Araki: Tokyo Lucky Hole

by Nobuyoshi Araki (Photographer)

Tokyo "entertainment centers" in the early 1980s photographed by Araki
 It started in 1978 with an ordinary coffee shop near Kyoto whose waitresses famously wore no panties under their miniskirts and see-through pantyhose. As word began to spread, similar establishments popped up across the country. Men lined up outside these cafés waiting to pay three times the usual cost for coffee served by a panty-free young woman, hoping to catch a fortuitous glimpse. Within a few years, a new craze took hold: the no-panties "massage" parlor. Competition for customers led these new types of businesses to offer an increasingly bizarre range of services: fondling clients through holes in coffins whilst they lie naked inside playing dead, interiors catering to commuter-train fetishists, young virgin role-playing, etc. Amongst these many destinations was a Tokyo club called Lucky Hole. Here, the premise was ridiculously simple: clients stood on one side of a plywood partition, a hostess on the other; in between them was simply a hole big enough for a certain part of the male anatomy to pass through.

Nobuyoshi Araki was a frequent visitor to the sex clubs of Tokyo's Shinjuku neighborhood, and he photographed them profusely until the golden age of Japan's sex industry came to a screeching halt in February 1985, with the enactment of the New Amusement Business Control and Improvement Act. In over 800 photos, Tokyo Lucky Hole documents the free-for-all spirit of those clubs via Araki's lens.

Genres: Photography, Art, Japan, Nonfiction, Erotica, Coffee Table Books, Art and Photography

704 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

Nobuyoshi Araki is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist. He is also known by the nickname Arākī.

Araki studied photography during his college years and then went to work at the advertising agency Dentsu, where he met his future wife, the essayist Yōko Araki. After they were married, Araki published a book of pictures of his wife taken during their honeymoon titled Sentimental Journey. She later died in 1990. Pictures taken during her last days were published in a book titled Winter Journey.

Having published over 350 books (and still more every year) Araki is considered one of the most prolific artists alive or dead in Japan and around the world. Many of his photographs are erotic; some have been called pornographic. Some of his most popular photography books are Sentimental Journey, Tokyo Lucky Hole, and Shino. He also contributed photography to the Sunrise anime series Brain Powerd.

The Icelandic musician Björk is an admirer of Araki's work, and served as one of his models. At her request he photographed the cover and inner sleeve pages of her 1997 remix album, Telegram.

Araki's life and work were the subject of Travis Klose's 2005 documentary film Arakimentari.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy literally had the best job in the world. After a short intro - which is then repeated in a few different languages - there is not another word; no descriptions needed: It's just non-stop photography all the way. Over 650 pages. All shot in B&W. I thought maybe colour would look better; but then no: B&W looks more classy. Basically, a lot of the book is made up of naked Tokyo ladies in provocative pose: bush, tits & ass: no shaved lady bits here - this is the 80s remember, sometimes in sexy lingerie, sometimes its just the good old birthday suit, along with other images of some live sex shows, some weird S&M, blow-jobs, intercourse, foreplay, a few outside shots of buildings/clubs/streets, a dirty pavement - how on earth did that get in there? - maybe somebody had a pavement fetish and jerked off over it? I'm not sure, but it's mostly interior shots. Araki even makes an appearance in some of them: and I gotta say, he looks really smug! Why wouldn't he? Lucky bastard.

[Roxana Chirilă · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should I review what's basically pornography?...

Eh, why not.

"Tokyo Lucky Hole" is a big photo album with a tiny, tiny intro to give you a small bit of context regarding the contents. In short (an even shorter nutshell than the book offers), Japan had a bit of a sex boom from 1978 to 1985, when enterprising people realized that you didn't need to have professional sex workers - amateurs would work as well.

What happened was that someone in Kyoto came up with the concept of a "no-panties coffee shop", where the waitresses wore no panties. Men came and huge lines formed for the sake of novelty. As it became obvious there was a lot of potential there, copycats soon appeared, then tried to outdo each other with all sorts of crazy ideas, then things moved on to actual prostitution - it all ended in 1985, when the professional sex workers struck back with a legal act.

