The shooting galleries and the archery range are still in business. Shinsekai spreads out at the foot of Tsūtenkaku, and among the kushikatsu counters and takoyaki stands are places to shoot at targets, to draw a bow, and to play smart ball, a pinball game that has largely vanished elsewhere. Jan-Jan Yokochō and the Hondadōri shopping street run through it, packed on both sides along lanes narrow enough that the lights are on from the middle of the afternoon.

The district took its present shape before the war, as a place built for amusement, and the kinds of amusement on offer have not been replaced since. Dōbutsuen-mae and Ebisuchō stations serve it, Tennōji Zoo and the Den-Den Town electronics district are close, and rents here are at the low end for Osaka. That a shōgi parlour is still open says something specific: there is continuing demand for somewhere a person who came alone can spend two hours without being asked to leave.

New amusements normally drive out old ones, because the sites they occupy become worth more than the takings. What protected Shinsekai was that land values and rents did not rise. So the age of this district is evidence of its appeal and, at the same time, a record of a rise that never arrived — both readings are true, and the second explains the first. It suits the place better not to hide the plainer version of the story, since the plainer version is also the one that explains the archery range. Things stayed here because staying was cheap, and because nobody with a larger plan ever wanted the site badly enough to buy it.