OSAKA, Japan – Alyse Sugahara gripped a beer as she walked past the breakdancers in her black leather jacket. Her hair was shaved close at the sides and styled into twists on top. Her combat boots rose and fell beneath knee-high socks. The piercings in her cheeks and nose caught the streetlights as she headed toward the punk venues, fetish bars and karaoke clubs, ready to spend another night outside the lines of conventional Japanese society.
A translator by day and a bartender and punk singer by night, Sugahara is one of many expats who have chosen a different lifestyle from the traditional, family-oriented role of women in Japan. She spends evenings at outposts in the Dotonbori district, where “regular Japanese people don’t really go,” she said.
“If you’re at any of these places, you’re usually meeting some kind of alternative Japanese person and alternative expats,” said Sugahara, 37. “They don’t abide by normal Japanese society rules. They are just living their own independent lives.”
Everyone looks for a place where they belong. Not many find it on the other side of the world. For Sugahara, a Black woman from Prince George’s County, Maryland, that place is a neon-lit metropolis with a vibrant counterculture. It took time to find her place in Osaka’s alternative scene, about 250 miles southwest of Tokyo. Now, it’s her community.
After Sugahara moved to Japan in 2010, she tried to fit in by limiting her self-expression and adopting a more conservative style.
“I had taken out my lip ring. I was like, ‘All right, now it’s time to be an adult,’” she said, referring to the requirements of her past job as an English teacher. “Because you work with children, no coloring your hair. No piercings. Of course, in Japan, absolutely no tattoos. I only lasted a year and a half.”
So she got a job at a bar, where she could improve her language skills, wear what she wanted and reconnect with a more authentic version of herself.
To begin her night out last fall, Sugahara stopped at Lapichu, a hookah bar where patrons and staff welcome travelers who don’t speak Japanese. The owner is a friend, and their warm conversation extends to other patrons.
It’s the type of bar – or izakaya, a casual restaurant centered on drinking food – where Sugahara said Japanese people will treat you like their best friend.
“They don’t judge me,” Sugahara said. “They’re just interested in me, maybe because I’m not Japanese.”
Sugahara says she feels safer as a Black woman in Osaka than she did in the United States, so she strolls around town whenever she wants.
“I like being outside at night,” she said. “It’s very safe. I have never felt threatened by a Japanese man.”
She cited the country’s strict gun laws. Less than 0.5% of the population owns firearms, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Sugahara and her band, Second Lady, play a mix of pop-punk and grunge-style rock, a fitting soundtrack for late-night Dotonbori. During a November gig, she switched seamlessly between Japanese and English, her connection with the crowd soaring above any language barrier. When Second Lady performed at Goith two nights in a row, the energy never dipped.
On another night, Sugahara stepped into Bar Farplane, a fetish bar painted pink and purple that hosts burlesque performances and caters to a crowd unafraid to embrace its wild side. Sex toys and handcuffs hang on the walls, along with a pair of legs wearing fishnets and high heels. Ouka, a bartender and a friend of Sugahara’s, excitedly welcomed her and her friends from Punk Black, Second Lady’s record label, after a show.
Ouka’s sharp bob and long, decorated fingernails fit right in. An easy cultural exchange unfolded as Ouka asked Von Phoenix, a bass player and co-founder of Punk Black, about his locs while showing off her nails.
As the night continued, Sugahara headed to a DJ set at Subterra, a small music venue where she planned to meet Marisa Figueroa, an American expat she met through a Facebook group called Black Women in Japan.
Figueroa – who sometimes DJs at Subterra but wasn’t performing that night – said Osaka’s diverse nightlife is its biggest draw.
“Any interest or hobby you have, there is a place where you can find people with similar interests, whether they’re international or Japanese,” she said.
Living in Japan has helped Figueroa embrace what makes her different. Even if you wear Japanese fashion, speak Japanese and change your citizenship, Figueroa said, you won’t be recognized as Japanese.
“I think it allows you to explore and challenge yourself a bit more,” she added.
Sugahara said being Black in Japan automatically makes you “alternative.”
“It’s less common to meet Black people in Japan who aren’t alternative,” she said. “People came to Japan for that level of safety, to just enjoy their fandom and their alternative lifestyle in peace.”
Late nights and early mornings are customary in Osaka. The last stop before heading home might be a convenience store for a snack or a gathering at Triangle Park or the Dotonbori River with the rest of the last-call crowd.
As dawn approached, Sugahara bid her friends goodbye and caught the 5 a.m. train, feeling free in a way that seemed unique to Osaka.
Maxine Wallace is a freelance portrait photographer, documentarian and a master’s candidate at the S.I. Newhouse School Of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Follow her on Instagram @missmaxxi.
AloJapan.com