Sunday afternoon at the Nakamise shopping arcade in Asakusa

(Photo by Tokyo Reporter, May 30, 2010) Read more

The puerile perils of proletarian prostitution

Earlier in May, police in Chiryu City, Aichi Prefecture, arrested a 25-year-old man on charges of assault and robbery against a 34-year-old woman while in a love hotel.

Nikkan Gendai (May 29) reports that Kenta Hayashi, unemployed and with no fixed abode, allegedly used his hands or a towel to strangle his victim until she lost consciousness. He then stole 5,000 yen in cash and her cell phone from her handbag.

Hayashi admitted to police that he had met the woman via an encounter site on the Web.

“His motive was simple robbery and he had no intention of killing her,” a police source is quoted as saying. Read more

New secretary fulfills boss’s lust for lactic lechery

Life is certainly full of ups and downs. Take the woes of the anonymous contributor to the June issue of woman’s soft porn magazine Ai no Taiken Special Deluxe, who returned from a year-long maternity leave to learn she had been reassigned to work as secretary to the president of the company.

“Up to then I’d always worked in the sales department,” she relates in “From the Ladies’ Magazines,” extracts appearing each week in Shukan Bunshun (June 3). “The president is a gorgeous young hunk, and I really felt flustered in my first interview with him.”

“One day, however, I was shocked when he suddenly grabbed my breasts. ‘Please,’ he pleaded to me in a small child’s voice, ‘Let me touch them.’ I felt all my resistance breaking down…. Read more

Kyosho jutaku: Small house living in Japan

TOKYO (TR) – On one of Tokyo’s crisper mornings, ride the elevator up to the lounge on the 41st floor of the Shinjuku Park Tower building in Shinjuku and gaze in the direction of Mt. Fuji. The view will be of a nearly uninterrupted blanket of concrete and infrastructural morass that is likely unmatched anywhere in the world for its enormity and unsightliness. Blending to fill much of this scene are massive apartment buildings and smaller, block-like “mansions,” their bland concrete facades and uninspired designs resembling hospitals or penitentiaries.

Some architects, however, are in the process of adding small bits of color to this picture, both literally and figuratively. Small slivers of land that in days past may have been used for an industrial or commercial purpose are now the location of unique housing structures — a trend dubbed kyosho jutaku (micro living).

Watch the video (above) for a CBS news Sunday Morning program (May 23) that includes an interview with a Tokyo Reporter writer or read more about this topic here.

Pole-pulling pro perfected palm performance at her maternal parent’s patella

For a long time, Japan boasted a legendary lady whose hand job technique was so spectacular she was known in the trade as “the mythical shaft master” or “the wizard of jism.” Her name, reports Shukan Asahi Geino (June 3), was Reiko Oikawa.

Some two and a half decades ago Reiko gave birth to a daughter, who grew up to be a lovely lass indeed. And you’ll be happy to learn that the daughter decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Asagei tracked down the young woman, who goes by the professional name of Nana, at a sex shop in Tokyo’s Kinshicho district called “Ikenai Shika Eiseishi” (the naughty dental hygienist).

“Yes, Reiko was my mother,” she readily admits. Read more

Tokyo furikome fraudsters go from princes to paupers

In a love hotel district of Tokyo, a minivan picks up a young woman. “What the hell were you doing?” she barks to the driver. “You are behind schedule.”

Kotaro Nishijima, which is not his real name, smiles in acknowledging his female passenger, who is young enough to be his daughter.

He currently earns 300,000 yen each month transporting gals in the deri heru trade (out-call sex) to their clients — a far cry from his days as head of a group of 80 that carried out frauds via phone communication (furikome sagi), which typically involves deceiving victims into wiring large sums of money to the group’s bank account. Read more

Japan’s crackdown on loansharks may prompt housewives to peddle flesh

From June 18, a revised law controlling moneylenders, which has been applied incrementally up to now, goes into full force. A salient feature of the law, reports Nikkan Gendai (May 19), will be a limit on the loan amount to less than one-third of the borrower’s annual income. At the same time, nearly all consumer loan companies are ceasing to extend loans to housewives.

This is no small matter. According to the national census of 2005, Japan had 16.4 million full-time housewives, of whom an estimated 4.75 million, or 29 percent, had taken out consumer loans.

“A majority of that number have already lost their sources of credit,” says loan consultant Mikio Kobayashi. “It’s believed that 38 percent of the housewives who take out loans conceal it from their husbands. As a result, women desperate for money have resorted to underground moneylenders, who charge usurious rates, and many wind up working flat out just to keep up the interest payments.” Read more

Oh cum all ye unfaithful, lustful and triumphant

“One day I spotted my neighbor’s husband walking on the street together with an unfamiliar woman. My curiosity piqued, I decided to play amateur detective and followed them,” writes the pseudonymous contributor to the June issue of the woman’s soft porn magazine Ai no Taiken Special Deluxe, as introduced in Shukan Bunshun (May 27).

“I managed to snap a picture of them entering a love hotel,” she continues. “Then one day not long afterwards when I knew the wife had gone out, I went over and rang the doorbell. “‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ I said, confronting him with the evil evidence — like a master sleuth exposing a murderer.”

Unfortunately, the husband refused to break down and confess. Instead, to the woman’s astonishment he exclaimed, “Then I should make you my partner in crime!” and audaciously assaulted his accuser. Read more

New wave of Japanese cult films look overseas

TOKYO (TR) – Japanese arthouse dramas and comedies routinely receive substantial critical acclaim internationally, but slipping under the radar and steadily gathering an overseas following is a new wave of low-budget cult films.

Japan’s domestic market continues to be dominated by films based on well-known comic books or television programs. Targeting foreign coin by exploiting interests in exotic Asia is another option.

One company responsible for the trend is Japan’s oldest studio, Nikkatsu, which last year launched its Sushi Typhoon gore label, whose aim is to assemble Japan’s best ultraviolent helmers.

“In the domestic market now, a collaboration with a television network is almost a necessity,” explains Nikkatsu’s Yoshinori Chiba, who has produced dozens of gangster and action thrillers. “But if you want to make a profit overseas, you have to do something different.” Read more

Akasaka Prince orgy organizers in need of new romping rooms

Students of architecture might have shed a tear or two when it was announced last month that the Kenzo Tange-designed Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka will close early next year. Yet certain regulars illicitly utilizing the suite rooms of the 40-floor, wedge-shaped structure in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward may also be lamenting its demise, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (May 27).

Considered a high-end hotel throughout Japan, it is known as a Mecca for newlyweds, those engaging in affairs, escort ladies and participants in sex parties, which have proved to be particularly popular in recent times.

“It offers pricing plans starting at 7,000 yen,” explains a journalist specializing in the economy, “but there have been a lot of days with empty rooms over the last couple years. That’s why organizers renting the suite rooms for orgies are considered good customers.” Read more

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