Miyazaki’s shops supplying sleaze have beef with foot and mouth

While most media outlets have chosen to focus on the economic and health aspects of the ongoing spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture, weekly tabloid Shukan Asahi Geino (July 1) investigates how the outbreak has impacted the businesses most dear to its readership — namely, shops specializing in adult entertainment.

On May 18, Miyazaki Prefecture Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru declared a prefecture-wide state of emergency. Since then, those visiting from outlying areas began canceling reservations in earnest.

The owner of Japanese restaurant Igokochiya Anbai, located in Miyazaki City’s entertainment district known as Nishitachi, tells the tabloid that sales have fallen to half of what they were a year ago. “In the beginning, the cancellations were limited to certain areas,” the owner explains, “but after the state of emergency was declared the number rose rapidly. We are now cutting part-timers and reducing advertising and supply purchases.” Read more

Maria Ozawa’s deri heru debut, popularity of ‘land mine’ gals top sex biz trends

For a rundown of the top-ten stories thus far in 2010 in the fuzoku trade — that is, businesses offering sexual services — weekly tabloid Shukan Asahi Geino (July 8) turned to Yoshikazu Murazaki, the editor-in-chief of monthly entertainment guide Manzoku.

“Shaking the industry the most has been the deri heru (out-call sex shop) debuts of big-name AV actresses Mai Nadasaka and Kei Megumi at club Muteki in Shibuya and Maria Ozawa at Club Tora no Ana,” explains the editor.

The magazine adds that AV stars had appeared at such establishments in the past but the recent trend has been with bigger names offering their services. “Over the next three months, we expect that even more girls will make their debut,” says the manager of club Muteki. Read more

Japan’s first SM-themed soapland comes to Kobe

As a keen observer of perversions, fetishes and assorted erotica, evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (June 29) believes it has uncovered Japan’s first club that combines soapland and SM services.

Kobe R&B opened in Hyogo Prefecture in May. Individual rooms are outfitted in red and black furnishings and offer the prospect of limb shackling to the ceiling or bed. Various vibrators and electric stimulation devices are provided for the S and M courses.

A sukebe isu (or “lecher chair”), a specially fabricated seat that enables easy access to a customer’s privates, is also at the ready for the culmination soap-down service. Read more

Soapland boy-sans turn tables on their tormenters

“Over the past 20 years, the biggest change the sex industry has undergone has been the male staff at soaplands,” begins Nikkan Gendai (June 24) in the latest installment of its long-running series “The Dark Side of the Sex Business.”

These staff, known as “boy-sans,” typically robust young lads with crewcuts who bow welcome and see off visitors to their erotic bathhouses, belonged to a clearly established pecking order.

In the past, the boy-sans were expected to be particularly deferential to top earning hookers at the shop, who in a good month brought in as much as 7 million yen in revenues, the source of their regular paycheck. Read more

File-sharing program exposes problematic sex-club patrons to public disgrace

When customers at sex shops get a little too frisky or imaginative, causing injury and/or humiliation to the female staff, management is left with little choice but to yank in the welcome mat.

It’s bad enough to be turned away from play for pay, but to make matters worse, reports Weekly Playboy (June 28), it seems that through a flaw in Winnie, a notorious file-sharing program, the customer blacklist for a famous sex shop in Nagoya was leaked onto the Internet.

Along with the customer names were details of what they had done to wear out their welcomes. “He repeatedly blew air into the girl’s vagina and then pushed down on her stomach,” read one. “He bites girls’ genitals,” read another. 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

Paper’s pride probed for ad featuring supplement-soliciting AV actress

Determining that an ad in a recent edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper was a tad over the top — given the appearance of a popular adult video (AV) actress — weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun (Apr. 22) defends its typically titillating turf by calling the conservative daily into account for its actions.

Placed on page 25 of the April 2 edition was an advertisement for an “energy-enhancement” supplement. “It builds men’s confidence,” reads the copy. Positioned next to the large headline is a very sexy lady. She is 39-year-old Reiko Shimura, who is given the titles of “exclusive advisor” for Horiki, the name of the medicinal product, and “V-Cinema actress,” which refers to direct-to-video film productions. Read more

Shibuya AV company president arrested for rape

The president of an adult video (AV) company based in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward was taken into custody by officers from the Harajuku Police Station on March 25 for rape, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Apr. 15).

The incident, whose victim was an aspiring models, occurred during an interview last July in the company’s headquarters, located inside an apartment building. The tabloid says the president, 49, uses the pseudonym Tsunehiko Origuchi. Sankei Sports (Mar. 26) indicates that the suspect’s real name is Koki Yamaguchi, residing in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, and that the victim is 20 years old.

(The company’s name is not provided but the Shukan Jitsuwa article includes a screen grab of the Web page for Ballon-Blue.)

Origuchi usually uses the name ‘Ryutaro Higuchi’ when scouting. “When he started, he scouted AV girls on a freelance basis,” explains a person connected to the AV industry to the weekly. “In one week, he could pull in 10 beauties. He was making six million yen in a month. From that time, he became really famous in the AV production industry. So a lot of companies were utilizing his services. However, he behaves badly with women; he’s always banging the actresses. Because of that, the companies don’t keep him around for a long time.” 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

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

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