tails are said to be especially prized.
It is said that in the past butchers would give away brains and tails for free, but Professor Hayashi Tatsuo grumbled that once high-end French restaurants began buying them up en masse, they became impossible to obtain.

Is it really such a rare delicacy? Alright, let's give it a try—so I once tried making this into okonomiyaki. It's a smelly thing, I tell you. There must be special seasonings and special cooking methods involved. However, there were stalwarts who happily devoured it. I already felt like vomiting just from the smell.

I had thought that "hormonyaki" was a term arbitrarily coined by the proprietress of Some-Tarō. She was also the wife of a manzai performer and had a proclivity for devising and using such vulgar self-coined terms.

However, when I walked through Jjan Jjan Yokocho in Osaka’s Shinsekai district, I was taken aback. This was hormonyaki heaven, I tell you. People devoured hormonyaki like starving demons, yet this was no hell. The entire Jjan Jjan Yokocho spanning several blocks lay enveloped in smoke and the aroma of offal grill, every shop packed to the brim with workers clutching their plates and ravenously devouring the food. Not a single shop’s sign bore its proper name like motsuyaki—each one declared “Hormonyaki” in bold clarity. Moreover, every laborer planted their elbows and pressed their faces to the plates, devouring their meals in single-minded oblivion. Everyone was Yodobashi Taro. The smoke, the smell, the postures of people attacking their food—all of it abundantly evoked appetite.

That attacking, ravenously devouring style of eating—no matter how hungry one might have been—was something people never adopted when dealing with sashimi or chilled delicacies.
There was indeed an inevitable element inherent to hormonyaki.
Needless to say, it was first and foremost delicious.
I myself did not care for offal, but given how in China and France offal commands higher prices than meat—a testament to its esteemed flavor—even my gourmet acquaintances seemed to harbor particular affection for it.
Next came that deliciousness’ indispensable companion: a precise degree of piping-hot readiness likely crucial to the experience.
The remarkable quality of that flavor appeared rooted in something so tightly wound at its core—demanding one remain ever vigilant, poised to pounce without letting it slip away.
Thus everyone who ate hormonyaki inevitably ended up devouring it ravenously.
Take a tour of Some-Tarō in Asakusa and Osaka’s Jjan Jjan Yokocho if you doubt this truth.
One establishment had tatami mats, the other chairs and tables—yet the diners’ postures and ravenous eating styles were exactly identical.

By eating hormonyaki for their meals, the laborers of Jjan Jjan Yokocho could have a full meal for 25 yen.

It was a laborers' paradise.
Even if Asakusa was cheap, it couldn't hold a candle to this.
Jjan Jjan Yokocho had four or five go and shogi parlors, every one jam-packed to bursting.
The sight of go and shogi parlors crammed into every storefront simply didn't exist in Tokyo.
They were all laborers - no doubt because seats cost a mere ten yen.
Nowhere else showed so clearly how each person enjoyed life according to their tastes and means.
There were pachinko parlors and strip shows - yet paradoxically, the least crowded venues were precisely those strip shows.
These vulgar spectacles focused solely on whirling hips like spinning tops, existing only to evoke carnal thoughts - yet their sparse audiences consisted not of laborers but mainly well-dressed clientele sneaking in discreetly.
The orthodox faction of Jjan Jjan Yokocho likely disdained such tawdriness devoid of substance.
For them here, everything was substance.
And creeping toward these makeshift strip shows where the well-dressed clientele lurked came bands of pom-pom aunties.

Abeno.
This too was a terminal.
From the International Market through Tobita Red-Light District and Sanno-cho to Jjan Jjan Yokocho—it formed a truly astonishing district.
The sheer scale of Tobita Red-Light District—a sprawling area that could engulf everything from Ginza's 4th to 8th districts including their eastern and western back alleys—stood entirely encircled by prison-like walls: concrete barriers towering over twenty feet tall.
One might assume the Osaka police had erected these walls under pretexts of public morality—and who could blame them?
(given their penchant for barricading train stations and entertainment districts to regiment the masses)—but no, these walls had actually been built by brothel owners of old to prevent prostitutes from escaping.
Then came the Great Kanto Earthquake, where Yoshiwara's prostitutes perished en masse after failing to flee—so were all Osaka's women of pleasure to die if fire struck? A humanitarian crisis, truly.
This became such an issue for the Osaka City Council that they ordered gates installed in the concrete walls.
Until then, there had reportedly been only one gate.
Even prisons supposedly have back gates, yet here there had been none.
They say four gates were eventually made, remaining to this day.

However, I had been thinking about this wall from the moment I first laid eyes on it. Was it only the proprietors here who erected these absurd walls? Even if their purposes differed, I couldn't help thinking that the Osaka police mentality most inherently contained this propensity—to raise walls that swallowed red-light districts whole. Ever since first setting foot in Osaka, this spirit of controlling the populace had pressed in on me so relentlessly I could no longer bear it. The police here weren't the people's friends—they were unmistakably their rulers.

Centered around Tobita Red-Light District, this area had mostly survived the fires, but in the past, it was probably a residential area for low-income salarymen. The rows of houses primarily consisted of four or five tenement units each. If most of these small salaryman residences were not displaying inn signboards, they were maternity hospitals; those without signboards were boarding houses for waitresses—in other words, unlicensed brothels. The pom-pom aunties loitering at every intersection and along every storefront appeared to be the ones ushering customers into those places. The International Market, Tobita Red-Light District, Sanno-cho, Jjan Jjan Yokocho—all their surrounding areas gathered in droves upon droves, a grand exhibition of brazen prostitution displayed without hiding from anyone’s eyes. Unlike Ueno’s forest, since these were restaurants and inns, there was no air of furtive skulking about. The backs of restaurants were all inns—occasionally maternity hospitals—their interconnected purpose obvious at a glance; the jostling people were either herself or pom-pom aunties—blatant in its explicitness yet concise and to the point. And again, people were swarming in chaos.

