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Latest issue of Takarajima chock full of chicks

Takarajima September
Takarajima September
The September issue of Takarajima magazine features a 30-page special titled “Deai-kei no Onna-tachi,” about foul gals on the prowl. The report starts out with an essay by sociologist Shinji Miyadai — the maven of the enjo kosai (“compensated dating”) crowd — that looks back on the two decades since terekura (“telephone clubs”) underwent a boom back in the mid-1980s. The next piece classifies the types of businesses where women on the make congregate, including o-miai (“matchmaking”) pubs and serikura, modern-day slave auctions where women agree to go out with the highest bidder.

Pages 24-27 look into the whos, whats and hows of the enjo kosai trade, and provide a fascinating sidebar on “secret slang,” euphemisms used to prevent the gals’ commercial messages from being flagged by monitors hired to keep keitai sites clean. (One example: “Yukichi Ichi-san” means 13,000 yen, so said because the 10,000-yen bill bears the image of educator Yukichi Fukuzawa. “San” means three.)

Pages 30-31 cover what’s on the minds of ladies from Saitama, and a piece on pages 36-37 looks at women who troll for men on social network sites like mixi and various blogs.

And there’s still more to come: pages 44-45 report that desperate single women are infiltrating the “Gay Town” in Shinjuku 2-chome in search of stud services. The going rate for a romp in the sack is 30,000 yen for three hours, it reports, and the lady is also expected to pick up the tab for dinner, drinks and the hotel room charge.

For those interested in the goings-on in neighboring countries, Takarajima provides details of the emergence of a similar deai-kei phenomenon in South Korea (pages 46-47), and then moves on to introduce women who have grown wealthy thanks to the “Great Sexual Cultural Revolution” in China (pages 48-49). These and more lurid revelations await, for just 630 yen. (K.S.)