"Tokyo Lucky Hole" consists of hundred of photos dated (about?) 1983-1985, documenting this period and this sex boom. Not surprisingly, many of them are, if not downright explicitly pornographic, then leading up to it - with the exception of a few interspersed street photos which give the reader a breather.

There's all sorts of activities going on, but the album gets repetitive after a while (naturally). If there a few things I've deeply appreciated, they were the lack of mucking about with the photos for glamour purposes, the feeling that the models are enjoying themselves (are they really? That's a question that can't be answered) and, to be honest, the everything about the eighties, from the crazy hair to the old TV sets to the "what the heck is that interior design".

More context would have been nice - what was up with the masquerade with women dressed in the American flag? Why do we get some photos from a normal party? There's little to explain the wider world in which all this took place - so you peep into the world, and draw your own conclusions.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed this book in another edition before. For whatever reason I gave the old edition four stars and this one five stars. Why? Sex is a mood thing with me. And Araki sometimes strikes my fancy and other times not. But what's important is not the sex, but the way he captures an aesthetic in sexual affairs.

He is also a great documentarian with respect to Tokyo bar/sex life. The pictures of his wife, often erotic, is heartbreaking to me, because I know she passed away from cancer. So the way Araki deals with that lost is fascinating to me as well.

There is something very good nature about Araki, which is odd considering half the models in this book are tied up in some sort of fashion. And i am not part of a bondage aesthetic, so it's interesting to look at these photos without being aroused. But what arouses me are the faces of these women. i find a woman's face the most erotic part of their being. And Araki is very good at capturing that moment.

[Ville Verkkapuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

My god, how I loved this!
A picture of the erotic underworld of Tokyo in the 80's. Great pictures, great atmosphere. Dirty secrets and pure joy.
This contained very little text, but very much content and it definitely spoke to me.
I love erotica so much. To me, the thing isn't the pornographic or voyeristic elements, but the feeling of liberation and tingling I get from it. I don't find sexual pleasure in this content – I find it in myself when being indulged in this world.
We are all wonderful animals, who simply love to suck and fuck and nibble and stare and pet and laugh and drool and slap. And though it sometimes feels like it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nobuyoshi Araki is a masterful photographer, but this is just pornography, basically.

[Nuno Miguel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucky bastard

[João · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice compilation of pictures from the apparently very dynamic sex scene of 80s Tokyo. The pictures are taken by Araki and sometimes his friend, when Araki was taking part in the action.
I had the impression that Japanese regulations were always very prudish, but a lot of these pictures were apparently shown uncensored in magazines, at the time. Only at the end of the 80s did the government introduce strict laws that limited both the type of establishments that could exist and what media could show. Quite interesting.

[Circe · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Without obscenity, our cities are dreary places and our life is bleak.”
—Nobuyoshi Araki

Araki is an interesting one for me. Never one to shy away from controversy, the objects of his photographs range from a small, furry feline to a female sprawled out in a most amorous pose, and all are irrevocably beautiful. The dynamic between his tones is indicative of Araki’s fascination with Eros/Thanatos and is present throughout his narratives, which make for truly fascinating photography. I’ve been a fan of his for a while now and Araki: Lucky Hole was a recent find I was pretty excited to pursue.

The success of this compilation owes, in part, to the alluring, unabashedly shameless time it documents: early 1980s Japan, the years in which the sex industry was rife with hypnotic, eccentric possibility and in the midst of revolutionizing the way one indulges in pleasures of the flesh. It’s refreshing to see a side of Japan less conservative, and a really neat aspect of the collection is just how goddamn fun it looks like everyone is having. The photos capture a truly fascinating time, yet one that came and went just about as quickly as the clients who frequented. Araki does an intriguing job of capturing the bubbling underground of Tokyo’s sex industry in a time when sex itself was being reimagined in places like the bright, dazzling alleys of Kabukichō. It’s a journey of obscenity that is as captivating as it is informing.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a photographic chronicling of an era than an actual book, this doesn’t detract from the education and entertainment offered in this mammoth collection. Varying in degree of smut and vulgarity, there’s a candid quality to a lot of these snaps that is more telling than any first hand account from an owner or dancer. On one page you’ll see a dimly lit street being cut through by a sedan, and on the very next you’ll see a woman baring all that she has, a curious finger walking through the pubis. The content and tone shifts constantly but the shots remain beautiful and well composed.