I stayed at this back-alley inn for one and a half nights.
Indeed, it was the most respectable establishment among the back alleys.
I drank copiously past midnight, then laid out another lavish spread on the table come morning for a gluttonous feast—and this extravagant binge totaled a mere 3,400 yen.
This inn didn't prepare its own dishes but had them delivered from Jjan Jjan Yokocho or similar joints.
Since cooking in-house would obviously cost more, they avoided such wastefulness.
Thus each delivered dish ran ten or twenty yen—even the most luxurious platters and hot pots couldn't have exceeded thirty yen.
Cheap as it was, they could whip up any dish you wanted.
Thai chili hot pot, anglerfish hot pot, chicken hot pot, beefsteak—they had it all.
They could properly distinguish each order too, mind you.
Though there were limits to how much one could eat, alcohol and beer being endless indulgences meant I must have drunk barrels of the stuff—yet that 3,400 yen total left me speechless.
Complete with proper bathing facilities and even a second room, no less.
It was truly a grand bacchanal in the backstreets.

In postwar Japan, it was a peculiar phenomenon that prices at first-class Ginza establishments and back-alley eateries in disreputable districts hardly differed.
Six years later, though the price gap between main streets and back alleys had gradually widened, places like Osaka’s Jjan Jjan Yokocho neighborhood remained an exceptional case nationwide.
Of course, contracting a disease there could prove rather costly.
But even I lacked the courage to fraternize with the streetwalkers and cross-dressers haunting those lanes.

Osaka’s new pioneer, Mr. Dan Kazuo, volunteered as our guide, abandoning his busy work to rush down the Tokaido.
He had apparently intended to knock the wind out of my sails in Jjan Jjan Yokocho, but I—long before his arrival—had already spent a night not just in that alley, but at an inn nestled in the very backstreets of its vicinity.
This back-alley inn district was uncharted territory even for Mr. Dan, leaving him utterly dumbfounded by the storyteller’s fearless legs that knew no apprehension.

★

Except for the one and a half nights in the dark streets, we were staying at an inn called Kyōya.
Run by Madam Suzumeemon, it is said to be one of the very finest inns in Osaka.

I knew nothing about Osaka, and at Bungeishunjū Shinsha there wasn’t a single person versed in the city either. Our guide Tokuda-kun was thoroughly acquainted with Tokyo but knew almost nothing about Osaka. With no alternative, we entrusted everything to Yomiuri Shimbun’s Osaka branch—the inn they booked for us being Kyōya. Pompous claims circulated that it was the only establishment in present-day Osaka where cabinet ministers stayed, importantly not one facilitating illicit trysts. Too refined for a back-alley raconteur like myself, it nevertheless held an air of inscrutable depth I found curiously compelling.

The Momi ji in Koishikawa where I stay whenever I visit Tokyo was likely counted among Tokyo’s foremost inns at that time.
The nightly spectacle of luxury cars jostling for space before its entrance alone spoke volumes.
I had also ventured to another establishment called Shiguretei.
This proved an even more imposing mansion than Momi ji—both being former residences of the wealthy converted into inns during the postwar years.

When it comes to inns, Tokyo and Osaka were polar opposites.
Edo natives were conservative with subdued tastes, yet it proved surprising that Kyōya—which one would expect to hold sway in such a region—maintained its prestige in Osaka, a city enamored with progress, novelty, and grandeur.
Of course, it was travelers rather than locals who maintained affiliations with inns, but ultimately, it had to be the inherent character of the place that determined what both self and others found permissible.
Thus, Osaka must also have possessed this conservative aspect.

Kyōya showed no postwar changes and bore no relation to prewar modernism. It seemed downright peculiar that they had running water and electric lights, yet the toilets weren’t flush-style but adhered to that Kansai custom of leaving the lids off entirely. As for gardens, there existed only what might better be termed an open space of about twenty tsubo for natural lighting.

However, there was just one thing that transcended time and made perfect sense: much like the inns around Jjan Jjan Yokocho, Kyōya too employed no chefs and relied solely on takeout except for breakfast.
As an inn, this approach was probably the genuine one.
Travelers wanted to eat local specialties, and unlike hot spring towns lacking proper restaurants—since Osaka had plenty of eateries proudly serving regional dishes—it was only proper to leave food preferences to guests and entrust meals to dedicated culinary establishments.
True to its nature as an inn native to Osaka, it unwittingly embodied a hotel’s efficiency.

However, these old-fashioned Osakans with no connection to modernism—they too proved intriguing in their lack of crisp decisiveness.
In other words, there still existed women of old—those who, like *jōruri* heroines trapped in endless anguish with no resolution in sight, knew no other path but to submit to fate or choose death, utterly devoid of any proactive way of living.
Such women were unexpectedly numerous indeed.

The only thing crisp about Dan-kun's stronghold—a place called OK—was its name; the establishment itself was that den.
On the night he arrived, I had to pull an all-nighter for work I'd brought to Osaka; I couldn't go out, nor could I drink.
Tokuda-kun went in my stead to contact Dan-kun at OK, but returned looking utterly bewildered, as if he'd been bewitched by a fox.

“It’s an outrageous place.”

“Is it Jjan Jjan Yokocho-esque?”

“Not even close!”
“The neighborhood had electric lights blazing brightly, yet that place alone was pitch dark.”
“Something felt off, so I mustered the courage to go in—only to find they were running the place by candlelight.”
“The electricity had been cut off, apparently.”
“It’s in a first-class location on Umeda-dori, though.”
“It’s like a mountain bandit’s den.”

