Head over to Ebisu, a plush part of Tokyo just south of Shibuya, where you can visit Total Beauty Salon ZOOM and transform yourself into the opposite sex... temporarily, at least.
It's not a sex change medical clinic per se but it does offer beauty treatment courses for crossdressers (otoko no ko or josoko), both male or female.
As with lots of things in Japanese sexuality, there's little black and white here. Leave your preconceptions of transsexuality and homosexuality at the door, since in Japan cross-dressing does not mean you are "gay" and it often merges with more casual ...
7.6% of people in Japan are gay, lesbian or have gender identity disorder.
That's according to a Dentsu survey published in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on April 24th (and that's also the sway they word the "groupings" too). It equates to 1 in 13 people.
The results were released on April 23rd. They were conducted on around 70,000 adults in Japan through an online questionnaire.
A similar survey in 2012 found that 5.2% of people, or 1 in 19 people, identified as LGBT.
The new survey was conducted on April 7th and April 8th with 69,989 people aged 20-59 across Japan.
However, ...
Recently a Saitama civil servant got himself arrested for entering a female-only changing room at a spa while in drag.
Perhaps he should have gone to Tokyo...
Because Josokko Koishitsu (literally meaning "cross-dresser changing room" but with the English name Locker Girls Club) has just opened in Nichome, Shinjuku's gay district. Josokko Koishitsu (or "Kouishitsu" depending on your Romanicizing preferences) is a changing room facility especially for newhalf, otoko no ko cross-dressers and other types of transgender.
After all, if you are heading out to Nichome for some fun, ...
Fetish Festival (Feti-Fes) was held in Tokyo on Sunday January 25th at an inconspicuous venue near Harajuku.
There were 96 booths, including cosplayers, idols, bondage artists, and more, spread out over six seriously packed floors, plus a basement showing the "Underground Fetish Film Festival" screenings.
Feti-Fes was first held in January 2013, since then it has been held eight times around Japan. This festival -- the fifth in Tokyo -- was the biggest so far and there seemed to be hundreds of visitors by our estimate.
Due to legal reasons, there was no nudity allowed in the ...
Be careful. With some prudent cropping, it's easy to be deceived.
We've all be in one of those sketchy clubs and thought that girl in the corner looked hot, only to be disappointed when our hands went for a fondle in the taxi on the way to a hotel. We've all been there, right?
Anyway, Japanese cross-dressers (josou) have been demonstrating just how hot they look with some careful framing. A photo from the mouth down can be surprisingly deceptive!
See what we ...
Happy Christmas to all our readers and visitors!
Christmas in Japan is a time for three things: strawberry shortcake, KFC chicken, and sex. Especially Christmas Eve is seen as the most romantic time of the year, the night when you are meant to take a special someone out on an expensive date.
Not everyone has a girlfriend so this time of year can be a bit lonely for singletons.
But cross-dressing cosplayer Nemunemunnn decided to take the matter into "his" own hands. He cross-dressed as his own cute "girlfriend".
The results are impressive. Would you know the ...
We're on a bit of a cross-dressing roll at the moment. After blogging about a major new josou club and bar in Osaka we now want to introduce a new photography exhibition at Ginza's Vanilla Gallery.
It features portraits Tachibana has made over six years of newhalf (shemales) and josou cross-dressers.
The exhibition is called "Traces of josou and the Theory of Happiness". Tachibana runs a studio that specializes in portrait photography for cross-dressers and shemales, as well as hair and make-up services. She has worked with top idols to old-timers in their seventies -- more than ...
Onna no ko Kurabu (Girls' Club) is where the action's at if you want an easy way to sample Japanese cross-dressing subculture.
Man or woman, you can go to the club -- currently one in Tokyo, with a new club in Osaka's down-and-dirty Dotonbori district from December 1st -- to try on girls' clothing. The club keeps a wardrobe of rental clothes and wigs for joso (or josou) cosplay, dressing up as a girl.
As we know, otoko no ko cross-dressing cosplay is big in Japan, though it is a hard-to-define point somewhere between "transvestite" and "cosplayer". Joso is the more conventional ...
We already know that there's a strong subculture in Japan for cross-dressing -- and one which doesn't fit easily into any western ideas of gay culture -- but here's something new.
Metrosexual Japanese men worried about their nipples showing through t-shirts may be turning to these nipple stickers to cover up.
There are several products out there on the market, it seems. The "Nipple Shields" by Tex Mex are marketed as "fashion help for men", especially young high-fliers in the business world who don't want their muscular chests with pokey nipples showing through their tight white ...
Otoko no Ko "male daughter" cross-dressing cosplay is really getting big in Tokyo now. The fetish subculture has its only monthly event in Shinjuku called Propaganda. There are shops, maid cafes and even special photobooks.
Even more intriguingly, there are many Otoko no Ko cosplay adult toys too, mostly created by Tama Toys -- from anus smell sprays to manicure sets, panties, bras, garter, wigs and more!
Well, now there is a way to check the time online with a Otoko no Ko flavor!
Keen-eyed readers may see a connection here to the successful Bijin Tokei series of digital clock ...
