Females forced to work off debts on hands and knees

In September 2008, a 23-year-old employee of a cabaret club (kyabakura) approached real estate operator Yu Shimojo, 41, for a loan, saying she needed money to care for her sick parents. Shimojo said he would lend her 850,000 yen on the condition that she work it off in a Yoshiwara soapland.

With interest added, reports Nikkan Gendai (Feb. 10), the woman agreed to pay back Shimojo 1,030,000 yen. The shop where she toiled was one of the more reasonable places in Yoshiwara, charging customers a comparatively cheap 20,000 yen for 70 minutes of sudsy recreation. Read more

‘Sakura police’ on pervert patrol in Tokyo

Recent news articles detailing the arrest of two men, aged 30 and 52, for displaying their private parts to middle and high school girls, have indicated the important role the “sakura police” played in nabbing the perps. To satisfy curiosities, evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (Jan. 30) takes a peek inside this special division, tasked with tackling obscene crimes associated with sexual behavior.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police tells the paper that the sakura police was established within the general affairs division presiding over public safety in April of last year. It is dedicated to acting quickly to the excessive solicitation of women and children and any subsequent forced interactions. There are 56 personnel belonging to the team, with 16 of them being women. Read more

Ouch! Fetishists at love hotels leave behind bloody, malodorous messes

“I was really surprised. When I went in to clean up, the room was a bloody mess,” relates the meeku-san — as chambermaids at love hotels are referred to in the trade.

The reason for the speaker’s astonishment is evident in her ensuing remarks.

“I could tell it wasn’t just some woman having her period,” she says. “The bed sheets were covered with bloodstains that had soaked through all the way to the mattress cover. There were bloody tracks in the bath too.” 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

Tokyo’s dirty old men need love too

About five or six years ago, a male pensioner, while seated in a hospital waiting room to see the doctor, was informed by a fellow retired patient about a third-tier, cheapo erotic bathhouse in Tokyo’s Yoshiwara district where the cost of admission ran only 11,000 yen. He promptly began patronizing it, and never fails to pay a visit every other month after his pension payment arrives at his bank.

Now, reports the writer of the series “Heisei soap-gai onna to kane sugoi hanashi” (Fantastic tales of women and money at Heisei-era soaplands) in Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 21), it’s become quite common for elderly men to drop into Yoshiwara for some tender, loving care. Read more

Sordid goings on behind Fukushima Prison’s gates

A staff member of Fukushima Prison has been taken into custody for engaging in obscene acts. Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 17) reports that Tomio Hirai, age 60, was arrested on suspicion of forcing a male convict to perform oral sex on him the previous October 18.

On December 14, Hirai was charged with violation of the special law applied to breach of duty by public officials, which prescribes penalties of up to seven years imprisonment.

Hirai would have reached the age of retirement next March. If the court finds him guilty as charged, it is expected he will undergo dismissal, which would also result in revocation of his pension. Read more

Konbini condom customers come in all sizes and shapes

Condoms, which were formerly sold from vending machines, have become a popular standby at convenience stores.

Likewise for their packaging, reports Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 8). In former times, condoms used to be wrapped as inconspicuously as possible. But things have changed. As the executive at one chain relates, “Couples come shop together and it is the female who unhesitatingly makes the selection.”

Kazumi, a college junior who works part-time at a konbini in Tokyo, tells the tabloid that French letters now tend to so garishly packaged she initially had difficulty locating the bar code strip. Read more

Police vice raids provide fodder for year-end ‘tokuban’ TV specials

A customary part of TV fare during the final week of December is the so-called “police action close-up.” These are special programs in which TV camera crews follow around Tokyo’s finest as they sanitize the city, bursting into bars and busting bordellos.

In preparation for the year-end run-up, Nikkan Gendai (Dec. 5) reports that six shops were raided in a section of Ikebukuro where such hanky-panky is prohibited by law.

But were the six shops actually making trouble for anyone? Read more

Answering phone forgotten in love hotel a sure-fire formula for trouble

People leave all kinds of things behind in love hotel rooms. Some, writes Shoko Harano in Nikkan Gendai (Nov. 26) are the sorts of items one might not ordinarily expect. Like a woman’s full set of false teeth.

Harano, described as a 36-year-old divorcee and a “coquettish [sic] beauty” spent three years working at the reception of a love hotel.

It’s not uncommon, she says, for guests to leave cell phones behind in their rooms. Some phones are pink and festooned with glitter and all kinds of cheap trinkets — the sort of thing one might expect to be used by girls in their mid teens. Read more

Naughty ladies cause Ikebukuro ‘mistress bank’ to go bust

Japan’s first “Aijin Banku”(mistress bank) in Osaka back in the 1970s created quite a stir at the time of its founding. The service, which made its money by serving as a go-between between women seeking steady employment in a prone position and men who could afford it, gradually disappeared, to be replaced by such customer-direct transactions as enjo kosai (“compensated dating”).

But in 1994, reports Nikkan Gendai (Nov. 21), things were still going strong and a shop in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district came up with a new twist. Instead of introducing divorcees down on their luck or middle-aged moms who sought income on the side, the “High School Girl Mistress Bank” charged 30,000 yen for membership, upon which a customer could peer through a two-way mirror at a selection of real, live high-school girls. Read more

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