Spa!

Post-quake woes set Fukushima’s foamy funspots on the road to ruin

By Kazutaka Shimanaka • May 6, 2011

“When I was in the Onahama district of Iwaki City to view the tsunami damage, one of the locals advised me to check a certain place out,” writes the reporter for Spa! (May 3-10). “I walked along streets lined with rubble and eventually came to some fairly robust ferroconcrete structures that were still standing.”

Saturated Sapporo sex market sends working women to extremes

By Kenji Nakano • February 19, 2011

A surge of in the number of women engaging in low-level, sponsor-based relationships is becoming evident in Japan’s suburbs, especially Hokkaido, reports Spa! (Feb. 22).

Real yakuza bust: Expansion of anti-gang legislation may give unwanted results

By Kenji Nakano • January 27, 2011

NPA commissioner: ‘It will likely become the most comprehensive (legislation) of them all’

Mad media coverage of Ebizo incident due to public’s jealousy

By Kenji Nakano • December 9, 2010

‘That stare is from a man who has had so many ladies’

Rural Japanese island’s titillating treasures don’t come cheap

By CJ • October 2, 2010

An estimated 200 prostitutes openly work out of snack clubs

Tokyo furikome fraudsters go from princes to paupers

By Kenji Nakano • May 23, 2010

‘I used to say that I am making as much in one month as Ichiro makes in a year’

Japan’s cunning bottakuri bars con compliant customers

By Kenji Nakano • January 30, 2010

Osaka ‘girl’s bars’ are a hotbed of trouble

Salons supplying sleaze shuttered across Japan

By Kenji Nakano • December 29, 2009

On a recent visit to Tokyo’s infamous Kabukicho entertainment district, Spa! (Dec. 22) discovered that the luminescent Ichiban-gai arch, which hangs above one entrance near Shinjuku Station, was unlit. Is this how far Kabukicho has sunk?

Looking toward 2009: What to (s)expect in the year to cum

By Kazutaka Shimanaka • December 12, 2008

What’s the latest news from the commercial sex business? Only a magazine like Spa! (Dec. 16) could touch on such a topic with a headline like “Nookie-pedia 2008.” Well actually it’s “Nuki-pedia,” the term nuki being a slang term akin to “getting off.”