Kabukicho has always been one of those places that feels like it runs on its own rules. Neon lights, host clubs, soaplands, shady bars, and plenty of people trying to […]
apan’s sex industry is still a massive money-maker, but the people actually doing the work often get treated like they’re disposable. That reality hit hard when a big soapland chain […]
apan’s nightlife is packed with euphemisms. “Fashion health” for erotic massage, “delivery health” for outcall services… and then there’s the soapland. It’s probably the most famous (and most misunderstood) sexual […]
The 1980s in Japan felt different. Bubble economy, big bonuses, companies throwing money around, and a general sense that everything was on the up. That confidence shows up in the […]
Walk through Kabukicho at night and your senses get completely overloaded. Neon signs stacked on top of each other, touts trying to pull you into izakayas or host clubs, scouts […]
Shinjuku Station swallows around 3.6 million people every single day. It’s the busiest train station on the planet. West of it sits the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. East of it, […]
Picture this: A guy drops a fixed hourly fee at a girls’ bar just to chat with the cute staff serving his drinks. A woman sinks hundreds of thousands of […]
Tokyo’s Kabukicho got a little less fun over the weekend. On July 22 and 23, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police carried out their first big coordinated inspections of men’s concept cafes […]
t’s been a full year since Japan’s government rolled out changes to the Entertainment Law (that fūeihō thing) aimed at cleaning up the shady side of host clubs. The whole […]
Kabukicho has a reputation. Even if you’ve never been there, you’ve probably heard stories — some exciting, some sketchy, and some that sound like they came from a friend who […]
A deadly fire at a high-end, members-only private sauna in Tokyo’s Akasaka district could result in compensation exceeding ¥200 million, according to legal experts, as serious failures in safety management […]
What happens to all those millions of yen that flow through the coffers of Japan’s hostess clubs? A lot goes into the pockets of the hard-working hostesses, of course, plus […]
Last December a backstreet in the Taiyujicho/Toganocho district of Umeda in Osaka underwent a makeover in a bid to decrease the number of young women who hang around there, waiting for […]
For the first time, a court in Japan rules that hosts taking kickbacks from routing indebted customers to sex shops breaks the law. It isn’t rare for hosts at Japan’s […]
Tokyo Metropolitan Police has arrested the former manager of a Hostess Club in Tokyo’s famous Entertainment District Roppongi as TBS news reported on October 11. Mita San, the former manager […]