Tokyo Girls chronicles life of four Canadians working as hostesses

There are some 11,000 registered hostess clubs in Tokyo.

We’ve seen plenty of overseas interest in the life of a Japanese hostess before, such as this short video chronicling a regular 24 hours for one Tokyo lady.

But what about the foreign hostesses? As we all known, there are legions of Russian and other nationalities staffing the hostess clubs of Ginza and elsewhere, often on dubious visa statuses.

It’s a bit old but we came across this 60-minute documentary about foreign hostesses working in Tokyo.

Called Tokyo Girls, it is about four Canadians whose story may or may not be fairly typical. Some of the women’s experiences go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, so it provides a window into an earlier time where money flowed more easily in Japan.

This feature documentary is a candid journey into the world of 4 young Canadian women who work as well-paid hostesses in exclusive Japanese nightclubs. Lured by adventure and easy money, these modern-day geisha find themselves caught up in the mizu shobai – the complex “floating water world” of Tokyo clubs and bars. Drawn by fast money, some women become consumed by the lavish lifestyle and forget why they came. One hostess calls it “losing the plot.” With a pulsating visual style, Tokyo Girls captures the raw energy of urban Japan and its fascination with the new.

It looks at their reasons for getting into hostessing, their culture shock when they first arrived, and the repercussions of their choice of work.

They also make the point that hostessing is “illegal”, though we’re not sure what this exactly means.