That place appeared to be one of the haunts for certain newspaper reporters.
As the reporters lay sprawled in drunken disarray, Dan-kun—having continued drinking in the dining car until he became like a great tiger—appeared, joined the group, and drove off with them to parts unknown.

The next night, I stopped by OK under Dan-kun's guidance only to be astonished.
To call it "OK" was utterly preposterous—not a single aspect matched its stylish name.
You'd be absolutely correct to mistake it for Bankara University's makeshift campus cafeteria.
The sheer absurdity of such an establishment operating without electricity in a first-rate shopping district was staggering—yet the true madness resided in its drunken patrons, while the proprietress herself remained disarmingly kindhearted, fidgeting nervously without an ounce of ridiculousness about her.
Being submissive to fate meant she bore no resentment toward customers, firmly grasping both her understanding and resignation that pressing matters would prove futile when essentials simply weren't available.
Still, operating without electric lights posed genuine difficulties, hence

“Candles cost too much to keep burning.”
“Do hurry up and get those electric lights working again.”

she muttered in a hushed voice.
Then the drunkards cackled uproariously instead of replying.
And yet she loved this fate of hers.
She resented neither heaven nor man.
This too might have been one of those quintessentially old-fashioned Osakans.

Kyōya similarly lacked any trace of absurdity.
The maid there—probably a maid—was a beautiful girl.
Though she carried herself with a somewhat briskly modern air, there was truly nothing antiquated about her—and not a shred of absurdity.

She came to ask, "Will the midday meal be for two people?" Now, perhaps because there might be guests from the newspaper—but there was no need to explain that reason to her. In any case, when I said, "Please prepare three portions," her response to this: if we translate it into Tokyo speech, it would come out like this.

"Yes indeed."
"Truly, your doing so is what matters most."

She answered in heartfelt Osaka dialect with words conveying wholehearted agreement, her tone quite earnest. Though she didn’t know why three midday meal portions were necessary, she replied in an overly familiar manner brimming with heartfelt concurrence—as if thoroughly versed in the reason and in complete accord.

In Tokyo, there existed no such manner of response in these situations.
They would simply say things like "Yes, certainly" or "Yes, three portions it is"—
a Tokyo-style logical phrasing delivered without knowing the reason,

"Yes indeed, I do believe ordering three portions is most proper."

If someone were to answer like this, it would be utterly bizarre.
Through Osaka’s phrasing and accent, not only did this cease to be bizarre—it even sounded pleasantly earnest to the ear.
I thought that one of the crucial environmental factors shaping the Osakan character must be these very turns of phrase and language.

Conversely, they had developed a language that was vulgarly blunt and fired off rapid retorts.
While Edoites relished delivering theatrical bluster, Osakans had perfected rapid-fire banter to a far greater degree—their expressions striking with surgical precision.
Not only had countless vulgar insults for berating people developed, but there also seemed to be a mechanism in place that let truly vulgar expressions—ones that pierced someone’s weaknesses with surgical precision—flow freely from the tongue.

Compared to Tokyo’s formulaic invectives, Osaka’s were grounded in the subject and situation—realistic, improvisational, and concrete—with a seemingly inexhaustible wellspring of richly varied expressions that spontaneously arose. Moreover, their fast-talking—this alone could not be fully apprehended through listening nor faithfully reproduced on the page unless one was a born-and-bred Osakan. In places like Jjan Jjan Yokocho and strip theaters, I would hear rapid-fire exchanges of laborers’ insults and Yaji-style retorts, and while I was thoroughly impressed by how exquisitely they articulated even the minutest details with precision, their delivery was simply too rapid, their content too rich and ever-shifting for me to commit any of it to memory.

I went to a place called Dōgeki (apparently properly known as Dōtonbori Theater, though the theater itself doesn’t bother writing anything but Dōgeki on its curtains or programs) and was astonished. This was a theater that staged Osaka actors’ emotional dramas, strip shows, and comic routines—likely one of the most quintessentially Osakan playhouses.

The trio of laborers stationed before us gripped large Suntory bottles in their hands, watching the show while passing glasses around.
They had come specifically for the strip show, so they kept clamoring incessantly—urging them to start stripping already, to shed those kimonos—but onstage, they were passionately performing a heavy human drama that didn’t live up to the "light" in "light entertainment," making it no wonder the strip fans were growing impatient.
The marquee bore the fearsome title "The Judged Lustful Beast," but the actual content was a grand tragedy utterly devoid of gags—completely at odds with its flippant billing.
Unlike Asakusa's ready-made light drama actors, the supporting roles here—apparently seasoned in the Soganoya style—were all skilled performers; but precisely because of this, they lacked the lightheartedness that would harmonize with the strip shows.
The stage was now at the point where the leading geisha had collapsed drunk in the annex, and her lover—who had been with her—found himself needing to leave for another room.
The geisha slipped feet into the kotatsu and fell asleep.
Then, Anchan from the entertainment district—who had been dumped by the geisha and now harbored resentment while vowing revenge—emerged from one side of the stage with a sinister air, tiptoeing stealthily.

“Here he comes! Here he comes! Here he cooomes!”
“He’s comin’!”

A drunk spectator clutching a Suntory bottle shouted, urgently warning the geisha.
The actors must have known all along.
Yet the honorifics used in such situations held a peculiar charm.
Even when meaning to say “Why not take off your kimono here?”, they would couch it in elaborate honorifics like “Might you consider disrobing? I humbly entreat you”—a vulgarity undeniable yet manifesting a nonsensical nuance Tokyo’s linguistic realm could neither express nor fathom.
This honorific phrasing paid maximal deference to the listener’s personhood while abasing oneself utterly; thus even their crudest outbursts retained blunted edges.
Perhaps this very mechanism let Osakans hurl vulgarities with such ease.
Where Tokyo speech’s logical rigor reduced obscenities to their stark essence, Osaka’s phrasing—never definitive, always riddled with escape hatches and air vents—drifted aimless and visceral.

