Top Japan Crime Tours

Explore the darker side of Kabukicho on this small-group walking tour that goes beyond standard sightseeing. Hear lesser-known stories about the area’s red-light history and real incidents that have shaped its reputation. With a guide to provide local context, the route also passes filming locations from the TV series "Tokyo Vice."

Come with us to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. We will start from Osaka or Kyoto to visit the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome and the nearby Peace Memorial. You will have moving sites, and you will be able to reflect deeply on the consequences of the Second World War. This will strengthen our commitment to peace. On this day with your expert guide in Japanese history, you will discover Japan’s recent history and its long road to peace. You will have a day full of history and peaceful reflection. Are you coming? We are waiting for you!

Already been to Sensoji and Zojoji? Have a love of history? This guided tour explores a pocket of the city once feared and avoided—where execution grounds, unclaimed graves, and grim legends shaped local history. We begin where a towering Jizō statue silently marks the site of Edo-period executions. Here you’ll hear chilling stories of executioners and the notorious figures who now rest nearby. Once nicknamed the “Temple of Thrown-In Bodies“ for centuries, next was the final resting place for those cast aside by society—from Yoshiwara’s abandoned courtesans to today’s unclaimed dead. We will also visit a quiet neighborhood shrine with a cafe on site to take a look at a local shrine. Drawing on years of research, this tour uncovers forgotten details and little-known stories, weaving together storytelling with cultural insights.

What truly awakens in Japan after the sun sets? Streets pulse with neon, where giant posters of men and women—uncanny, celebrity-like—watch silently, and the city hums with a hidden anime-tinged subculture. What is a financial Shinkansen, and why has it become a lifeline in the night economy? Is it true that 1 in 4 Japanese women have worked as hostesses, offering conversation, attention, and companionship for a price? What are the “attention chambers”, and which proxies and traps ensnare the unwary in the shadowed web of the night industry? [ Warning ] If you’re not comfortable exploring the darker side—and prefer to stay with the blue pill—this tour isn’t for you. [ Notice ] This tour is completely private, meaning it will be only the travelers in your booking—no one else will join.

Kabuki, swordsmanship, ukiyo-e, jujutsu, sword appraisal, Western medicine, ghosts, drugs, and even outcasts of society—during the Edo period, one place connected them all. That place, central to Edo culture, was the execution grounds. ■ Punishment and Execution Grounds: The Birthplace of Japanese Culture When we think of Japanese punishment, seppuku comes to mind, but Edo punishments went far beyond. On this tour, we follow the path of a young samurai executed for murdering over 130 people, visiting his crime scenes and the northern and southern execution grounds of Tokyo. We will see towering statues that witnessed executions, giant memorials for the condemned, pedestals once used in executions, and wells where severed heads were washed. We will uncover how these grim places shaped the very heart of Japanese culture. Want more insider stories, culture deep-dives, and Japan life tips?

What makes this tour unique is not merely the accumulation of curious sights, but the invitation it offers to experience Kyoto through the lens of strangeness and human desire. In wandering through chaotic stores, photobooths, and cat cafés, we confront the peculiar ways in which people seek delight, companionship, and spectacle. The lantern-lit alleys of Gion, with their whispers of history and shadows of concealed power, stand beside neon-lit maid cafés and Purikura booths, reminding us that culture is rarely coherent, often contradictory, and endlessly fascinating. [ Notice ] This tour is completely private, meaning it will be only the travelers in your booking—no one else will join, and the guide will accompany your group exclusively.

During this educational yet irreverent and humorous introduction to the dark side of Tokyo, we will see the sites of some of the most gruesome crimes in Tokyo's history, ranging from ones that would get you put in jail for life, and some that would put you in front of a war crimes tribunal. *Note: This tour includes dark/dirty humor and adult language is used. Please come prepared. The tour starts in Tokyo's organized crime capital and red light district, Shinjuku's Kabukicho neighborhood. Here we will learn about gang wars, shocking murders, shirked lovers, and Tokyo's quasi-legal sex industry. From there we will walk to Tokyo's mini-Auschwitz, Toyama Park, a place shrouded in mystery and home to the ghosts of the victims of Unit 731's terrible human experimentation projects. Finally, we will visit Aoyama Cemetery for some good ol' fashioned Japanese ghost stories in the perfect setting for them. We will also visit the grave of Japan's favorite and most loyal dog, Hachiko.