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

Ozawa’s gals appearing anxious as party ponders path

“Ozawa girls” is a title that refers to the group of attractive female candidates dispatched to minor constituencies under the guidance of the Democratic Party of Japan’s scandal-plagued Secretary General, Ichiro Ozawa, for last August’s lower house election.

At the party’s annual convention inside the Hibiya Kokaido on January 16, three of these ladies, who wound up winning seats in their districts, seemed a bit on edge, reports Shukan Shincho (Jan. 28). Read more

Yamaguchi-gumi gangsters give gifts in the name of goodwill in Kobe

With the year winding down, the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group entertained 1,200 members of the Kobe community with food and gifts in an effort to convey a sense of civic goodwill, reports Shukan Shincho (Jan. 14).

The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest mob, boasting an estimated membership of 40,000, is generally feared by the public but its upper echelon and underlings spent the morning of December 28 preparing mochi (rice cakes) — in a ritual where the rice is pounded with a wood mallet — and distributing toys, candies and cash gifts to children. Read more

Shinjuku gay district’s ‘war trophy’ fails to lead cops to murder suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi

Reporting on the arrest of accused murderer Tatsuya Ichihashi on Nov. 10 in Osaka port, Shukan Shincho (Nov. 19) was really quick on the draw, with five short items in its latest issue, just two days after the arrest.

From one article, readers learn that the police dragnet last year had extended to the notorious gay enclave in Tokyo’s Shinjuku 2-chome, where a 36-year-old denizen of the area named Nobuharu Terasaki (a pseudonym) came forward to notify police he had engaged in physical relations with a man resembling Ichihashi on two occasions, in late February and early March of 2008. Read more

‘Black widow’ strikes? Marriage fraud suspect Kanae Kijima linked to six deaths

Wearing white gloves, seven or eight plain-clothes cops stormed into an apartment building in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district one recent morning. Their destination was the 14th-floor residence of Kanae Kijima, a 34-year-old native of Hokkaido who has been arrested for marriage fraud and is under investigation for the deaths of six men, reports Shukan Post (Nov. 13).

“The officers stayed for a week, working 24 hours a day, and they took her wine-red Mercedes,” a resident of the building tells the tabloid.

News reports indicate that Kijima has conned numerous men, whom she met on Internet dating sites, out of sizable sums of money. The police are treating four of the subsequent deaths, which took place in Tokyo and Chiba and Saitama prefectures, as murder. Information on the other two deaths has not yet been released.

“Sometimes she was wearing a black one-piece dress with an open front to display cleavage,” says another tenant. “But usually she didn’t wear make-up and sported worn-out jeans and t-shirts. To be honest, it is hard to believe that kind of lady was able to deceive men.” 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

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

Hot seat: DPJ representative Mieko Tanaka former fuzoku writer

Among the 119,021 voters casting ballots for Democratic Party of Japan representative Mieko Tanaka in Ishikawa Prefecture Constituency No. 2. during last month’s lower house election few probably knew that the candidate once dressed in costumes while interviewing ladies employed in the sex trade, reports Friday (Sep. 18).

Tanaka, 33, hailing from the city of Kanazawa, was one of “Ozawa’s girls,” which referred to a group of attractive female candidates dispatched to minor constituencies under the guidance of DPJ politician Ichiro Ozawa. She fell a mere 4,000 votes short of former Prime Minister Yoshihiro Mori during her party’s August 30 pummeling of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan — the DPJ took 308 seats, sixty-seven more than that required for a majority. Yet she wound up qualifying for a house seat through the proportional representation (PR) system.

Friday explains, however, that it has details of her past that are sure to make Ozawa blush. Read more

Election spurs erections, no pun intended

It didn’t take the tabloid media long to put its own original spin on the landslide Aug. 30 victory by the Democratic Party of Japan.

Shukan Shincho (Sep. 10) reports on some of the ways the sex industry took advantage of political excitement in the runup to last Sunday’s general election.

A “relaxation pub” in Aichi Prefecture, for example, offered a discount to customers who showed up bearing a tohyozumi-sho (vote completion certificate) as proof that they had exercised their civic duty. Read more

A look back at Japan’s largest cabaret

The closing of the legendary Kabukicho Club Heights has already been documented in these pages, however, Shukan Shincho (Mar. 12) offers a look back at the 36-year history of Japan’s largest cabaret, which until last week operated from the center of Tokyo’s red-light district of Kabukicho, via interviews with a few members of the club’s venerable staff.

“When it first opened, there was a fierce business battle with regards to retaining hostesses,” remarks Tatuhiro Nonaka, director of operations, who claims that at one point 300 ladies served drinks to customers at the club’s roughly 600 seats. “Scout men from competitors used to stand in front of the venue and interfere with operations.”

With hostesses, he adds, there is always a battle to be number one, and this was certainly true at the end of the month, when the winners and losers were determined by they amount of revenue they generated. But customers, too, were eager to show their support. The director recalls patrons sometimes arriving at the club with suitcases filled with 10 million yen. “The cabaret is like a toy box for adults,” he says, “because you can dance, watch the show, and drink.” Read more

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