An area of strip joints, brothels , sex toy shops and other seedy locales. Very much based on reality in cities like Amsterdam. The liberal version: Drunk, happy middle-class businessmen wandering, and sexy, smiling prostitutes waving from balconies and doorways, and a friendly older woman to help you choose a partner. The protagonist gets to have a good time with a hooker or gets made fun of by his pals for being unable to get up the courage.
The most friendly, lightest take on the district. The pitiful version: Drunks staggering in the streets, leering, creepy men, battered prostitutes , obviously addicted to hard drugs , and being beaten up by a scumbag pimp. The protagonist is probably here on business. Possible location in a Wretched Hive or Industrial Ghetto. Very common in cop shows and Antihero comics. You're most likely to see this side of the district in the grey, bleak light of the early morning.
The hostile version: The drunks will pick a fight with you, the women will rob you or their pimps will knife you in an alley. Like the pitiful version above, likely location in a Wretched Hive. Also common in cop shows, particularly in the first five minutes when they're showing the soon-to-be victim. The term came from railroad workers leaving their red work lamps outside the businesses they were patronizing when going into town for the evening so that they could be located if they needed to be called back to work on short notice said lamps frequently being left by brothels and bars.
Compare Band of Brothels and Freestate Amsterdam. The Japanese term wasn't necessarily a euphemism for places of sex work, but at the very least ones that would be associated with it. Une is eventually revealed as the tsukumogami of a hand mirror used in the Yoshiwara red-light district in the 19th century. At the peak of her power, she looked like a human oiran and could create a Phantom Zone duplicate of the place.
Une waxes nostalgic about the place until asked by Rochka what the place is , so Une suddenly decides to Change the Uncomfortable Subject. Une: You need not know!
