TOKYO (TR) – An adult influencer boasting 1.3 million social media followers has revealed she initially plunged into the underground sex industry to repay a 20-million-yen debt to her parents before committing suicide, only to discover a highly lucrative talent for monetizing male desire.
Known professionally as “Rurutan,” the influencer detailed her bizarre journey from a suicidal law student to a top-ranking sex worker in the Kabukicho red-light district in a recent dialogue with author Akira Tachibana for Nikkan Spa! (Aug. 29). The discussion centered on her mastery of “Eros Capital” — the concept of leveraging female sexual attractiveness as a powerful economic asset.
“No point in living”
According to Rurutan, she first realized the dark reality of her “Eros Capital” in middle school. While riding a train with her club teammates, a man sitting across from them began masturbating while staring at the young girls.
“I can still vividly remember something seeping into his red jersey,” she recalled, adding that the incident, along with male classmates suddenly obsessing over her large breasts, made her realize that sex and physical appeal held tangible value.
Years later, while struggling through a law degree at university, her mental health plummeted.
“I thought there was no point in living anymore,” Rurutan said. “I decided to repay the 20 million yen my parents had spent on me up to that point, and then die.”
Kabukicho
Seeking the fastest way to amass the cash, she answered a recruitment ad for a “delivery health” (call girl) service operating out of Shimbashi. Initially, the work served as a twisted form of therapy. Operating with a strong desire for approval, being repeatedly requested by clients satisfied her need to be loved, gradually dulling her suicidal urges.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to relocate to a parlor in Shinjuku Ward cutthroat Kabukicho district, where her mindset shifted from seeking affection to cold, calculated capitalism.
Observing the fierce competition among women who juggled street prostitution, sugar daddies, and parlor work, Rurutan began analyzing the sex trade strictly as a business. Recognizing that a sex worker’s earning potential has a strict expiration date, she devised a strategy to maximize her long-term profits.
Instead of draining a client’s wallet in a few high-priced sessions, she intentionally slowed down their consumption speed. Tachibana likened her approach to the modern marketing strategies of Las Vegas casinos: rather than bankrupting a gambler in one night, the goal is to extract a steady stream of revenue over decades — a concept Tachibana called a “gambling version of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
Social media
To expand her clientele beyond the parlor’s doors, Rurutan weaponized social media. She directed her existing parlor clients to interact with her on X. Their engagement tricked the platform’s algorithms into boosting her profile, quickly skyrocketing her follower count past 10,000 and giving her the leverage to negotiate higher percentage cuts from her parlor bosses.
Today, she stands as a massively successful “desire marketer,” though she admits she has little interest in actually spending her wealth.
“I was always happy with my report cards and loved ranking high on practice exams. But when you enter university, the evaluation criteria suddenly change,” Rurutan explained. “What I found instead was the money I earned in the sex industry. Money is a clear evaluation of your hard work. I don’t really want 100 million yen, but I wanted to prove I could earn it.”
