Inside the Super-Gritty Jazz Cafe 'Garo' (Mukogaoka-Yuen, Kawasaki City) - The World of Modern Jazz and Yoshiharu Tsuge

Wow, I'm blown away.

A report video by a Korean (presumably) who visited the jazz cafe 'Garo' in Mukogaoka-Yuen. It was posted on YouTube at the end of last year.

A small jazz bar owned by an 89-year-old where Ella Fitzgerald plays (Tokyo Walking Story_ Jazz Bar, Kissaten 2024/12/29)

When I lived nearby, I walked past this place for about two years, but it had such a super-gritty exterior that I never had the courage to go inside.

So this is what it looked like inside. I never knew.

In a way, it's just as I imagined.

But it's a sight so shocking it almost changes your outlook on life.

I watched this video yesterday, and it actually appeared in my dreams last night lol

It's a shop that has been on my mind ever since the first day I saw it.

A year and a half ago, when I got off at Mukogaoka-Yuen for the first time in a while, I walked past this shop and wrote the following on note:

The first place I went to see was 'Jazz Cafe Garo' (1 Higashi-Ikuta, Tama Ward). It is a super-gritty cafe known to those in the know.

For a long time, this place has looked like an old, dilapidated corrugated iron shack, and no matter how you look at it from the outside, it seems closed, but it is actually a shop that is occasionally open.

This time, I went up to the front of the shop, and it looked like it had finally closed for good, so I just walked on by.

However, looking online later, there was no information about it closing, and there was information that it was still occasionally open in 2021.
("Changing Mukogaoka-Yuen" 2023/10/25)

Fortunately, it hadn't closed down. If I had known that, I wouldn't have written such rude things as above, but I hope you will forgive me.

The surrounding shops seem to have almost all disappeared, but this shop alone has continued.

According to the video, it is currently open from the evening, and it might be closer to a jazz bar than a jazz cafe.

As for the prices, also according to the video, beer, coffee, etc., were 600 yen, but it seems they were raised to 700 yen starting in 2025.

If you translate the Korean in the description of the video above directly using Google Translate, it is as follows.

This is Mukogaoka-Yuen, where the train approach sound inside the station is a Doraemon melody.
There is a Doraemon museum a 15-minute walk away.
It is in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, but it only takes 20 minutes from Shinjuku.
Did I walk for about 7 or 8 minutes from the south exit of the station?
There was a jazz kissa standing as if hidden under the Fuchu Kaido road.
It opened in 1967, and it is a place run by an 89-year-old grandmother.
Unlike the exterior with its heavily rusted wrought iron plates, the inside of the shop, which I entered by carefully opening the door, was a very warm space with yellow light.
I sat there for a while, letting myself be carried away by the sweet rhythm of Ella Fitzgerald.

*Doraemon Museum = Fujiko F. Fujio Museum

The video itself is full of literary flavor, quoting Haruki Murakami, and I was impressed. It is truly like a short story.

The "otherworldly" nature of that area of Mukogaoka-Yuen is well documented.

It is a neighborhood that remained just barely even after Mukogaoka-Yuen, which once flourished as a resort area, closed.

Considering that it might be a scene on the verge of extinction now due to the major development from Noborito, it is even more poignant.

It was as I imagined that the origin of the shop name "Garo" is the manga magazine "Garo".

It feels like the world of "Garo," the world of Yoshiharu Tsuge, is preserved exactly as it is.

The year this shop opened, 1967, was around the time Yoshiharu Tsuge began publishing his masterpieces in 'Garo,' which was founded in 1964.

The shop displays the October 1967 issue of 'Garo' from when it opened. It should be the issue containing Tsuge's classic work 'Red Flowers'.

While watching the video, for some reason, I was reminded of Tsuge's 'Ondoru Goya' (The Ondol Hut). Keywords like Korea and warmth came to mind... 'Ondoru Goya' was published in 'Garo' in April 1968, the year after this jazz cafe opened. 'Nejishiki' (Screw-Style) was published in June of the same year.

This YouTuber seems to be reporting exclusively on jazz cafes and jazz bars around Tokyo.

Previously, Kowloon Kurosawa did reports on 'Showa-era' coffee shops remaining in rural Japan, but 'jazz cafes' are even more niche and have a high barrier to entry (for those who aren't enthusiasts).

This video has already exceeded 40,000 views and is being watched quite a bit.

There are also many comments in Hangul, and many seem to say, 'I definitely want to go there.'

The YouTuber himself even says in the video that he was recommended this shop in Korea.

Could it be that customers from Korea are now flocking to that 'Garo'?

I hope that's the case.

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