Not simply a coffee table grumble book, this is history and tells a seldom seen story through photographs better than a wall of text could. Even so, the short paragraphs dotted about the book add further background and remind you that this is someone’s work,a passage of time they were eager to share. My only real niggle (and this is going to sound counterintuitive) but it is a little long. While the photos are varied enough, it's a lot to fill over 700 pages with. I appreciate the rich tapestry on offer, really I do, but it was a welcome finish.

[Aaron the Pink Donut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really a chronicle of a by gone time. Photographed with his usual flair and style. Its a big old book of great B&W images covering the gambit of all sorts of Kinks. Good Stuff. well executed all around and since its a Teschen its super cheap in paperback!

[Michal Rohal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, not exactly reading...(but even the short chapters/foreword written by Akihito Yasumi and Akira Suei gave me a good insight and put those photographs of Araki into context that changed those little pieces into one story.

[B. zee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius!! If you have any doubt then watch Arakimentary. If you're still not convinced then maybe Ansel Adams is more to your liking.

[Ernest Junius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the course of his advanced years, Araki must have often reminisced about how good the life he had in his younger days. I so admire his ability to humour and party.

[maryz · Rating 3 out of 5]

learning abt Japan’s sex industry in the 80s is both educational and depressing at the same time

[Theo Austin-Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

The man who “uses a camera as a device that resembles a vagina pretending to be a penis”.

It is almost impossible to judge the merit of this collection as the digital versions online are disgracefully blurred (you reprehensible weeb japanophiles ought to rectify this), but the premise of the book itself is as blurred as the image quality of the smut I’ve been self-consciously attempting to view for the last hour or so. I’ve been sitting here having an internal monologue along similar lines to the amateur aesthete who wanders into a gallery and asks the age old question - “Just how long am I supposed to be looking at this thing for?”

I mean, at the end of the day, aren’t these just a compilation of tits and furry bushes from the 80s? Does Taschen’s publishing and explicit seal of approval elevate this material? Am I suddenly not a pervert because I have a Doctor Evil-esque pinky finger at the corner of my mouth whilst looking at these obscene images? My main attraction (after getting it recommended to me after trying to buy Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and Documents on eBay) is that this is a cultural artefact akin to Krafft-Ebbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis or Havelock Ellis’ Psychology of Sex - it lists ingenuous methods of eroticism, with: literal glass ceilings with knicker-less women above, men dressed as babies getting blowjobs, good old-fashioned rusty trombones, public group sex (in many of these the question ought to be asked - do too many fingers spoil the broth?), endless vaginal and penile douches, men in coffins which have gloryholes, topless Japanese Nazis and crucified women, orgone machines, cock and ball torture techniques I can’t even begin to wrap my head around, etc. etc.

The closest analogue to Nobuyoshi that immediately comes to mind is Gaspar Noe’s self-inclusion of himself masturbating in the gay club during the opening scene of Irreversible, as Nobuyoshi never attempts to extricate himself from the debauchery as some disinterested spectator, he is more than willing to rock ‘n’ roll and quite literally get his hands dirty.

Unlike Ellis or Krafft-Ebbing however this is ultra specific, detailing a seedy scene of Japan over the course of only two or so years. Tokyo Lucky Hole can perhaps be viewed as a pretty decent vindication of a certain kind of sex industry, one which is populated by enthusiastic amateurs rather than economically-marginalised, often trafficked, desperate women - it seems, as it’s portrayed in these photos at the very least, as an innocent kind of “ideal”, uncoercive and joyful. But I have to admit, for me at least, this never really transcends the confines of being a catalogue, a snapshot, and something which will be rather swiftly forgotten. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right…. maybe I’m just somebody who likes having a look at naked women (I really ought to be ashamed of posting this.)

