Gasp! Zap!! Ah!!! AED-equipped sex shop in Osaka keeps geezers’ hearts ticking

Japan’s fuzoku sex businesses have not only been forced to confront the worst recession in decades; they must also contend with flaccid demand due the aging of society.

But at last, a glimmer of good news. Shukan Jitsuwa (March 18) reports that a shop in Osaka’s Tennoji district has found a way to put a completely new spin on the term “safe sex.” To enable sensual seniors to partake in sleaze with less risk of dying in the saddle so to speak, hotetoru “Pearl Diamond” installed an emergency defibrillator unit (AED) on its premises earlier this year.

A hotetoru, for the uninitiated, is an abbreviation of hotel toruko, typically an unlicensed sex shop that arranges sudsy, soapland-style trysts between gals and their johns on the premises of hotels.

“All of our staff have been instructed in the basics of AED operation,” the shop’s manager boasts. “Fortunately up to now we’ve never had to use it, but it’s there just in case. Our girls like having it too — I suppose it helps take a load off their minds.” Read more

Ex-dog’s AV bark worse than her overbite

As any television viewer knows well, there’s pulchritude a-plenty on the Japanese airwaves. The possible exception would be a show broadcast on Fuji TV and affiliates called “Beauty Colosseum,” hosted by beanpole entertainer Akiko Wada.

The show features a stream of weepy women who pour out their woes, while hostess Wada — certainly no great beauty herself — nods sympathetically and occasionally brushes away a tear.

The show’s homely subjects have been dealt a losing hand by nature, so to speak, causing them to suffer torment at the hands of their peers. In addition to their being verbally slanged, they suffer other forms of discrimination in education and employment, and needless to say romantic relations with the opposite sex typically run from little to none.

Did we say sex? Well, kindly remain calm until we can provide a few more details from Shukan Jitsuwa (Feb. 11). Read more

Drink-spikers return to old hunting grounds in Ueno

While the U.S. embassy in Tokyo has mounted a campaign to discourage Americans from enjoying a tipple in Roppongi, among the natives the practice of drink-spiking followed by robbery seems to be much more prevalent in Ueno. It was there, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Jan. 28), that foreigners of Asian descent first began to slip mickey finns into customers’ drinks in order to relieve them of their cash and other valuables.

Following efforts to expel them from Ueno, the gangs shifted their operations to Ginza and Kabukicho. But police crackdowns have once again sent them slinking back to Ueno.

“It’s like a game of hide-and-seek,” says the manager of a local cabaret club. “Just when we thought that Ueno was safe at last, the crocks returned to their old haunts.”

“Up to November last year, the number of victims around Ueno came to about 90,” a reporter based in Tokyo Metropolitan Police headquarters tells the magazine. “There were something like 40 more cases in the neighboring Yushima area in Bunkyo Ward. Total losses are estimated at around 70 million yen. Previously the police undertook a sweep and went after the touts and the shops that had teamed up with the crooks, but the thieves just high-tailed it to Kabukicho and Ginza. Now they’re back in Ueno, an area that tends to be overlooked by the MPD.” Read more

Odious maid cafes put the squeeze on unwary Osaka otaku

One of the least pleasant words in the Japanese language is bottakuri, which means a ripoff. When the word bottakuri precedes such words as bar, kyabakura, casino club, massage parlor, etc., it indicates places where unwary patrons get taken for a ride.

And now, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 31), the maid café can be added to the list of such disreputable establishments in, of all places, Nipponbashi — Osaka’s equivalent of Tokyo’s famous Akihabara Electric Town.

Nipponbashi is no longer the friendly, innocent place it once was — if it ever was.

“Like Tokyo’s Akihabara, this place is a Mecca for otaku (geeks) from Kansai and beyond,” the operator of a maid café tells the weekly from within the electronics wholesale district.

Along a street nicknamed “Ota-dori” (geek street) interspersed with computer shops, girls in maid costumes stand out on the sidewalks soliciting customers. These places had best be avoided. Read more

Tallying the bottom line for Tokyo women in the sex trade

The “elite” of Japan’s sex industry used to be the gals who slither in suds at deluxe soaplands.

During better times, says 27-year-old Azusa, a “foam princess” could earn as much as 500,000 yen a day. But the big-spend bubble has been pricked, and these days pickings are slim.

“We work on a commission basis, so no customers means no money,” she tells Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 17). “The shop guarantees 30,000 yen per diem for us to show up. But when business is slow the number of girls on duty are cut. So even if we want to work we can’t. Anyway, there’s no demand.”

