Tokyo Girls

[ultragaijin]

Apparently, the US Travel Channel is currently running a show called Tokyo Girls (http://www.mediarights.org/ontv/closeup.php?xfr_prg_id=226), which exposes the seedy underbelly of the foreign hostess lifestyle in Tokyo. I guess "Travel" has a pretty broad definition in the minds of whoever runs the Discovery Channel network. Sorry, I couldn't find a better link than that.

While searching for it though, I came up with this: Ask an XPAT: Women's Channel (http://tokyo.asiaxpat.com/womens/). Kinda like a F*cked Gaijin for the ladies, covering all of Asia. :eye:

[Anonymous]

The show is mainly about western women (mainly US and Canadian)working in the hostess bars entertaining Japanese men. They go on to talk about the silly amounts of money the Japanese men lavish on them. One lady was apparently given a $60,000 Rolex and a million yen cash after having sex with a yakuza dude that apparently required only 20 seconds of her time. She described his tatooing in a fair amount of detail, including the tatoo on his chest of a Geisha portrayed as having been stabbed in the back of her head, the end of the blade protruding her eye with blood gushing. Anyhow, the Yakuza of the hour apparently bought her an apartment and secured a bank account for her.....from which she emptied the cash the following day and escaped to an island in Thailand (rightfully scared to death).

Anyway, the show isn't what you would expect. Rather than calling it "Tokyo Girls", something along the lines of "Sukebe Nihonjin Men Being Stupid With Their Money" would have been more appropriate. The Travel Channel is airing the show after 9:00 p.m. just subsequent to an hour show on Tokyo...which ain't bad by the way.

[ultragaijin]

Related story: Most long-time Tokyo residents will tell you that Roppongi has gone down market and seedy. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/japan010315_hostess.html)

[cstaylor]

Related story: Most long-time Tokyo residents will tell you that Roppongi has gone down market and seedy. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/japan010315_hostess.html)I've never been to Roppongi... is it as bad as the article makes it sound? :?:

[miniGaijin]

Trust me, my brother. Roppongi is a shithole. Take my advice: stay as far away as possible. It's a complete cesspool of vomit and piss-stained floors with a bunch of smelly, ugly fucking gaijin rubbing their crotches up against my head. And that's inside a nice place. Out on the street, it's even worse.

Don't even get me started about those disease-ridden (and often-ridden) hooers. Think about it, grasshopper, everyone knows Roppongi is worse than the rancid pit under an outhouse. What the hell kind of people do you think would go there, knowing that?

In fact, you should just stay in your barn out in the country, and let me handle things in the big city.

[kamome]

Mini-G is right as always. Roppongi is for losers. Better to stick to the nice parts of Tokyo, if you have the cash to spend.

[Anonymous]

I've never been to Roppongi... is it as bad as the article makes it sound?

No more worse than other nightspots in the city such as Kabuki-cho or Akasaka. The only difference is in the concentration of gaijin (which is why certain gaijin stick their noses up at the thought of it). Believe it or not, there are some nice restaurants in the area and not everybody goes there to go to hostess clubs, discos and bars. 8)

[ultragaijin]

But on the whole, you can do a lot better with places in nearby Aoyama or Nishi-Azabu.

[mercutio]

In Magda's case, her short career as a hostess in Roppongi ended when she met and fell in love with a Canadian fitness instructor who bought her out of her contract.

Damnit does this mean i need to add money to my budget for buying out hotess contracts too!! damnit... now its just "ho' money, ho' money, ho' money!"

[ultragaijin]

You can laugh now...

[Mr. BIG]

I've never lived in Tokyo, and I've never been to Roppongi at night, so I don't know how much weight my opinion has in this, but....

Last summer I stayed in Tokyo for a long weekend with a Japanese buddy of mine.....he was from the 'inaka', so we stayed in capsule hotels for the length of the trip. One night our hotel happened to be in Ikebukuro-it's right down the street from Rikkyou Daigaku, and except for a few gentlemens' clubs scattered about, it seemed like an OK place during the day.

At night, me and my buddy went strolling around some Tokyo hotspots, and our way back through the streets around Ikebukuro just amazed me....the crowd shifted suddenly from hoards of drunken young people into shifty-looking salary-men and even shiftier-looking girls standing around....one lady from south-america asked me in engrish if I was looking 4 a massage.....I said 'no english'......

In short, Ikebukuro was a real scumm-den at night. It sounds a lot like the descriptions of Roppongi that were posted earlier, and if any veterans have some input it would really clear up my misconceptions about Roppongi!![/list]