What is this so-called nampa? Nampa is the ancient Japanese art of pick-up. The seductive skill of girl-hunting. The discreet loitering around the train station, the thrill of the chase, the crushing rejection or ecstatic exchange of phone numbers. A much-maligned art which is becoming more and more illegal.

Awww, I remember my first nampa experience. I’d been in Japan less than a year and I was walking down a main street not far from Nagoya Station when a tall, skinny Japanese boy with a bleached anime-style shock of hair, a dapper suit and startlingly protuberant teeth smilingly approached me and struck up a conversation out of the blue. In Japanese! Living in conservative Nagoya and starved for human affection and contact, I and my fledgling language skills almost fell into his arms. I was so happy he was treating me just as if I was Japanese, making no distinction between me and the girls walking past in super short skirts (or maybe those were belts…).

Of course it was obvious, from my incorrect use of particles wa and ga to my blue eyes and blonde hair, that I wasn’t Japanese, not even remotely. Still, I was trying hard to be. I was on a mission, with something to prove. I wanted to prove the stereotypes wrong. I wanted to prove I wasn’t relegated to a no-man’s limbo land in which Japanese men were all frightened of me and Western men were all busy chasing Japanese women. Dammit, I wanted to go on dates! And I was determined not to be patronized or settled for by self-proclaimed “rice boys” (Western men who prefer Asian women to the exclusion of other ethnicities), so that pretty much only left Japanese men. Ocha demo shinai? Yes, I would like to have a cup of tea with you, and yes, you’re my cup of tea.

Street nampa (suto-nan) is actually an illegal activity… but that didn’t stop all the hotties and not-so-hotties casually lounging around on the side of the pavement, waiting for their prey. But if they were to be sent packing, they could always go play nampa video games instead.

The adult video game Tokyo Nampa Street (Enix 1985), in which the aim is to nampa as many anonymous girls as possible, opened up a golden era of nampa games in the late 1980s, which moved into a more committed relationship genre in the 90s with ren’ai (love) games from “simulations” and adventure to digital novels. In the noughties, happily these kind of games became more widely available for a range of different devices- PlayStation, Xbox and Wii. Love Plus (released in 2009, only in Japan) is a high school dating sim for Nintendo DS where the male protagonist meets three girls, gradually becomes better friends with them through the tennis club and other activities, eventually takes the plunge, confesses his love and enters into a relationship. Awww, young lurrrve.

In this decade, games to note are ubiquitous cell phone games by companies like Mobage and GREE, which may include social networking as well as love and romance games. The genre has expanded further into otome games intended for female hetero players (mostly suitable for general audiences), bishōjo games for male players who enjoy their games a little more graphic, eroge (erotic game) and hentai (perverted) games, and same-sex relationship simulations: “boys love” (yaoi) and “girls love” (yuri).

With all these excellent, convenient products available for your viewing pleasure at the click of a button, you might wonder if the ancient art of real-life nampa is dead. Well, budding nampa enthusiasts may be honing their skills on electronic women, but nampa seems to be alive and kicking, judging by the popularity of nampa blogs and sites where guys boast of their skills and claim to have slept with hundreds of women.

There is plenty of advice on how to get your nampa on, from the sleazy street nampa and neta-nan (using PUA tricks) to nampa via Internet (neto-nan) and kura-nan (chatting up girls in a club).

According to this Japanese nampa advice site, neta-nan (not to be confused with the aforementioned neto-nan) is a lively style of nampa where the guy uses some kind of amusing ploy to get the girl to laugh and drop her guard. For example, randomly greeting them with “good MORP!” instead of “good morning”, or doing an imitation of the figurine hanging from their cell phone. Carried out confidently, this style can at least reassure potential dates that they’re not being recruited to work in a club, another common forbidden street activity.

Only non-excessive nampa will be tolerated. Keep your gratuitous flirting to yourself. Photo by Hector Garcia.

Only non-excessive nampa will be tolerated. Keep your gratuitous flirting to yourself. Photo by Hector Garcia.

This Club Nampa site kindly explains which method is best for getting the highest success rate with girls. Unsurprisingly, it’s nampa in the club! Why? Because naturally, women partying in a club are more likely to be interested in male company, and will probably be drinking alcohol (which “lowers their chastity”). However, the major downside to picking up in clubs is the “club magic”, the crazy lighting which makes it hard to see a girl’s face. Then you may get her to the hotel and realise you have “wasted your money”. Still, at least it’s another notch on the bedpost, eh!? But on the street, you can check out her face before you even speak to her to make sure she’s good-looking. Therefore, the anonymous author recommends club nampa for beginners, and street nampa for seasoned pros.

If you’re a Western woman and you show your face in a sleazy Tokyo club, you may be ambushed by a veritable army of guys bent on nampa and maybe some English conversation. If you’d rather remain chaste, try not to give them any reaction- advice for guys tells them that if they get any kind of reaction, they’re more than 50 percent likely to get your phone number too. When in doubt, you could always give them a fake number. Stalkers are a major concern, and it’s better to be safe than sorry! There are some ridiculously good-looking guys out there though, so it may be hard to resist. Thanks for the nampa, Japan! In a strange way, I feel more socially accepted now.