Japan’s sexy izakayas battle deflation

The arrival of a Hooters outlet to Tokyo earlier this year caused many tabloids to associate the move with kurofune, or black ships, a term often used for a non-Japanese person or entity who holds a threatening marketing position, but Shukan Taishu reports that Japan is no slouch when it comes to dining in a sleazy atmosphere.

With the economy still in a tailspin, the weekly tabloid explains that it is important to understand that customers are still tight with their spending.

“Restaurant businesses in Japan typically provide a wide variety of choices,” says a reporter from the economic section of a national newspaper. “But offering good-tasting dishes alone is not enough to attract customers. With deflation ongoing, price competition is very tense, and services need to be designed such that they go beyond what has been in the past.”

The “girl’s izakaya,” which is an establishment characterized by waitresses with exposed midriffs, is now garnering attention. Read more

Tokyo’s Kabukicho teeters on the brink

Once known as Asia’s top entertainment quarter, Shinjuku Ward’s red-light district of Kabukicho has seen a hallowing out at its core. Monthly magazine Takarajima (April) takes a look at the devastation wrought by police crackdowns and the ongoing recession.

At the end of 2008, the multi-use Koma Stadium, notably known as a home to enka theater performances for a half-century and situated at the heart of Kabukicho, shut its doors. Over a year later, a construction plan for the site has not been set in place. Meanwhile, near JR Shinjuku Station, a large 10-screen cinema complex has since opened at the edge of the Kabukicho boundary. This encroachment, which has forced the shuttering of other long-running theaters in the area, combined with the closing of the cinema screens inside the Koma Stadium complex, has left only four screens remaining in all of Kabukicho, which was once regarded as a cinema Mecca. Read more

Burning down the house: Tokyo hostess turns to arson

The Mainichi Shimbun (Feb. 10) reported that Kazune Urata, a kyabajo, or nightclub hostess, living in the Sakuradai district of Tokyo’s Nerima Ward, was arrested on Feb. 6 for arson. A surveillance camera captured the 27-year-old hostess using cardboard and a lighter to set parked bicycles alight.

This was probably not the first time for Urata. In the same building at the end of last month, a storage area and postal mailboxes had also been burned in a suspicious fire.

“My pay was really low,” she is quoted. “I thought by doing arson I would be relieved from my stress.”　 Read more

Japan’s cunning bottakuri bars con compliant customers

Last month’s incident in the Minami district of Osaka in which comedian Tamotsu Kuroda of the group Messenger was arrested for assaulting a bar manager following a dispute over a 250,000-yen bill highlights the increasingly common practice of bottakuri, or to rip off, that is ongoing in Japan’s entertainment areas, reports Spa! (Jan. 26)

“Those rip-off joints in Osaka scrutinize their targets beforehand,” says the owner of a near where Kuroda’s altercation took place. “There’s a possibility that the bar was assuming Kuroda could afford a certain level of tab just because he is a popular comedian. There have been an increasing number of bottakuri cases here in the Minami area.” Read more

Police crackdown on ‘girl’s bars’ no deterrent to erotic offerings

In addition to crackdowns on soaplands and orgy parties that Weekly Playboy routinely features in its pages, the magazine is now finding that ‘girl’s bars,’ which are clubs staffed by ladies serving from behind a counter, are also becoming a target of the police. Yet a low profile is not an option as many are offering excessively provocative services — nearly a requirement in today’s tough economic climate.

Yui, a 19-year-old college student, tells the tabloid about a group of cops that showed up while she was working. “It happened so fast, and the bar was asked to stop operating. Apparently the problem was that the girls were sitting next to the customers. I was shocked because I thought this place was clean. But I quickly moved over to another girl’s bar,” she giggles.

A 10-year veteran writer for the “pink” trade offers: “The girl’s bar is registered as an after hours eating-and-drinking place, much like an izakaya. Because of this, they are not allowed to offer individual hospitality to customers. The only such place for that service is a kyabakura (hostess club), which is registered as an eating-and-drinking establishment that includes socializing.” Read more

Girls gone wild

Following this week’s bust of club B in Yokohama for employing female staff in revealing clothing, entertainment site Zakzak (Apr. 22) postulates that such extreme protocol is due to growing competition in the adult entertainment industry.

Hidetoshi Kawada, 38, of no fixed address, was cited by Kanagawa Prefecture police on April 20 for employing ladies positioned behind a counter who were attired in loose-fitting men’s shirts (no bra underneath), high-cut shorts, and pantyhose — a violation of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses given the club’s licensing as an eating and drinking venue and not a locale of adult entertainment. Read more

Yokohama ‘girl’s bar’ busted, attire deemed inappropriate

The manager of an entertainment club in Kanagawa Prefecture was arrested this week for operating an inappropriately licensed bar staffed entirely by women, according to Sankei News (Apr. 21).

Hidetoshi Kawada, 38, of no fixed address, was cited by prefectural police on April 20 for staffing club B with ladies positioned behind a counter who were attired in loose-fitting men’s shirts (no bra underneath), high-cut shorts, and pantyhose — a violation of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses given the club’s licensing as an eating and drinking venue and not a locale of adult entertainment.

The Sankei report says that the police found eight girls and an equal number of male customers inside the club just before 11 p.m. on the day of the arrest. The club started in October of last year and reportedly generates montly revenues of between 3.5 million yen and 4.5 million yen. Read more

Clampdown on boys behind bars in Kabukicho

The bust earlier this month of “boy’s bar” Junk #9 Powers in Tokyo’s red-light district of Kabukicho is an example of the ambiguity and ongoing evolution within adult businesses in Japan, reports Nikkan Gendai (Mar. 7 and 14).

A boy’s bar is the inverse of a “girl’s bar,” where multiple women chat and serve drinks to men from behind a long counter. The setup is a means of exploiting the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses, which views service across such a non-visible barrier to not be entertainment and legal in the wee hours. In other words, boy’s and girl’s bars are masquerading as run-of-the-mill drinking establishments.

For Junk #9 Powers, which received between 50 to 60 patrons each day and accumulated 4.8 million yen in receipts monthly, the violation occurred due to guys chatting with ladies at tables in the early morning, a violation of the adult business law that requires such “entertainment” to cease at 1 a.m. Indeed, girl’s bars have been under similar scrutiny. 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

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