Because it had already become night, the lights in the commercial district of Take no Tsuka were on.
Yet the streets still seemed desolate and bleak.
A group of three young people, two men and one woman, were walking through the district, two of them carrying cameras.
The edges of the commercial district were packed with pachinko parlors and specialty adult stores, their lights glowing red.
Besides these, there were several Filipino bars.
Their dim lighting played foreign melodies that sounded plaintive on the streets.
The bars here were different from those on the other side of Adachi Ward in Kita-Senju. They didn't convey a sense of brightness and liveliness but more of a grim and eerie feeling.
Sometimes, one could see a drunkard or two sitting at the entrance of the bars, bleary-eyed and sizing up the pedestrians.
As the trio passed by one of these bars, a storekeeper with a strange accent approached them, trying to forcefully pull them into the establishment.