[Shin · Rating 2 out of 5]

two things this book reminds you:

1.all things sexual are indeed a matter of context:
- #TokyoLuckyHole is a 700-page collection of photos from the 80s heyday of Tokyo's "red light district", where porn and prostitution is the most lucrative industry. everyone's happy to be there.

- by page twenty the images stop being sex-ual and simply become pictures of people at work. it doesn't arouse you anymore (or perhaps not me bc these r mostly women and etcetc). for the rest of the book it became as fun to me as perhaps pictures of bank employees smiling from their cubicles, tho the ladies here are clearly having more fun.

- #NobuyishiAraki's point-and-shoot technique may demonstrate enthusiasm for the subject at that moment but that does not necessarily translate to the printed product. if any, they seem to become de-sexualized here (again my homo-ness could be at fault). need to ask a straight male friend to look at this.

2. in art, editing is everything:
-quality, not quantity, does the job. and curation too. trust me you don't really need a thousand images of anything, no matter how fascinating that thing is.

- if there were sixty good photos here instead of what looks more like a photodump of extra film accumulated in years, the reader might have been left with a better feeling. the repetition wasn't particularly enjoyable. again tho, it's (casually smiling) (naked) women i was looking at. who knows.

(Araki is still a great photographer tho. he's done a bunch of different stuff and i still want his other books)

[Blair Hoyle]

The debate of whether Tokyo Lucky Hole is pornography or art is so strange to me, because it's quite obviously both. I think it's extremely misunderstood by many of its critics, because though the book is extremely pornographic, the more graphically explicit photos are a vital juxtaposition for what are actually the most unique shots in the book: those that depict the more mundane goings on in Japanese sex clubs. Araki's documentary-style photography is great, but I feel like the best shots here are, generally, those that feel like they've been staged for the camera.

My favorite photos in Tokyo Lucky Hole: the bizarre onstage crucifixion, the women sumo wrestling, the man watching television, the woman wearing a motorcycle helmet in the bathtub, the woman walking down the street eating the banana, the woman holding a man at gunpoint while he showers

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to pick up this provocative title. You were lead into the end of 70s, early 80s sleazy part of Tokyo. Hookers, strippers, easy women, call girls, honky tonk ladies act in an underworld of sex and cheap love. Brilliant authentic black and white photos give you the best impression of the shady part of town I ever found in a book. Regardless if you like the scenes or erotic act (numerous blowjobs among them) this was a great stroll through a bygone era. Nothing staged, everything as realistic as it can get. Even more revealing than the cover. What a photo document. Highly recommended!

[Martyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

fotograficzna dokumentacja życia seksualnego w tokio w latach 80' - od klubów dla swingersów i kawiarnie, w których kelnerki chodzą w samej bieliźnie po bary s&m'owe i prywatne imprezy. araki udowadnia, że erotyka (a nawet powiedziałabym, że pornografia) może być sztuką, która celebruje radość z życia, swojego ciała i odczuwania przyjemności.

[Hafeez Marwat · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a wonderful book. I want to increase my knowledge so...

[Ellison · Rating 5 out of 5]

As thick as a metro phone boo this features B/w images of what was available for a period of time in Japan, surreal. Also street scenes. Vivid.

[Chris Monks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took this book as a history of time and place. But what struck me is the pictures seem to be simultaneously futuristic and familiar.

[Konrad Klimczak · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dziwny prezent na gwiazdkę

[Lord Booktopus von Cephaloid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, and titillating, look at a bygone era of '80s Tokyo.

[Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erotic photography, they can't make me hate you

[Daphne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think, at face value, it's a great concept, documenting Kabukicho, uncensored in all its glory. But, personal thoughts on sex work and potential power imbalances aside, the idea gets really old, really fast? I respect Araki's body of work but Tokyo Lucky Hole is just... well, it's messy, and all those bodies stacked page after page just becomes desensitising

[Matias · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pesar de que Araki reúne elementos que me parecen muy interesantes (la cotidianidad de la urbe japonesa, los antros olvidados y de mala muerte, la publicidad de mal gusto, lo erótico y lo pornográfico), no logré sorprenderme con el trabajo fotográfico que Araki realiza en Tokyo Lucky Hole.