However, I was astonished by this play.
The man who had sneaked in neither suddenly stabbed the sleeping geisha to death nor embraced her; instead, he first flipped up the kotatsu quilt and began lifting the hem of the sleeping woman’s kimono layer by layer.
If he lifted it just a bit more, everything would be exposed—yet he kept slowly and meticulously raising it layer by layer.
Given that this occurred not during some erotic play or comedy, but in the midst of an utterly serious grand tragedy devoid of even a single gag, I couldn’t have been the only one to blurt out *“What the—?”* in astonishment.
Even the usually talkative drunkards had forgotten to shout at that moment.

The power went out just as the strip show was starting.
It was what they called a planned blackout for power-saving.
Since it was midday, they opened just two windows on the second floor.
They lit candles only at the rear of the stage.
They were quite accustomed to this routine.
Now, two staff members stood at the south-facing second-floor window with what appeared to be a prepared film reflector in hand, catching sunlight on the board above their heads and reflecting it onto the stage dancers.
Not to make things visible for the spectators, but likely for the dancers' convenience.
Because if they could see the audience seats, it would undoubtedly make dancing difficult.
Moreover, it gave their skin a glossy sheen and made it gleam white—a welcome effect indeed.

The ingenuity in preparing for blackouts here was quite commendable, but strip shows become truly troublesome affairs without that moment when the lights snap off and plunge everything into total darkness.
Just as the kimono begins to slip past her hips with a swish—the lights abruptly cut out.
Goddamn it!
To grumble about losing illumination at the crucial moment betrays amateurish thinking—without that darkness settling in, the whole affair turns downright unsavory, you understand.
The dancer clutches desperately at her kimono with half her buttocks exposed.
Having never practiced striding gracefully in such a state, she might have triumphantly grabbed her garments and stalked off had darkness fallen—but instead, she's forced to shuffle forward hunched over like some giant insect, hands clutching front and back to keep the slipping fabric from tumbling down as she scurries behind the curtain.
Ah—when matters refuse to conclude where they ought to, everything becomes such a bother.
Let a strip show overstay its vanishing point, and even century-spanning passion would wither.
These local strippers fared well enough lacking artistic pretensions—but picture someone like Hirose Motomi, who actually endeavored to showcase artistry through her craft, now retreating while clutching buttocks and crotch, kimono dragging as she squirms away in mortification.
How excruciating that must be.
Things meant for darkness must never be illuminated.
Not for obscenity's sake—but because it renders them both ludicrous and pitiable.
In daylight's glare, only art can redeem obscenity.
The same principle holds true for strip shows.

Since planned blackouts were nationwide, it stood to reason that wherever strip theaters existed across the country, identical scenes must have been unfolding. Yet that particular moment of half-exposed buttocks desperately clutched front and back might have been Osaka's exclusive specialty. If one were to credit them with inventing this method—this style of barely restraining kimonos from slipping at precisely the anticipated blackout moment—it would showcase not merely quick-witted commercial instinct (and not necessarily obscenity), but might well exemplify that demonic ingenuity peculiar to Osaka merchants.

★

This Osaka trip was grueling.
At the beginning of February, I fell ill, disrupting my work and leaving two pieces—Shosetsu Shincho and Bessatsu Bungei Shunju—that should have been completed before departure still unfinished.
I pulled an all-nighter on the 12th.
By nine o'clock on the morning of the 13th, I had somehow finished only All Yomimono, sent telegrams declining Shosetsu Shincho and Bessatsu, returned to Tokyo, and attended the Akutagawa Prize selection committee starting at five-thirty that afternoon.
It was all well and good that the meeting concluded early when they decided there were no suitable candidates, but then Mr. Kobayashi from Shosetsu Shincho appeared at the venue pleading, "Just half is fine—write it while traveling! I'll ride the same train with you! I'll get fired otherwise!" Since I couldn't let someone get fired, there was no choice. Then came Bessatsu's separate request: "Essays will do—please write something during your trip."
If essays were acceptable, well, that one might be manageable, but Shosetsu Shincho required a crime serial.
I had wanted to create a new form of short detective fiction through this serial.
In detective novels, short stories are impossible.
Even in the West, there are hardly any interesting short detective stories.
I had thought to create a new form by incorporating both deductive elements and literary elements into the crime serial.
At first it was groping in the dark, but around the fifth installment I began grasping a new form.
Therefore, being in full creative swing, I didn't want to do slapdash work; moreover, detective novels require meticulous composition.
First you properly construct a murder case, then flip it to write—thus the structuring requires more effort than the actual writing.
Once the structure was in place, there was scarcely any difference between writing a section or the entire work.

Thus while traveling I felt terribly insecure and helpless, but since Kobayashi-kun was growing pale and sinking into despair over potentially losing his job, here I had no choice but to force myself to write during the trip.
That said, for a storyteller like myself to neglect my study of Japanese geography for such reasons would betray my duty as a craftsman. Thus, accepting this as heaven’s decree, I steeled myself to fulfill all three obligations by slashing my sleep time to the bare minimum.

That night, I stayed at Momiji.
I drank sake with three maids while engaging in silly talk, requested a massage, and ended up falling asleep before ten o'clock as they worked on me.
I remained in a comatose state until six o'clock the next morning.
That was because I'd pulled an all-nighter the previous evening.

