Nakazakicho

Nakazakicho is where Osaka's scene concentrates: four of the city's eleven shops sit here, just north of Umeda. It is the closest thing Osaka has to a gay quarter, though it is far smaller and more scattered than Shinjuku Ni-chome.

What sets it apart is not size but consistency. All four shops here show English support — a clean sweep that neither Tokyo's Shinjuku nor any other district in our directory manages. If the language barrier is your main worry in Osaka, this is the district to base yourself in.

The four also cover three different formats between them, including Chance, the one urisen house in Japan that publishes its full rates in English before you contact it — both private-room and outcall, separately. In a category where nothing is normally published, that makes Nakazakicho the easiest entry point to urisen anywhere in the country.