AV actress Reiko Yamaguchi matures into bar mama in Kabukicho

G-cup AV actress Reiko Yamaguchi has spent much of her career playing “mature” leading ladies. Yet ten years after her debut she finds herself as a full bar mama-san at a snack in Tokyo’s entertainment district of Kabukicho.

“Since I have experience as a hostess and I also wanted to create a venue for interaction with my fans, I decided to open this bar,” says the AV veteran to evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (July 12) about her club called Bar Naked, which opened in April. “With me working ‘naked’ on a regular basis, I came up with this name because I wanted to expose the other side of me.”

The bar has 15 seats behind the counter. Entry fees start at 60 minutes for 2,500 yen. Sparkling wine (Cafe de Paris) can be purchased for 3,000 yen, and the actress, who has starred in roughly 500 adult video features, will sandwich the bottle between her 98-centimeter breasts as a no-charge extra before pouring. On Friday and Saturday nights part-time girls also serve. Read more

Impecunious ‘Pinas tie knot to make naughty in Nippon

In January the media was abuzz with reports over the arrest by Saitama prefectural police of a citizen of the Philippines, who had entered Japan by means of a fraudulent marriage with a Japanese man, after it was learned the individual in question — charged with violation of the alien registration law — had undergone a sex change operation.

Writing in Shukan Kinyobi (Mar. 12), Takehide Mizutani notes that cases of fraudulent marriage have soared since March 2005, when Japan’s Ministry of Justice, in response to criticisms of Japan’s abetting human trafficking by the U.S. State Department, cracked down on admission of women from the Philippines.

In 2004, a record high of 85,000 “entertainer” visas had been issued to Filipinas. The following year the number had fallen to half and has continued to decline. Read more

Deflation equation: room, board, Ginza hostess — all in, 12,800 yen

Usually entry to a high-end Ginza hostess club requires an initial outlay of tens of thousands of yen. Yet the wave of deflation is causing one new establishment to charge a mere 12,800 yen for an hour of all-you-can-drink and — get this — food and lodging.

Shukan Shincho (Feb. 25) reports on the latest project by mama-san Shiho Masui, 41, who has appeared in the media numerous times since 1995, when she opened the hostess club Futago-ya (Club Twins) in Ginza’s 6-chome district. This separate pricing venture began on the first of the month. 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

‘Super copy’ brand goods help guys to bag girls

Offering a kyaba-jo, or hostess, a “super copy” of a brand name bag is becoming a better way for playboys to play the field, reports Nikkan Gendai (Jan. 25).

A super copy is a counterfeit article so carefully crafted that it is impossible for an amateur to determine the difference from an original.

According to freelance writer Taizo Ebina, such duplicates started started emerging around four years ago and replicate items by such popular brands as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermes. “The bags use the same leather as the original and have product numbers imprinted,” says Ebina. “The color of the bag’s skin changes the way an authentic version changes. It takes a well-trained person to detect the authenticity of these fake products. Packages, both boxes and labels, are also dutifully printed at factories. Once, I saw the parts of a fake Rolex and they had been sourced from quality makers in Japan.” Read more

Controversy around hitsudan hostess Rie Saito due to jealousy

Jealousy is the source of recent criticism being leveled toward deaf hostess, Rie Saito, 25, who rose to the top of Tokyo’s most extravagant entertainment quarter and has since published a best-selling book, reports Shukan Taishu (Jan. 4).

Saito lost her hearing soon after birth. While known as a bad girl during her middle-school days, she learned the subtle beauty of the hostess hospitality business and ascended to the number-one position in all of Ginza — a world of “night butterflies” — through the use of hitsudan, or written communication.

Such a drama-filled life moved many people and her book titled “Hitsudan Hostess,” published by Kobunsha in May last year, became a best-seller with 200,000 copies sold. On January 10, a TV drama of the same title and starring actress Keiko Kitagawa will be aired nationwide on Tokyo Broadcasting System.

However, there are ominous rumblings being circulated about Saito regarding her book and upcoming drama, the weekly warns. Read more

Hostess Miyuki Ueta possible second serial killer, connected to six deaths

While police are still investigating Kanae Kijima and the suspicious deaths of six men once acquainted with her, a former bar hostess from Tottori Prefecture has been linked to an equal number of men who succumbed to the same fate, reports Weekly Playboy (Nov. 30).

Miyuki Ueta, 35, was arrested on November 2 for defrauding a woman out of 1.26 million yen by falsely claiming that the victim’s son had been lent money. Her 46-year-old male roommate was also taken into custody for swindling a tractor dealer. Separate fraud charges were added against the pair on November 20.

Police are presently attempting to build murder cases around at least three of the six deceased, all of whom have been connected to Ueta. Authorities have also learned that insurance policies had been taken out on some of the dead.

Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporter Akira Seo, 42, was killed in 2004 after being struck by a train. Security guard Shinichi Furuta, 27, died three years later while swimming. 41-year-old police officer Houitsu Sakai was found hanged in February of last year. Kazumi Yabe, a 47-year-old truck driver, drowned in April of this year. 58-year-old Kazumi Taguchi (unemployed) was discovered dead in his apartment in October. Electrician Hideki Maruyama, 57, was found beaten and face down in the Mani River that same month (initially ruled a suicide by Tottori Prefectural Police). Read more

Creative new commerce keeps Kabukicho hopping

“First it was Koma Stadium, which shut its doors last New Year’s Eve,” a local mutters. “Now it’s the Kabukicho McDonald’s outlet, which closed on Aug. 31. I think the place went under because it became a hangout for bar hostesses waiting for the trains to start running and homeless people, who just sat there nursing a cup of coffee.”

But, reports Shukan Shincho (Oct. 8), that doesn’t necessarily mean Tokyo’s largest adult entertainment zone has fallen victim to the recession. New businesses are springing up, appealing to consumers with super-low prices.

One such example is the Shateki Oh (King of the Marksmen) in Kabukicho 1-chome, which has been thriving since it opened last April. As the name implies, the shop is a quirky type of shooting gallery, similar to the tacky types often found in rural hot springs resorts. This one seems to be attracting sightseers on group tours to Tokyo. Read more

Tohoku red-light town looks to Tokyo’s Kabukicho for revival

Sendai’s Kokubuncho entertainment district is modeling an initiative for its rebirth upon the ongoing clean-up of Tokyo’s infamous Kabukicho area, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sep. 29).

Hard-hit by Japan’s recession, various business and long-term building owners of the area, located in the city’s Aoba Ward, came together last month to form the “Kokubuncho Development Project.” The aim of the organization is to enhance the brand of the city — whose over 3,000 bars, restaurants and sex clubs have shared a style similar to that found in Tokyo’s Shimbashi and Ginza districts.

The first step was to come together as a group. Last month’s meeting consisted of approximately thirty men and women of varied ages, backgrounds and professions. Read more

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