At nine o'clock that morning, I boarded the Tsubame.
Dan-kun, who was supposed to accompany me, failed to join when his work fell behind schedule.
My assigned seat being in the observation car made it ill-suited for concentrated thought, but Dan-kun's vacant seat saved me.
Once I begin thinking, I transform into a madman.
Kobayashi-kun came to check on my progress and fled in alarm.

When I arrived in Osaka, there was heavy snow.
In truth, Tokyo had experienced even heavier snow, but unaware of this fact, I wandered through unfamiliar Osaka cursing the snowfall until finally hailing a car and heading to the Yomiuri branch office.
After settling at Kyōya, it turned out to be fortunate that I ended up staying here—the only quiet inn in all of Osaka.
However, I caused immense trouble for Kyōya.

After all, once I start working, I turn into a madman.
At the Kamata inn in Okuyugawara too, there was an incident where an old man—having misinterpreted my work as finished while it was still ongoing—came trotting over to offer congratulations on its completion, only to receive my thunderous rebuke and leap up in fright before fleeing.
When startled, people seem to leap up, whirl around, and bolt away in a panic.
Jumping up, turning around, and running away—these three things occur simultaneously.
Both my wife and the inn’s maids seem to feel as though they’re treading on thin ice whenever I begin working; whenever anyone enters my room, they do so with strained faces acting timidly.
Even my wife and the maids who are accustomed to me react naturally as my demeanor drastically changes—so of course the Kyōya maid, who knew nothing of this, turned pale.
Depending on the nature of the work, crime serials may seem trivial, but crafting their inescapable structures demands such meticulous thought and constant attention that I inevitably become consumed by murderous intensity.
Hata was inconvenienced, but there was no helping it.

I haven't seen my own face during such moments, so I can't say for certain—but seeing people act so skittishly makes me wonder what kind of monstrous expression I must wear.
When I returned to Kyōya, I drank a pint, slept from nine until midnight—three fitful hours.
On that snow-choked frigid day, my barked demands—"Bring the kotatsu!" "Where's the board?"—left Kyōya itself seeming to shrivel under the onslaught.

The people of Kyōya possessed none of the worldly savvy expected in the hospitality trade of innkeeping. It resembled the humble abode of profoundly resigned souls. One might imagine someone like the old crone from *The Union of Jōruri* running this utterly inefficient inn business with two or three equally timid maids. They became utterly flustered by my fearsome visage—though this establishment normally accepted only reserved guests, they wound up refusing all reservations and barring every customer except Tokuda-kun and myself. All this transpired on a weekend no less—truly, though unrelated to my intentions—they had been compelled to act most improperly. Even accounting for their fear that this ill-favored brute might write some scandalous exposé, turning away all patrons remained decidedly abnormal.

What inn would ever use such an absurd method to appease someone?
Was this not a desperate, sorrowful resignation akin to how ancient people appeased the god of plague, or how they offered their daughters as human sacrifices to a giant serpent?
However, by hardening my heart and indulging in that ruthlessness, I was able to complete both *Shosetsu Shincho* and *Bessatsu Bungei Shunju*, and my Osaka sightseeing remained unimpeded.
Even amidst all this busyness—though I’d only planned on attending two races at Suminoe Keirin—I went ahead regardless.
I made four hundred yen and lost four hundred yen—so it’s a wash.

Throughout my stay in Osaka, I scarcely slept a wink, but through Kyōya’s immense sacrificial service, I somehow managed to preserve both body and soul.

If this were a domestic drama, then the villain called a demon or a beast—one who knows nothing of human sorrow—would surely be me.

But still.
The fact that something like a lodging of resigned austerity persisted as Osaka’s first-class inn—well, as long as one stayed here, it felt like dwelling deep in the mountains. This temporal inversion that made it impossible to recall Osaka’s vitality-sapping streets—how utterly bizarre.
Truly, somehow, modernity simply didn’t exist here.
It was as though fairy tales truly inhabited Osaka.
Had they not burned down, similar antiquated elements might still have remained in abundance within places like the old shopping districts.
The OK bar operating by candlelight was likely a modernist variation of that same mental landscape.

I asked Ms. Yamamoto Atsuko, a vocalist, to gather several prominent young women representing Osaka’s postwar generation (not in a negative sense, but rather an inverted one). This is where the storyteller’s insight shines through. True to expectations, she poured tremendous effort into compiling an exhaustive selection of candidates. How painstakingly she had labored became evident when examining the professions of these assembled young ladies.

Hanayagi Yukou - Her name alone made her stature clear.
She was the star of Kansai New Dance Movement.

Murata Junko. Designer.
Received the Prime Minister’s Award at last year’s national competition.
She was probably twenty-one or twenty-two.
A quintessentially Japanese talent.

Sasaki Masako - This young lady was apparently selected both for her refined demeanor and as the representative drinker.
Unaware of this arrangement, we declared, “Women shouldn’t drink—they’ll start crying when drunk and make spectacles of themselves,” leaving only Dan-kun, Tokuda-kun, and me to imbibe. By the time we realized our mistake, it was too late—we had utterly failed in our selection duties.
As for young ladies who surpass men in drinking capacity despite their youth—I knew two such women in Tokyo.
One at Bungei Shunju.
As for the one at Shincho—her exact alcohol tolerance remained unclear—but in terms of refinement, the Tokyo contingent suffered a crushing defeat.

Moriwaki Sumiko: She appeared to be the representative of literature enthusiasts.
Though not particularly obsessed with literature herself, she was a demure young lady affiliated with Viking—a coterie magazine's quasi-external group.
During the war, she had been evacuated to Kagoshima and around March of her third year at girls' school received instruction from Mr. Maeda Suminori.
A literature fan who was far from the literary maiden type—one whose exposure to literature had begun with that experience.

