Oiran Chirashi

"I was just a regular office worker on my way home from work, when I had the misfortune to be involved in a traffic accident. Next thing I know, somehow I'm in Edo-period Tokyo, in the red light district?! Is this for real?! Did I somehow slip through time?"

Oiran Chirashi (花魁ちらし, The Scattered Courtesan) is a josei manga by Yumi Tamura, serialized by Sekirara Comic. It ran from 2016 to 2018 and had 5 chapters.

Haru Hanamori was a normal Office Lady with an average work, average friends and average everything, save for her lovely looks. Until a certain night when she was near hit with a car. She braced herself for death or serious injury, but got neither: instead, she found herself thrown across time and into the past! And the place she arrived to was Yoshiwara, the Red Light District from the old Tokyo.

Haru is completely alone in this strange and old place, and due to her cuteness she's taken in by a lady who owns a popular high-class brothel. On the other hand, the first person she more or less bonds with is Shuihei, a handsome stylist and hairdresser who works in Yoshiwara itself, and who introduced her to her boss. While she's understandably not thrilled with the idea of becoming a High Class Call Girl, Haru knows she cannot just step out of it at the moment, so she allows the lady to reinvent her as "Ayame", the newest of her oiran group, while she and Shuihei try to hide their mutual attraction so their newfound social positions won't interfere...

Tropes used in Oiran Chirashi include:

• Chekhov's Gun: Haru's cellphone, which somehow still receives messages.
  • At the end of the first chapter, Shuihei drops something... It's his watch, which marks him as another Fish Out of Temporal Water.
• Die or Fly - Look Both Ways: Haru "Ayame" Hanamori Time Travels to the old Yoshiwara Red Light District when she's about to be hit by a car, but slips through time instead. This is also how Shuihei arrived there, years before Haru did: he fell off a cliff during hiking and time-traveled too. Apparently, this is how time travel in general works: only people with potential for it and in life-threatening danger get to do this. . . and at the end Shuihei and Haru use this to return to the future.
• Fish Out of Temporal Water: Haru, who as said above, arrived to the old Yoshiwara when she was supposed to have died or been severely injured after being hit by a vehicle.
  • Haru later finds out that her secret Love Interest, the hairstylist Shouhei, is in the same situation: in his case, he arrived to Yoshiwara after he fell off a cliff during a vacation. Once she finds out, her almost lost hope to return home reignites and they promise to come back together.
• High Class Call Girl: Haru, now Ayame, must reinvent herself as one of these to survive in Yoshiwara.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Haru, Tsubaki, Temari, and several of the girls from the brothel. Haru herself is shown as initially naive, at times way too sensitive to do her work well despite her beautiful looks, and showing compassion towards those in trouble - like when she tries to help an Ill Girl prostitute but fails, and is emotionally crushed when she learns that the girl died and wasn't even given a proper burial.
  • Tsubaki subverts it, as she's shown later to be deeply hurt and angry when she realizes "Ayame" has Shuihei as a lover. She doesn't rat them out, but she's quite resentful.
• Miss Kitty: Haru's boss is a rather cynical one, who repeteadly tells "Ayame" that she cannot let her feelings interfere with her work.
• Porn with Plot: There are several sex scenes, yes, but they're not the only draws of the story.
• Plucky Girl: Despite being sensitive, clumsy and a bit of a crybaby, plus stuck in a Crapsaccharine World, Haru refuses to give up. Shuihei lampshades it via telling her how strong she is and how she keeps going on, which he believes that he wouldn't be able to do.
• Red Light District: Yoshiwara is shown as a Crapsaccharine World - it seems to be a liberal site where beautiful women service their customers and can potentially make it big, but there's lots of cruelty and abuse.
• Secret Relationship: Haru and Shouhei are very compatible (especially in the sexual sense) and understand one another very well. Problem is, she's an oiran in training while he works as a hairstylist for the brothel she works/lives in and others; there's no room for any romance in such a world, and despite their chemistry they must keep their attraction under wraps. In fact, the end of the first chapter states that after their first night, the two didn't see one another for quite a while.
• Their First Time: Haru was a virgin when she arrived to the brothel, and understandably panicked over having to give her first time to a man she doesn't know. So she asks Shuihei to let her give him her virginity, and he accepts to do so even when he shouldn't due to the rules that forbid Yoshiwara workers to date.
• Time Travel: The plot begins when Haru manages to pull this somehow, and she really wants to find a way to go back home. It turns out that Shuihei also is from the modern era, so they decide to secretly look for a way to return together.
  • It's later explained that this kind of Time Travel only happens when the potential traveler is about to be on the receiving end of an accidental death. Haru "traveled" when she was about to be hit by a truck, Shuihei did the same when he fell off a cliff in a trip to the mountains... and ultimately, they manage to return to the actual Tokyo when they're trapped in a fire and the building collapses on them.