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The story
Following a Toyo Keizai article (8/31) reporting that Osaka’s Dotonbori has seen fewer local customers and turned into a street dominated by foreign tourists, reactions poured in on 5ch’s News Speed+ board. The article portrayed it as the end of Dotonbori’s days as a “theater district,” but the thread pushed back hard, with comments like “practically nobody thinks of Dotonbori as a theater district” and “theater culture moved to Yoshimoto’s comedy halls — or people’s living room TVs — long ago.” At the same time, some posters pointed to real changes, like local customers disappearing from Kuromon Market, and noted that redevelopment plans for the former Shochikuza site would preserve theater functions — suggesting the situation isn’t simply a story of “decline.”
Toyo Keizai, 8/31, 07:00
“Dotonbori has transformed”
Dotonbori, one of Osaka’s premier entertainment districts. But in recent years, locals have increasingly pointed out changes in the area. So what exactly is happening there now?
Source: toyokeizai.net / Read the original article here
What people said
Probably Kizu Market — that's been where actual Osaka locals go for a while now
Does Kizu Market even do retail???
Nah, it's Super Tamate
Though if we're being 100% honest, it's really just Life or AEON (supermarket chains)
We don't, though?
Calling trains 'kisha' has nothing to do with region — it's just something people say if they live somewhere the railway isn't electrified, anywhere in Japan
Very on-brand for Osaka business
Always gotta cut corners
Well, Osaka's full of criminals anyway
Still better than Nagatacho (Tokyo's political district)
Theaters as infrastructure are done for.
Now you've got a theater you can watch anytime on a big screen at home.
Which is actually an opportunity for Osaka, in a way —
since Tokyo terrestrial TV is becoming obsolete too.
They started putting more effort into manzai and Yasugi-bushi (the loach-scooping dance) than rakugo
Once the Kagetsu group (Yoshimoto) absorbed the Sanyu group and took over Osaka's performing arts scene,
Kamigata rakugo went into decline
A "pilgrimage site" — for a city Toyotomi Hideyoshi built
Would've been unthinkable back in the day
Thanks to the TV influence that helped drag Osaka down, shops opened by Korean female entrepreneurs around Tsuruhashi are actually popular with Japanese customers now. Feels like people are coming in from out of town for it too (lol)
The areas evolving into the "new Amerikamura" right now are Nakazakicho, Minami-Horie, and around Utsubo Park.
Number of certified special-zone minpaku (private lodging/Airbnb-style) facilities
I'd still say around Dotonbori
The Ajigawa Tunnel
Serious answer: the Senrigawa riverbank at night (famous for planes landing right overhead)
At best it's "Yoshimoto's here, so it's a comedy town"
If anything it's more like the National Bunraku Theatre for puppet joruri
Popular theater (taishu engeki) isn't really in Minami — there's a lot of it out in places like Ikuno or Yao instead
Back in the day there were the "Dotonbori Five Theaters" (Dotonbori Goza)
https://osaka-chushin.jp/nigiwaipanel/dotonbori-jp/a0d03-jp/
http://www.dotonbori.or.jp/sp/ja/about/index.html
The people actually living there are mostly foreigners now
That's Osaka today
Blame the post-bubble aversion to investment that created deflation so deep even monetary easing couldn't cause inflation
The Dotonbori pool, brings back memories 🤣
https://gzo.ai/i/rzaHIkB.jpg
・Theater culture has disappeared
・The area has transformed into foreign-capital shops and tourist-oriented restaurants/drugstores
・Local customers (Osaka natives) have left, creating the risk that everything collapses if conditions change and inbound tourism dries up
That's an incredibly clear summary, nice
Though a theater is actually planned for the complex building going up on the old Shochikuza site
There's no way Re: #1 didn't know that
"Osaka Shochikuza: talks underway to preserve it, leaning toward keeping the theater function"
https://news.at-s.com/article/1941312
Background and points of debate
Dotonbori was once home to the “Dotonbori Five Theaters” (Dotonbori Goza) — the Nakaza, Kadoza, Asahiza, Bentenza, and Naniwaza — and the article’s phrase “theater district” traces back to them. But all five had disappeared by the early Heisei era, so it’s understandable that many thread commenters reacted with “being told it’s a theater district now doesn’t ring true,” given that historical break. Where opinions diverged was over the root cause of locals drifting away: whether to pin it mainly on inbound tourism, or on the broader decline in demand for live theater and performance as TV and streaming took over. Also worth noting, though not mentioned in the article or the lower-ranked replies, is that Shochikuza — long a symbol of Dotonbori — is in talks to keep its theater function even after being rebuilt, so it may be premature to call this “the complete disappearance of theater culture.”
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “‘Osaka Natives Have Vanished From Dotonbori’ — Behind the Inbound Tourism Boom, the End of the ‘Theater District’… What’s Happening Now in One of Osaka’s Premier Entertainment Districts.”
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