"Traditional nightclub districts like Kabukicho, Roppongi and Akasaka have
peaked. Some places in Tokyo are doing all right, but a lot of clubs have been
shut down and chains are downsizing. There aren't as many great hostesses as
there used to be and I don't think you could really say business is doing well
in the capital," Takahiro Marui, managing editor of nightclub guidebook Club
After, tells Spa!
Marui says it's a different story when it comes to the suburbs, where the
nightclub caper is flourishing. It's an argument borne out by a hostess working
at a suburban club, "There's definitely been an increase in customers who
really throw the cash around," she says. "Some of them will put 500,000 yen in
cash on a table and pay for drinks all around. I heard one customer gave a girl
a million yen in cash to go for a drive with him after she'd finished work and
he bought her a really expensive Hermes handbag and stuff from a Don Quixote
store."
High class soapland brothels are also seeing an improvement in their fortunes.
"Soaplands are not just about the (sexual) services we offer. One of our sales
points is the importance we place on human relations. And it's the customers
who have realized this that are the ones that are still using high class
soaplands now. Shooting straight, I'm talking about old guys. We get some old
gentlemen come into our soapland just to have a chat and a bath and they go
home without doing anything sexual," a sex worker from Tokyo's Yoshiwara
soapland district says.
An operator of a high-class call girl service also agrees the graying
population is making business good.
"All my regulars are retirees. The guys who try once just to see what it's like
are always young and it's the old guys who keep coming back," the operator
says. "This business is splitting between ultra-high class services and
ultra-cheap stuff. The foreign girls are doing all the cheap work. There was a
rush of arrests late last year, but things are now back on track. We pull in
about 13 million yen a month now. Whether the economy is good or bad, old guys
will always make sure the cash keeps flowing in."
The Yoshiwara soapland brothel worker also has little time for younger clients,
regardless of how much they may flash the cash.
"We have rich young clients who come in and throw their money around, offering
hefty sums if I agree to go out with them after l finish work," the brothel
worker tells Spa! "What a nerve! I'm not so cheap as to be lured by a wad of
cash."
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reserved. Ryann Connell is a Staff Writer and Senior Desk Editor for the
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