Yamamoto Setsuko: Ms. Atsuko’s younger sister and Miss Osaka.
What’s amusing about Miss Osaka is her complete lack of affectations and her delightfully ordinary nature.
At her alma mater Tezukayama Gakuin—whether it’s the kindergarten or elementary school—working as a nurse?
I might be mistaken.
Anyway, in her role of rushing over with red antiseptic whenever children fall, she was said to be bustling about the campus every day.
She was a kind young lady engaged in work that seemed most unbecoming of Miss Osaka.

Funakoshi Utsumi: A painter belonging to Action Art.

Yamamoto Atsuko: Graduated from Ueno Music School.
Instructor at Matsuzakaya Culture Classroom.

These two women were matriarchs who commanded an intimidating presence among the young ladies.

They say Osaka is petty—but what of it?
There existed a melancholy born of contradictions—an intensely aggressive pragmatism fused with resignation that bent to power, two sides of the same coin; a people simultaneously dynamic and prone to sniveling, where uproarious laughter and tear-streaked faces perpetually flickered side by side.
Men were like that.
There was an aspect where they single-handedly bore responsibility for something local and fateful, driven to the brink of madness in how they were manipulated.
Many of the young ladies I met would say they liked Osaka but disliked Osaka men.
"Why do you suppose that is? Osaka men are splendid."

If there was something wretched about Osaka, it lay in its excessive sense of rivalry toward Tokyo.
While life demands only that one do their utmost, fixating on notions like "Tokyo does things this way—we mustn't lose to them" betrays nothing but second-rate self-awareness.
Tokyoites needn't spare a single thought about not losing to Osaka.
To be fair, we do have second-rate types who prattle about how "America does this" or "France does that."

Kyoto scholars exemplify this flaw.
Overly conscious of Tokyo and steeped in confrontational posturing.
Though scholarship and art transcend borders, their work turns second-rate when tainted by provincial rivalry.
This antagonism amounts to an inferiority complex.
Thus when they strive to assert superiority, they end up rejecting Japan itself rather than Tokyo—for Kyoto holds no supremacy over Tokyo.
Fundamentally, they themselves lack any superiority whatsoever.
They produce no work standing independent beyond national boundaries; they possess no excellence of their own.
Therefore their sole path to asserting superiority becomes negating Japan—and lacking any native excellence to wield, they negate it through foreign superiority instead.
Professor Kuwahara Takeo and Kyoto's venerable luminaries chiefly embody this tendency.

The same applied to critics.
Driven by an inferiority complex over not being literary producers themselves, they possessed no recourse but the peculiar trump card of negating Japanese literature in the name of foreign literature to demonstrate their superiority.

If there was something wretched about Osaka, it lay solely in being overly conscious of Tokyo.
That alone reduced one to second-rate.

Osaka men were manipulated to a maddening degree.
That very term exemplified it.
The fact that they were intensely practical and rational, yet their language remained emotional—grasping nothing and seeking release—likely stemmed from knowing too well the terror of logic and the dread of definitive statements.
Because they knew reason—or rather, precisely because reason was ingrained in them—they understood the terror of being ensnared by it, and rebellion against reason arose.
Osaka’s language was terrifyingly precise yet simultaneously hazy and visceral.
Osaka’s language stood as one of the most suitable for creating farce.
Fundamentally, farce (comedy) was an explosion born from those who had internalized reason struggling to escape it.
It became the flight of people who knew too much meaning—a desperate rush from meaning into meaninglessness.
It was sad.
There existed no sight more sorrowful than this.
Osakans were the only Japanese people living out their real lives alongside farce.
They were manipulated to a maddening degree—
To ingrained reason, to human compassion, to moneymaking, to resignation, to language, to their hometown—

Women too have their regional identity; indeed, they may possess it even more than men do.
Yet they bear no such responsibility.
Women of any country—isn’t that simply how women are?
They bear fate itself, yet assume no responsibility for that fate.

Women shoulder none of their own burdens, while men who gasp under the weight of obligations they ought to carry appear wretched and loathsome.
Is it truly women who deserve our scorn?
No, no.
They are endearing.
It becomes a state where one must love precisely what is most detestable.
Women everywhere tend to disdain local men, but in Osaka this inclination may run particularly deep.
Perhaps because men here are overburdened with responsibilities and manipulated to the point of madness.

However, Osaka's ladies are fascinating.
Tokuda-kun and I had once left Kyōya.
We needed to know other inns.
Then we had them reserve us lodgings near Shinsaibashi.
When we went to look, there was only one room despite expecting two.
They said one room sufficed for two people.
In other words, it was a couples' inn.
In short, our hardship in finding lodgings stemmed both from single occupancy clashing with couples' inn policies and most Osaka inns being couples' establishments.

When we visited the Yomiuri branch office and recounted these hardships, a certain young lady who happened to be present and listening nearby suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice—

“If you’d used my place as an extra, that would’ve been fine! No need to hold back at all!”

Before the assembled press corps came a fearless booming voice.
The woman herself showed not a trace of awkward self-consciousness.
It was merely a spontaneous outpouring of genuine concern that had struck her in the moment—yet what an absurdly chaotic way to express it.
At any rate, it seemed one needed exceptional kindness of heart to make such an unflinching grand declaration.

“I was taken aback at the time.”

When Tokuda-kun returned to Tokyo, his face still glistened with cold sweat—though truth be told, anyone would have been startled.
But the fault lies with those who get flustered.
Such tactless blurting isn’t exclusive to Osaka’s young ladies.
Miss F-ko of Hyakkaen Chitose, a downtown Tokyo girl, could have been the champion of heedless remarks.
Mrs. Ōi Hiroshi shared this trait too, while Mrs. D—the stout businesswoman (herself both stout and a businesswoman)—would spew comments that would lay ordinary people low for a week, then forget them entirely; too preoccupied with profit-making to care, she spent her years casually dropping terrifying utterances.
Yet even she carried that Osaka cadence, didn’t she.
An Osakan after all?

