One pricey bowl of soup noodles
February 28, 2009
TOKYO – A bowl of noodles at a typical Tokyo ramen joint is cheap — usually around 800 yen — and served in a convenient location. Fujimaki Gekijo, situated between Nakameguro and Yutenji in Meguro Ward, is neither. And the owner and chef, Shoichi Fujimaki, would have it no other way.
His shop is tucked into the first floor of a concrete building at the end of a winding residential road and serves its signature Spicy Castle ramen dish for a seemingly hefty 3,000 yen.
“People will pay more for nice things,” rationalizes the 40-year-old, sporting closely cropped hair and a white chef’s coat pulled over a pink, collared dress shirt. “If I thought it was too expensive, I wouldn’t be in this business.” Read more
Long-running Tokyo cabaret to shut
February 27, 2009
TOKYO – The cabaret Kabukicho Club Heights will close its doors this Friday, leveling another blow upon Japan’s most vibrant red-light district of Kabukicho.
The 600-seat hall, which opened in 1973 and is positioned at the symbolic center of the Kabukicho quarter in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, will drop its curtain for the final time after Friday night (Feb. 27).
A message posted on the venue’s Web page thanked customers for their 36 years of patronage.
From the eighth floor of the Toho Kaikan building, next to the Koma Theater, hostesses entertain guests at tables that fan out and around a stage and dance floor, which provides a mix of music, contests, and dance performances. Its focal point is the large, draping white chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling. Read more
Gals from the sticks come to Kanto, turn tricks
February 27, 2009
“I come to Yokohama and work for a week to 10 days out of every month,” the 22-year-old woman, who goes by the professional name “Yume,” tells author Yusaku Ito, reporting in Nikkan Gendai (Feb. 27). “The shop takes good care of me while I’m in town.”
And for the rest of the month?
“I won’t tell you where, but I have a different job in another city. So nobody back home suspects I’m also working in the sex business in Yokohama.”
Yume, who hails from Hokkaido, plies her trade at Rush Hour, a chikan imekura in the Akebonocho red light district of Yokohama. Read more
Innovative ‘Hole Warmer’ keeps cold cooze cozy
February 25, 2009
In the realm of the senses, female frigidity is a recurrent concern. But Nikkan Gendai (Feb. 25) finds sympathy with those who rely on adult sex aids for their love life — which is often accompanied by a completely different type of frigidity.
Take “Mr. J,” an unmarried 41-year-old Tokyo office worker whose sole means of release involves solitary sexual stimulation.
“J” happens to be a connoisseur of commercial products supplied for this purpose, which are referred to in local parlance as “onani holes.” They are reasonably priced, and “J” plays the field, supplementing his collection with a new acquisition at the rate of about one every two months.
“But the damn things are cold!” he shivers. “I guess that should be obvious, since they’re not alive. Poke in your pecker and chills run down your spine!” Read more
Workplace washouts seek humiliation at the hands (and feet) of domineering damsels
February 24, 2009
The story of a male tennis coach, arrested two weeks ago in the city of Saitama after arranging for a high school girl he met on a Web dating site to watch him masturbate inside his car for a fee of 10,000 yen, might at first seem a bit odd. But according to a report in Nikkan Gendai (Feb. 18), this behavior instead simply reflects a growing response to the presently tough times.
“With the economy entering recession,” says fuzoku (sex business) writer Yukio Murakami, “we can see an increase in the number of fanatics who enjoy sexual activities that result in humiliation.”
The pink trade scribe explains further that with overtime work piling up and in-office tempers flaring some guys begin to develop a proclivity for acts in which they are the target of abuse. “It was around the year 2000, when corporate downsizing was at its maximum, that jerk-off clubs started appearing,” he says. “The clientele are often elites who graduated from the best universities and make a living as public servants or IT engineers. Their common trait is a keen imagination.” Read more
‘TOKYO!’ to open in New York on March 6
February 24, 2009
A FILM BY
MICHEL GONDRY
LEOS CARAX
BONG JOON-HO
IS OPENING IN NEW YORK ON MARCH 6
AND FOLLOWS NATIONALLY
MICHEL GONDRY and LEOS CARAX IN PERSON Q & A
at the Sunshine Theater in New York for selected shows
Opening Weekend March 6-8
Directed by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-Ho, the film was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes International Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category.