To win back clients, some soaps have begun offering an increasingly rough-and-tumble range of services heretofore unavailable. These would include soku-shaku and soku-beddo (on-the-spot oral sex and intercourse as soon as the patron enters the room); the usual matto play atop an air mattress; and bareback rides. Read more

On the ‘Tokyo Vice’ beat with Jake Adelstein

TOKYO (TR) – The extortion, racketeering, prostitution and gambling rings associated with Japan’s yakuza criminal organizations have been written up in books and glorified in films too numerous to count. Yet a substantial first-hand peek inside this insidious underworld by a foreign journalist — not straitjacketed by Japan’s rigid press system — has not existed.

Enter reporter Jake Adelstein, a 40-year-old Jewish-American and the author of the recently released memoir “Tokyo Vice,” an account of his 12-year stint of working the crime beat for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper.

Following the successful completion of the paper’s entry exam in 1993, Adelstein began covering Japan’s seamier side. Written in a fast-paced, acerbic and sometimes humorous style, “Tokyo Vice” recounts his investigations into serial rape, child pornography, murder and his greatest scoop: providing details on how four gangsters were able to travel to the U.S. between 2000 and 2004 to receive liver transplants. “Either erase the story, or we’ll erase you,” was the subsequent threat from the particulars involved. “And maybe your family.” Substantial repercussions linger to this day. Read more

Chinese take-out: mainland visitors revel in Japan’s deri heru delights

“Chinese? No way! They’re nothing but trouble,” scowls the manager of a delivery health (out-call sex service) in Tokyo.

But other shops in Tokyo and Osaka are finding male visitors from mainland China to be a growing source of revenues. As reported in Shukan Jitsuwa (Sep. 3), business is booming for the deri heru and so-called “date clubs.”

Whatever else one can say about moral issues, it’s natural that males traveling to another country take an interest in sex, and Chinese are certainly no exception.

Interestingly, it’s extremely rare to see advertisements appealing to such visitors. It appears that those who want to play allow travel agents and their reps to function as the middlemen in such transactions.

“We target the wealthiest segment of Chinese travelers,” says the operator of an Osaka deri heru. “They stay in top-class hotels. Since money is no object for them, the usual charge is 50,000 yen a pop. We offer one type of course, and it’s short-time only. If the woman stays all night, there’s more risk involved.” Read more

Yen wages a big attraction for Asian hookers

In early May, police in South Korea arrested several male suspects on suspicion of abetting prostitution by a minor.

As reported by Shukan Jitsuwa (June 4), the men had been running prominent advertisements aimed at young women, saying they could earn “big money” during short-term visits abroad.

The men supplied a 17-year-old South Korean high school student with a forged passport. They subsequently confessed to police that they had been paid 6.5 million Korean won for “recruiting” the girl — the equivalent of 550,000 Japanese yen — to work at a sex shop in Chiba City.

Earlier police had cracked down on several Korean “honban esute” in Saitama and Gunma prefectures. The girls working in the shops are said to be younger and prettier than ever.

From this it is clear that the drastic decline in value of the Korean won currency vis-à-vis the Japanese yen is proving an irresistible magnet to sex workers from that country. Read more

Lewd Osaka shop dispenses loads of lactic lechery

Yukino, age 23, became a mother five months ago. She subsequently took up employment at Mother’s Milk, an Osaka sex shop offering services dispensed by expectant and nursing mothers.

“I’m still lactating a huge volume, so my customers are delighted,” she gushes to Shukan Jitsuwa (May 28).

Motherhood has inflated Yukino’s breasts to 95 centimeters, and she’s gung-ho to provide enrichment by the G-cup to male guzzlers.

“Wanna try some?” she invites the reporter. “I don’t know if it’s tasty or not.”

Finding the offer irresistible, the reporter sucks tentatively at Yukino’s nipple and is startled by the rich flavor.

“Some customers will spend their whole session nursing; I’m worried they’ll suck me completely dry and there won’t be enough for my baby,” she giggles. Read more

Let the good times roll in Miyazaki

One of the really nice things about the current special toll arrangement being offered by the various members of the Nippon Expressway Companies group is that for a uniform toll of just 1,000 yen, you can follow the exit ramps to male playgrounds all over this land — from Hokkaido, Aomori and Gunma to Ishikawa, Osaka, Mie, Ehime and Fukuoka.

And oh yes, adds Shukan Jitsuwa (May 14), that also includes Miyazaki. The capital city of this Kyushu domain, currently in the limelight thanks to its celebrity governor, is also where the Yomiuri Giants hold their baseball spring training camp. It is also said to boast a system of “take-out snacks” where the snack you take out is taken to bed. And it’s rumored some Giants players may even go there to take a few nocturnal practice swings.

Shukan Jitsuwa’s reporter is directed to Ueno-cho, which is located in the back of the neon district close to the central station. Read more

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