What struck me most upon meeting Osaka's young ladies was how utterly ordinary they all were.
Their resolute bearing—or rather, anything resembling affectation—seemed to trouble their minds scarcely at all.
Though engaged in professions and veterans in their fields, they carried none of that gender-neutral professionalism common among careerists.
Ever domestic beings, they appeared to slip effortlessly into any environment without pretense.
I met them some three and a half hours before leaving Osaka—too brief for proper conversation—but when Miss Osaka and two other young ladies saw us off to Condor, that bar linked to Oda Sakunosuke's legacy, they glided through its doors as naturally as if entering their own homes, unlike Tokyo girls who'd stiffen with tension in such places.
Utterly ordinary yet slipping seamlessly everywhere—fulfilling professional duties without visible strain—they revealed themselves through this very mundanity as extraordinary beings.

To call her a Prime Minister’s Award-winning designer sounds grandiose, but this person too showed not a trace of the gender-neutral professionalism typical of careerists.
She was quite something, this Kuro-chan.
Tokuda-kun said she was about nineteen, but I doubted it.
She must have been twenty-one or twenty-two by then.
The face was pitch black.
It had been because she went skiing after heavy snowfall and gotten sunburned.
That blackness wasn’t any ordinary shade.
You didn’t become this dark by half measures.
However, it seemed Ms. Murata Junko remained deeply tanned like this most of the year.
In summer at the sea; in winter on snowy mountains.
She appeared to have little time to regain her fair complexion.
Yet she was a beauty.
Extremely quiet but always smiling.
It felt like being with some South Seas beauty sharing no common language.
This too proved utterly ordinary—not a Prime Minister’s Award recipient, not even a designer.
Even Ms. Hanayagi Yukou became just another girl when seated across from her.
That they normally possessed none of what we call expertise struck me as strangely mystifying.
They were young women who looked thoroughly ordinary at first glance—that very ordinariness letting them slip effortlessly into any setting remained unchanged in their case.

They gave the impression of being homemakers in the best sense of the term.
While being homemakers, they could slip effortlessly into any setting, and no matter how specialized their professional work might be, there was a naturalness to how they always remained splendidly yet unremarkably homemakers—all without any logical pretense.
Meeting these young ladies made the chaos of Osaka’s entertainment districts perfectly comprehensible.
Osaka’s entertainment districts were crowded in ways unimaginable in Tokyo.
There were several entertainment districts, but my goodness, what an astonishing number of people there were!
Wherever you went, they were swarming.

A town of thoroughly ordinary working people who lived by “work hard, play hard”—that must have been what Osaka was. Workers had their workers’ entertainment districts, and this too was them engaging in their own carefree pleasures. Osaka was a city of ordinary folk, wasn’t it. And it was a city where women outshone men in beauty. Because Osaka’s men weren’t merely ordinary—they were even more pitiable, these wretched souls. Against women who carried their own bags, these wretched souls couldn’t hope to compete even with just the weight of those bags.

★

Wretched souls worked busily, devised schemes in their heads, and pulled off the most outrageous things.

There was a place called Mitsu-dera on Midosuji.
This place tormented me.
I would board a car from Kyōya.
Wherever I needed to go, I inevitably passed before Mitsu-dera.
That I kept passing before this place two or three times daily—to the point of irritation making me wonder if vengeful spirits were at work—became unbearable.

There was a time when brothels in places like Yoshiwara and Asakusa became popular to renovate in Western style. The exteriors were painted in gaudy white and pink, with windows aligned uniformly across the first, second, and third floors. All of them were destroyed in this war, but the sole remaining one in all the land was Mitsu-dera, you see. The people of Osaka call it "Mitsudera-san." Because it was reinforced concrete, the form remained intact. And only the roof retained some semblance of a temple—a peculiar topknot-like structure. It’s supposedly a Shingon sect temple or something of that sort. Because Osaka’s wretched souls had frantically racked their brains to build such temples, the girls who didn’t carry bags looked down on their town’s boys. However, burdened by those bags’ weight, these wretched souls had no choice but to devise all sorts of schemes.

I thought they were building a grand sumo hall, but when the completed neon signboard went up, it turned out to be a cabaret called Metro. They were touting it as Osaka’s newest attraction at the time, but good lord—it was absurdly massive. And though its attractions were grandiose, their drinks were downright appalling. When I ordered a Gin Fizz, there was merely a whisper of something gin-like. For my second round, they brought me what amounted to a thimbleful of gin splashed into Calpis. A Calpis-Gin cocktail—now there’s a novelty. But with the gin barely detectable and the Calpis accounting for nearly the whole drink, it was highway robbery at those prices. In joints this jam-packed—where you’re practically climbing over people—you can almost forgive the girls for sneering at the boys. When I excused myself to the restroom, I found the customer facilities “closed for repairs,” forcing patrons to use the backstage toilets instead—right next to the dancers’ changing room.

I was thoroughly done with cabarets and went hunting for a proper bar.
Not yet knowing about Kondoru—the establishment linked to Oda Sakunosuke—I trudged through the streets seeking any place that served Western liquor with a proper bite rather than that insipid Calpis-gin.
The Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori areas appeared utterly devoid of genuine bars.
Tokyo’s seasoned drinkers might follow their ritual of downing a pint at a tavern before capping the night with spirits at a bar, but in Osaka this didn’t mean cabarets could substitute for proper drinking dens.
Calpis-gin makes for a pitiful finale indeed.

