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Tokyo’s high-end hookers get lift from ‘Abenomics’

Shukan Post June 7
Shukan Post June 7
Despite months of speculation to the contrary, “Abenomics” may finally be stimulating Japan’s sex industry, reports weekly tabloid Shukan Post (June 7).

Positive impacts on the adult-entertainment industry of the much ballyhooed initiative — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pledge to raise government spending in an effort to boost prices — had already been speculated in recent weeks.

Yet such sentiments seem to be stiffening in Tokyo. The magazine speaks with the manager of deri heru (“delivery health”) club Tora no Ana (Tiger Hole), whose roster of 70 girls includes popular adult video star Maria Ozawa.

“Our girls are priced based on rank,” says the manager, whose operation (@clubtoranoana on Twitter) is effectively a call-girl service. “The rates for our top-class talent begin at 150,000 yen for the first 70 minutes. Right now, we have 70 customers on our waiting list. I couldn’t have imagined such a situation a year ago.”

In recent years, a double whammy — the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the Great East Japan Earthquake three years later — had staggered the industry.

Times have since changed. Though the market has cooled a bit over the last week, Abenomics had boosted the Nikkei stock index by more than 60 percent since November.

“We are getting calls from customers staying in high-end hotels in the city whose rates are 50,000 yen,” continues the manager. “So at a minimum they are outlaying 200,000 yen for a night of fun.”

Shukan Post June 7
Shukan Post June 7
It is not just the deri heru trade that is booming. A veteran hostess in the Ginza entertainment area says that she was scraping by last year with a “mistress contract” of 300,000 yen a month.

“The widespread drop in prices made things so difficult,” she says, adding that some girls could be bought for as little as 150,000 yen a month. “That’s dumping.”

But starting this year, doctors and real estate industry types have returned, encouraged by the market. Her commissioned income now is between 400,000 and 500,000 yen a month, and she has just moved to a ritzy apartment in Minato Ward.

“The results of Abenomics are varied,” she concludes.

Source: “Ginza hosutesu anjin keiyaku-ryo appu de ‘Abenomikusu samazama desu,'” Shukan Post (June 7)