The film consists of three parts, each directed by a different director. Gondry’s piece, entitled “Interior Design” tells the tale of a young couple trying to find their way in Tokyo only to find themselves dealing with a surreal, transformation situation. Leos Carax presents the viewer with “Merde”, the bizarre story of a malicious subterranean creature’s short-lived reign of terror over Tokyo and the resulting trial and media circus. The final featurette, directed by Bong Joon-Ho, is called “Shaking Tokyo” and it revolves around love between a shut-in and a pizza delivery girl.
“TOKYO!” opens on March 6 in New York at the Sunshine Theater, located at 143 East Houston Street. Michel Gondry and Leos Carax will follow selected shows with question and answer sessions.
The film opens nationally following New York showings.
For more detailed information about the film go to the “TOKYO!” Web page or NEW YORK – TOKYO
Beppu bathhouse gives dirty old men the VIP treatment
February 24, 2009
Keeping sex services running in the world’s most rapidly aging society presents a daunting challenge. So you’ve got to hand it to Pink House, a soapland (erotic bathhouse) in the hot springs town of Beppu, Oita prefecture.
“Instead of an air mattress or sukebe isu, we put something else in the room,” a staff member tells Nikkan Gendai (Feb. 24).
The “something” was a non-slip shower chair of the type used to bathe enfeebled elderly.
“A lot of seniors come to the Beppu hot springs for a therapeutic soak,” explains Yayoi, a 24-year-old masseuse. Read more
Hollowed-out hospital the best little whorehouse on Honshu
February 22, 2009
Throughout rural Japan, hospitals are hurting and clinics are closing. In a mid-sized city in the San’in region of Honshu, which faces the Sea of Japan, one such facility went under due to a one-two knockout punch of fiscal failure and a shortage of workers.
While the heirs of the hospital’s deceased owner held out for a more attractive offer, it seemed a terrible waste to let a perfectly serviceable building go unused. So, if the subculture monthly magazine Jitsuwa Knuckles (March) is to be believed (often a dubious practice), the owners came up with a brilliant means of generating revenues — by leasing it out to a local sex business.
The hollowed-out hospital stuck to a specialized regimen, extending its hospitality to male outpatients seeking reproductive rehabilitation through revival of the long-defunct rural practice of yobai, which is explained in the Japanese-English dictionary as “visiting a woman under the cover of night.” Read more
Cabbies on receiving end of ‘un-fare’ treatment by indigent female passengers
February 20, 2009
“From long ago I’ve had women beckon to me, parting their legs and inviting, ‘How about one for the road?’” veteran taxi owner-driver Sugishita (a pseudonym) tells Shukan Jitsuwa (March 5). “But recently, the type of women who attempt this have changed. Before they were usually inebriated hostesses, or young gals returning home from a night at the disco without any funds.”
From about six months ago, says Sugishita, such scenarios began happening with “very ordinary” office lady types.
“I suppose it’s because of the recession, and there are more OLs who are broke,” he says.
In January of this year, the 45-year-old Sugishita was invited to a lady’s boudoir in Kameido. The time was around 4:00 a.m.
“She’d lost her wallet, ID, everything,” he relates. “I advised her to report it at the police box and she said, ‘If my section head ever found out, I’d get fired!’” Read more
Naive gal gets acquainted with the facts of life
February 18, 2009
“When I was 15, I had sex for the first time. He was a friend of my mother’s, 12 years older than me.”
Thus begins an excerpt from the January issue of Ai no Taiken Special Deluxe published by Takeshobo, as featured in Shukan Bunshun (Feb. 9).
Writing under the pseudonym “Tsukiji Ichiba” (a play on the name of Tokyo’s main fish market but written with characters that mean “thrusting into the earth or material”), the author continues.
“Since he often came to visit our house, I had got along with him well. As it happened, that day everyone else was out, and being alone together we somehow found ourselves in the mood. Read more