They say Osaka is a city of culinary connoisseurs, but present-day Osaka falls short of that reputation.
Fugu cuisine has become a mass-market staple here.
There are even fugu restaurants in the Jjan Jjan Yokocho style.
The establishment I patronized may not have been top-tier, but it bore considerable renown.
Its fare proved inedible by Tokyo standards.
The pufferfish quality was subpar and the chefs incompetent.
What gains popularity doesn't necessarily gain flavor.
The streets still hosted sweet chestnuts yet unseen in Tokyo's revival.
Biting into one revealed only the roasting aroma remained unchanged from yesteryear.
These weren't proper sweet chestnuts—merely Yude varieties with saccharine rinds.
However sweetened, one still cannot eat the skin.

The people of Osaka were pragmatists—yet theirs was a pragmatism that fell short of gastronomic or aesthetic substance, content to satisfy basic taste at low cost and fill their bellies.
Therefore, expensive items among mass-market foods were likely tasteless.
It must have been because they couldn’t make them thoroughly expensive while dedicating themselves solely to taste.
The very cheapest things—dishes like kitsune udon and hormonyaki—might actually have been the most delicious.
Those tasting Osaka’s best flavors may well have been the people who couldn’t afford much luxury.
The most extravagant restaurants may well have been delicious.

When I spotted what looked like a small bar entrance next to that infamous Mitsu-dera and dashed inside, it turned out to be an enormous space—yet another cabaret with a band blaring away.
The name of the establishment was Kompa.
Osaka is a peculiar place—just when you think there’s somewhere absurdly opulent like Metro, you find spots as starkly plain as a milk parlor.
The dreariness of Kompa!
In the vast interior, there were no potted plants, and the sheer spaciousness stood out overwhelmingly.
I never came across this sort of dreariness in Tokyo.
However, Osaka has many such dreary places—Kondoru is dreary, and OK is dreary too.
Rather than establishments operating with chaotic, absurd gaudiness, I find dreary ones more comfortable.
Absurdly gaudy establishments feel inscrutable—I can’t bring myself to frequent them.
It’s because they’re assumed to be serving something like Calpis-gin anyway.
True to its starkness, Kompa served me an authentic Gin Fizz.

Under Dan-kun’s guidance, I went to a place called Kondoru associated with Oda Sakunosuke, but somehow felt nostalgic.
However, what category would this establishment fall into in Tokyo terms?
After all, it’s a bar, I suppose.
If it’s a bar, then a back-alley bar.
It was indeed exactly that sort of place.

When a gold mine or such gets discovered deep in Hokkaido’s mountains, and suddenly a town of twenty or thirty thousand people springs up during a gold rush where the miners’ drinking habits prove commendable—that’s precisely when I can imagine establishments like the Kompa cabaret, Kondoru bar, and OK café coming into being.
Yet they aren’t in Hokkaido’s mountain depths—they’re right here on Osaka’s main thoroughfare.
So in other words, does this serve as proof that in Osaka there lurk gold rush-style mountain men types who rightfully belong in Hokkaido’s wilderness?
Indeed, Oda Sakunosuke too had those mountain-man-like qualities.
People like shogi players Masuda and Sakata are heroes suited to swilling liquor in dreary places—and I daresay even someone like myself might qualify.
Places like Jjan Jjan Yokocho don’t faze them in the slightest.
Well, within Osaka-born spaces reminiscent of Hokkaido’s hinterlands, such things certainly exist.
The places where people throng dreaming of gold rushes aren’t limited to Alaska or Hokkaido’s mining districts.
Osaka is entirely that sort of town.
Gold mining towns are shantytowns—but even in orderly Osaka proper, there must exist somewhere shantytowns of Gold Rush-style mountain men breeds.
No—even along main streets.
Even when built of reinforced concrete, their essence remains shantytown through and through.
And when today’s shantytown dwellers graduate to become proper builders, others will settle into new shantytowns elsewhere—making this a town where such structures will never cease to exist.

The heart of the shantytown.
It may also be a soul speckled with valiant hearts.
Nostalgia for the shantytown.
Tears shed by those speckled brave hearts, perhaps.
O Spirit of Oda Saku, rest in peace.

Some may protest that in touring Osaka’s disreputable sights—strip shows, Jjan Jjan Yokocho, cabarets—and only meeting young ladies, I’ve behaved outrageously, but this truly isn’t my fault.

I too requested three or four meetings with Osaka’s proper representative dignitaries, but once they tentatively agreed, they all made up excuses and fled—so there was nothing to be done.
The fact that they all tentatively accepted as if by some prior arrangement strikes me as amusing.
In the end, their concern must have been that they couldn’t predict what that fellow Ango the Storyteller might write.

In short, the only ones who graciously appeared for interviews were the young ladies.
That’s how it was.
The young ladies of Osaka don’t so much as flinch at someone like me—Ango the Storyteller.
With the lighthearted attitude of “Let’s see what sort of creature this is,” they’re truly innocent savages.
As for Osaka’s so-called businessmen and dignitaries—second-rate through and through.
Had they first-rate souls, they wouldn’t fear a mere storyteller.
If this were Tokyo, the politicians and businessmen I sought meetings with might’ve granted them with ease—but wouldn’t the young ladies be the ones trembling in fear?

Moreover, in Osaka, each time I ventured into some dubious locale, I’d be mistaken for someone else by the police—a predicament that plagued me endlessly.
Whenever I went exploring back alleys, tented strip joints, or markets with Tokuda-kun, we’d get mistaken for plainclothes inspectors making their rounds—prompting the strippers to abruptly throw on kimonos and abandon all nudity.
Those very plainclothes types had never once darkened my doorstep.
I found myself compelled to shed my overcoat before every outing.
Perhaps disguises would become necessary moving forward.

According to my original plan, I was supposed to visit Kobe along with Osaka, but unfortunately couldn’t make it there due to time constraints.