Illegal casinos in Tokyo under scrutiny after sumo betting scandal

With the illegal gambling activities of sumo wrestlers having been duly exposed in recent weeks, Weekly Playboy (July 26) reports that underground casinos are now coming under fire.

“After the story concerning sumo wrestlers and baseball betting broke, three illegal gambling operations in Kabukicho were raided,” explains one illegal casino operator. “They included an a gaming room, an Internet operation and poker game shop. I am very worried about a raid on my place.”

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‘Carnivorous women’ with yen for men find licking to their liking

With growing numbers of hesitant, herbivorous males matched by more assertive, carnivorous females, sex in Japan has truly turned topsy-turvy. Nikkan Gendai (July 17) reports that increasingly libidinous Japanese women have been flocking to discreet “sensual massage parlors,” where they pay to be pampered by young hunks.

An office worker in her 30s who patronizes such a place in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district tells the tabloid, “The place where I go has a membership system and won’t admit anyone without an introduction. A 90-minute session costs 30,000 yen.”
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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

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be medics, they’ll wind up selling love

Ayano, a 20-year-old pre-med student, has a lucrative part-time job. She dispenses oral and manual sex at a “fashion health” massage parlor in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho red light district.

Since high school she had dreamed of becoming a physician, and after achieving a high score on the entrance examination was admitted to a medical school.

Unfortunately, reports Weekly Playboy (May 3), her tuition is damn high.

“Most of the students are from affluent families, but recently even some of them are in arrears of their tuition,” she says. “I have a friend who dropped out and began training as a emergency rescue worker.” Read more

Sex-trade tabloid Tokyo Manzoku News to cease publication

(Photo by Tokyo Reporter, April 22, 2010)

TOKYO (TR) – Sex-service tip sheet Tokyo Manzoku News will offer guidance through Tokyo’s adult entertainment areas for the final time next month, announced the owner of the title.

The 16-year-old publication, under the umbrella of publishing house Creators Company Connection, offers pricing and location assistance for clientele interested in fuzoku (sex-related) clubs and bars within Tokyo’s larger nightlife quarters, including Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Shibuya.

The final issue of the 32-page sheet will hit the stands on May 13. The company cited developments in the media business as the reason for the termination. Read more

Delinquents, dust-ups and drunken dames — Kabukicho drifts downward

Tokyo’s Kabukicho area as captured at night by the camera of photographer Hajime Kiyohira is seen to be increasingly turning into a Mecca for Japan’s youth, similar to Shibuya, reports Flash (Apr. 20) in a special pull-out section.

The four-page spread features a drunken girl urinating in a street corner; a salaryman takes a punch from an aggressive street tout in front of the infamous Parisienne coffee shop; women unable to walk are sprawled in the arms of their boyfriends as they are dragged away; a police officer chases and eventually corals another unruly tout; and a man with his clothes piled at his feet at the intersection of the Furin Kaikan building announces, “Hadaka de nani ga warui!” (What’s wrong with being naked!), as passersby snap photos with their mobile phones. Read more

Gaijin shitamachi: Kinshicho a low-cost alternative to Kabukicho

The warmth of spring may have finally arrived but the chill of the wave of recession is still readily apparent throughout the metropolis. Yet Takarajima (May) finds the entertainment area of Kinshicho, located three train stops away from Akihabara on the Chuo Line in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward, to be surprisingly indifferent to these economic difficulties.

A visit one evening in March starts with a stroll down a street called Derby-dori, situated behind the Marui department store and outside the South Exit of the station building. After just a few meters, street touts in black suits quickly approach.

“How about for 4,000 yen? For three, it will be 10,000 yen.”

The club is named Eden of the World’s Beauties.

“It’s a Filipino pub. Lots of young girls are there. Russians, Romanians, Slovaks and Ukrainians, too. Hey shacho, are you interested? Wanna hang out with some young girls from South America?” 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

Crackdown on Tokyo fraud ring closes ‘encounter’ Internet sites

Law enforcement authorities from Tokyo and Miyagi Prefecture have shut down a major fraud ring involving online-dating sites designed to generate massive profits out of membership fees, reports Shukan Asahi Geino (Mar. 11).

On January 16, Noriyuki Hoshi, the leader of the operation, and ten others were taken into custody by police for defrauding members of deai-kei (encounter) matchmaking sites by hiring male actors to take on online personas of ladies seeking dates.

A reporter responsible for covering social media explains to the weekly that the victims were registered with such social networking sites as Mixi and Mobagetown. Between July 2005 and the day of the crackdown, the nationwide scam had swindled 1.4 million individuals out of a total of 2 billion yen. Read more

Hakata Tenjin ramen in Kabukicho

(Photo by Tokyo Reporter, February 27, 2010)

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