Tradition Down the Drain.(fewer public baths in Japan)(Brief Article)

It's showtime at Showa Yokujo, a public bathhouse in central Tokyo. Wearing a brightly colored costume, Sumihiro Tajima shuffles and flips cards as part of his magic show. There is no stage; he performs in the bathhouse changing room among half-naked customers. The room is a little steamy, but no matter. Kids and grown-ups love the act. The 40- year-old Tajima owns the bathhouse, or sento, and performs for customers nearly every night.

He needs the gimmick to bolster his business. Tokyo bathhouses flourished for centuries--from the start of the Edo period in the early 1600s until World War II. Most Japanese lacked private baths of their own, and the public facilities became popular places to socialize. But postwar modernization changed Japanese life-styles drastically, and the business has been in steady decline. In 1968 there were 2,687 sentos in Tokyo; today there are only 1,258. Likewise, the average number of bathers has fallen dramatically--from 500 a day in 1968 to 150 now.

Sento owners want to stop the attrition --and they're getting a little desperate. At the Yu-poppo sento in Tokyo's Nerima ward, bathers are offered PCs and Internet access, along with towels, after stepping out of the hot-water pools. There is a bathhouse in Kita ward that holds a baroque-music concert twice a year, making use of the excellent acoustics in its bathing area. On every third Sunday, sentos in Adachi ward take turns hosting yose, which are comical talk shows by kimono- clad storytellers. In Suginami ward, some bathhouses provide Ping-Pong tables for elderly bathers to enjoy. Masahiko Hosokawa, owner of the Tatsunoyu bathhouse in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, doesn't have any sales gimmicks, but he runs a parking lot, a launderette and a restaurant to supplement his income. "I want to continue my [sento] business somehow," he says.

To owners, a bathhouse dip is about a lot more than personal hygiene. "It's an important part of Japanese ...