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 ...
It seems whenever the western media wants something saucy, they make an article or video about Japanese hostesses.
Vice did a 24-hours-in-the-life-of video of a "high-class hostess" last year.
Now the BBC has jumped in with this interview with a Kabukicho hostess.
As a hostess at a club in Shinjuku Kabuki-cho, Emiri Aizawa, 27, pours drinks, lights cigarettes and listens to men.
"My main job is let them have fun," she says.
"Of course, there have been customers who asked for more, because we are men and women, but I politely say, 'No.' "I don't think you can do this job ...
The Asahi Shimbun has an interesting translated story following up on the "controversial court ruling that equates a bar hostess having sex with a customer to prostitution".
We reported on this in May, when a judge said a hostess mama-san was simply doing makura eigyo ("pillow business") by sleeping with a client.
Lawyers specializing in divorce and adultery cases, private detectives who investigate cases of adultery and hostesses in the Ginza, where the defendant operates her establishment, all voiced concern. They said the ruling, by Judge Masamitsu Shiseki of the Tokyo District ...
A judge has made a ruling which should mean hostesses and hostess club mama-san's (the older ladies who own and/or manage the club) can rest easy.
The wife of a CEO who spent around seven years having an affair with the mama of a Ginza hostess club sued her husband's sexual partner for "mental suffering" she had caused. She wanted compensation of ¥4 million ($32,000).
The judge said that the Ginza mama-san was just doing makura eigyo ("pillow business"), the euphemism for when people have sex to further their career or do business. In other words, the Ginza hostess mama-san only ...
According to an article on Nikkan Gendai, a quarter of Japanese girls have experience working in what is euphemistically known as mizu-shobai. This can apply to full-on hostesses but also just girls working in "snack" bars, girls' bars, and so on.
The article quotes a survey of 3,563 women around Japan asking if they have experience working at night at a kyabakura (cabaret, a type of hostess club) or snack bar.
23% answered yes.
If we add in how many have experience working in prostitution or in AV, the numbers grow bigger still.
According to one specialist writer, then ...
The Japan Times published a recent article about the fascinating -- and inspiring -- tale of Rie Saito.
Saito, who lost her hearing at age 1, plans to run in the April 26 election in Tokyo’s Kita Ward Assembly as a Nippon wo Genki ni Suru Kai (Party to Revitalize Japan) candidate. A best-selling author who was once the No. 1 hostess at a club in Tokyo’s Ginza district, Saito was known as the hitsudan hostess who used writing to communicate with her customers.
So this hottie would use paper to keep her patrons happy in Ginza and encourage them to buy her drinks.
Being a ...
Our lovely lady this week is Mai Kamuro (神室 舞衣).
Born 1984, Mai Kamuro was a hostess in Fukuoka and Roppongi before she started appearing on TV as a tarento. Her mainstream career only started relatively recently -- a TV debut in 2014 -- so we are curious to know what dark things she got up to after her hostessing officially ended at the age of 24. Our minds are running riot thinking how she could have plied her trade...
She is also a gravure model, making her debut at the grand old age of 29, with some alluring shoots showing off her pleasant D-cup, gorgeous body, and angelic ...
Another Vice Japan short film here, this time following Kanae Murakami, a 20-year-old hostess plying her trade in Ginza's district of high-class clubs.
For all those who have sympathetic views of hostesses as girls who have to put up with drinking a lot with ugly men in smoky bars and who are only a fine line away from being a prostitute... well, first of all, keep in mind that Kanae earns around 40,000 yen a day -- something like four or five times what someone her age would be making in a job.
She works five days a week, from around 8pm to 5am or later -- and must also set aside an hour ...
Another day, another fetish-related crime.
We only just recently blogged about the man who stole everything from satchels to curtains from an elementary school, and now comes this news -- first shared on Tokyo Reporter -- of a thief whose interests was exclusively the shoes of hostesses.
Well, anything related to hostesses we can understand; these ladies inspire a thousand fetishes.
On Monday Tokyo Metropolitan Police announced that they had arrested a man for stealing shoes from hostesses.
Sho Sato (28) took high-heeled shoes from clubs in Tokyo, Kanagawa and Saitama.
The ...
If something seems too good to be true, it typically is.
Patrons of a hostess club in Hong Kong may have thought their companions serving them overpriced drinks were going to be super hot, given the images that advertised the ladies to be found inside...
In fact, keen-eyed visitors to the K-Pressure may even have been forgiven for thinking that the girls in the staff list included Japanese Gravure idols Yuri Morishita and Yuu Tejima, given that their photos adorned the outside of the bar.
While it is well-known that certain minor Gravure idols moonlight as prostitutes and hostesses, or are ...
