Yoji Yamada to start new project

TOKYO (TR) – Studio giant Shochiku announced this week that legendary director Yoji Yamada will begin work on his next film in mid-January.

“Otouto” tells the story of one foolish brother (the word “otouto” in Japanese means younger brother) and his warm and caring older sister. The film will be the 81st for Yamada, who first garnered fame for his “Tora-san” series of 48 films and whose recent works include the Academy Award-nominated “The Twilight Samurai” (2002) and its follow-up, “The Hidden Blade” (2004). Read more

King copra

MAJURO – The continually hot and dusty conditions found on the Marshall Islands’ capital of Majuro can be rough on the interior of any car, explains Joe Heran as his brown 4-door sedan taxi rumbles down the main road from the airport.

“I fill this up with coconut oil – $2 a gallon,” he says, producing a spray bottle of light brown liquid from beneath the driver’s seat. “It helps to clean the inside of my car. I just wipe it down.” He then pats the dashboard just below the yellow fuzzy dice dangling from his rear view mirror.

Adding a little sparkle to a car’s interior is just one of the many uses for products coming from the coconut – its dried meat, or copra, has been a major source of income for many resource-poor nations in the Pacific over the last two centuries. Read more

Keitai’s ring, ‘no vacancy’ signs glisten, in Tokyo’s winter wonderland

“I was surprised — from early afternoon there wasn’t a room to be had anywhere,” the man in his 40s, who works in his company’s sales department, tells Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 20). “You walk down the back street in Kabukicho with all the love hotels, and most of them are fully booked, even though it’s just 2:00 p.m. Makes you wonder who the heck’s using them. . .”

And mysteriously, the busiest hotels of all appear to be the most decrepit. Read more

Sex shops cop out on ‘naitei’ arrangements for class of ’69

When it rains, as the saying goes, it pours. Not only are proper companies backing out of naitei (informal agreements) to hire university grads from this coming April: Due to the repercussions of the financial meltdown, such sex services as fashion health emporiums and deri heru (“delivery health,” i.e., out-call sex services), are also hurting so badly they’re cutting back on recruitment.

“One thing that owners of sex shops seem to have in common is a love of gambling,” the employee at one such shop confides to Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 17). “They aren’t just satisfied with buying stocks in companies — they also dabble in commodities trading and investment funds in third-world countries, with high-risk high return. When they do well, they plow their profits back into the business.” Read more

Social hygiene getting outfoxed by the pox

“Considering that syphilis infections spread relatively easily, those who contract it tend to have a low awareness of their condition. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of carriers were actually several hundreds, or even thousands of times greater than the official figures.”

So says Dr. Tsuneo Akaeda, head of the Roppongi Clinic, who is often consulted by the media on such matters.

One thing is for sure, reports Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 16), this age-old malady is making a comeback in Japan. According to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 509 people were diagnosed with syphilis in 2003. As of last month, the figure for 2008 had reached 720. Read more

Kabukicho conundrum

TOKYO – The framed certificate from the Tokyo public safety commissioner sitting inside the office of Yoshihisa Shimoda acknowledges his successful completion of training in thwarting the activities of boryokudan, or criminal organizations. Such an accreditation should be very practical given his task at hand.

For years, it was well known that the bread and butter of a typical yakuza gangster working the darkened streets of Kabukicho has been the sale of ordinary items like hand towels and ice cubes at heavily marked-up prices to the area’s seedy kyabakura (cabaret clubs) and bars in exchange for any necessary “protection” of business operations.

Shimoda is the office manager of Discovery Kabukicho, an organization whose goals are to rehabilitate the image of Japan’s most vast red-light district, located just east of Shinjuku Station. “At the end of the day, we want Kabukicho to be clean,” says the manager, who along with two other staff members began operations in April. “We want security, safety, and a pleasant environment.” Read more

Looking toward 2009: What to (s)expect in the year to cum

What’s the latest news from the commercial sex business? Only a magazine like Spa! (Dec. 16) could touch on such a topic with a headline like “Nookie-pedia 2008.” Well actually it’s “Nuki-pedia,” the term nuki being a slang term akin to “getting off.”

Spa! introduces three shops it says represent the direction the business will be taking in 2009. One is a hote heru, a neologism made from “hotel” and “health.” One, the Ritz in Ikebukuro, is a deri heru (out-call sex services) that allows the customer to “date” the sex worker in a more congenial venue such as a restaurant or karaoke shop before escorting them to a hotel. Prices begin from 25,000 yen for 120 minutes. Read more

Recession sends sex-service rags reeling

TOKYO (TR) – Economic data released this week showed that Japan has entered a downtown that is deeper than initially feared, and even an industry once thought to be nearly recession-proof is feeling the pinch.

The stagnation has caused clubs and shops offering adult entertainment to shut their doors, resulting in a slump in advertising sales for publications catering to such establishments.

The chairman of publisher Creators Company Connection, Hiroharu Kimura, said in an interview last week that revenue from his two flagship titles has lagged substantially over the past year. “High-end places are closing,” said Kimura, whose annual group sales are over 20 billion yen. “Less expensive places are still open but because of the economy people are going out less, and when they do they are more careful about where they go.”

The chairman explained that Manzoku (700 yen), a magazine showcasing hundreds of young girls in bikinis who offer fuzoku (sex-related) services starting roughly at 15,000 yen for the first sixty minutes, has lost one third of its still hefty thickness over the past year. He added that revenue for his free entertainment guide Poke Para (Pocket Paradise), which is primarily geared to ads for much tamer host and kyabakura (cabaret) clubs, has sagged by twenty percent over the same period. Read more

Koma Toho shutting its doors

TOKYO (TR) – Having dutifully served Tokyo filmgoers for half a century, Koma Toho is bidding farewell on New Year’s Eve. As a tribute, special screenings of films spanning the theater’s history will take place between December 20 and 31.

“We let the people choose,” explains Shiroaki Omata, a manager within the theater section of Toho Cinemas, a division within film giant Toho. “Fans of every age group and gender and our staff all participated in the selection of films.”

Koma Toho is in the basement of the Koma Theater building in the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku Ward. The 2,000-seat Koma Theater opened in 1956, when it became a home to kabuki and enka performances. Over the summer, Toho made the company Koma Stadium, which owns the theater, a wholly owned subsidiary. Toho intends to redevelop the Koma site together with the rundown building it owns next door. Read more

There may be a yucky story behind your hot oshibori

One winter evening, investigative reporter Hirokatsu Azuma used a steaming hot oshibori (hand towel) to wipe his face. Looking in the mirror the next day, his eyelid was swollen and he found himself with a case of pinkeye.

Writing in Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 5), Azuma remarks that while that oshibori may have appeared clean, it was crawling with germs that are hard to remove, even with a thorough scrubbing.

Apparently numerous unlicensed services distribute those oshibori encased in vinyl wrappers, and in more than a few them dreaded e-coli or staphylococcus bacteria may be present, resulting in food poisoning or other infections. Read more

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