Roppongi Travel Warning

Apparently crime has been on the rise in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. More Americans are becoming the victims of crimes and assaults in a normally very safe city:

More Americans are becoming victims of violent crime in one of Tokyo’s most popular nightlife areas, according to the U.S. Embassy.

Incidents in the downtown Roppongi district over the past year have ranged from assaults, robberies, druggings and shootings. The most serious cases generally weren’t random, but enough indiscriminate crime has prompted the embassy, U.S. Forces Japan and Japanese law enforcement to caution visitors about the area’s legendary collection of bars and clubs.

According to the article the majority of the crime appears to be foreigner on foreigner with a few assaults, murder, a lot of pickpocketing, and also a lot of drugging of females drinks to conduct sexual assaults. Many foreigners or in Japanese gaijin, work in this club district or peddle drugs. For those who have never been there many Africans work in the club district dressed up like pimps trying to get people to come inside their clubs. I know it is blatantly stereotyping black people, but this is Japan and they don’t care about political correctness there. There are also many other nationalities that frequent the area due to the areas popularity.

It has been three years since I last went to Roppongi but I never had any problems there besides the pushy African door men who some of them litterally try to grab you and drag you inside. Roppongi is kind of like Itaewon on steroids. More people, more lights, more vibrant, more noise, just more of everything in general. It does sound like reading the stories in the article that things may have changed a little and it is better to take extra caution if going there. If you are worried about going to Roppongi there is still always Shinjuku and a host of other places to go party at.