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Tokyo's old urisen quarter — three shops, one of each format, and far fewer visitors.
Ueno is the historic heart of Tokyo's urisen scene, in the shitamachi east of the park, and it predates Ni-chome as a destination. Today we verify three shops here — one urisen house, one outcall service and one massage studio — which makes it small but unusually balanced.
The reason to come here rather than Shinjuku is atmosphere, not choice. Ueno reads as older, quieter and more local; you are unlikely to encounter other foreign visitors. The trade-off is real: with three shops there is no fallback if your first choice is unavailable, and only one of the three shows English support.
That one is the Ueno branch of Danshi Gakuen, which runs the same 13:00–25:00 hours and the same system as its Shinjuku branch. If you have used the chain elsewhere, this is a low-friction way to see the district without gambling on a Japanese-only booking.
Only if the district itself is the point. On numbers alone Shinjuku has fifteen shops to Ueno's three, so you are not travelling for choice. People come here for a quieter, more local evening, or because they have used the Ueno urisen house before and prefer it.
Realistically, start at the chain branch that does. The other two are bookable with effort — have your details written in Japanese — but with only three shops in the district there is no backup if it goes wrong, which is a different risk profile from trying the same thing in Shinjuku.