Guys, be a hostess with the mostest...

[bejiita]

in this US$1.4 billion dollar industry.

[Taro Toporific]

in this US$1.4 billion dollar industry.

From the guys I've met it's rather a nerve-racking gig. The oddest part is the HOSTESSES are the best clients of hosts. Go figure.

It's also a tough racket: Only 2 or 3 out of every 100 would-be hosts last more than a few months.

[American Oyaji]

I did it part time for free booze.

[GomiGirl]

I did it part time for free booze.

Floozy..

[Kuang_Grade]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/international/asia/05tokyo.html?pagewanted=print&position=

It's 3:30 A.M. The Off-Duty Hostesses Relax. With Hosts.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

TOKYO, April 4 - "I think they come here because they feel lonely," said Eiji Mukai, 26, the owner of the House of Laputa, a basement club in Kabukicho, this city's biggest red-light district. "Me, too, I get so lonely. I can't stand eating by myself. It's good to work at night, because then I won't feel lonely. I feel so lonely that I own two dogs."

Unlike many customers in this neighborhood, Mr. Mukai's are women, most of them working as hostesses themselves. Mr. Mukai and the half-dozen hosts at Laputa, named after the owner's favorite animation movie, were preparing recently for the night ahead. Their clients would arrive after their male customers had caught the last train home.

Between the night's last train and the following morning's first train, Laputa would come alight. Its hosts would flirt, joke, drink, talk with hostesses who had flirted, joked, drunk, talked with their customers an hour or two earlier.

Hostess clubs, where male customers engage in the safety of paid conversations, are a time-honored business in Japan. But host clubs catering to women have mushroomed in recent years, now employing, according to industry experts, 20,000 men nationwide. About 150 such clubs operate in Kabukicho alone.

The new clubs driving the boom tend to be casual, a departure from the old-fashioned clubs that offered live bands and cheek-to-cheek dancing and treated their generally older clientele like princesses. The new clubs cater to younger women - office employees or those in the sex business. Instead of offering the "princess treatment," they offer what is known by the faddish term "iyashi," which means "relaxation" or "healing." The term's popularity in Japan sometimes suggests that this is one big convalescent nation.

"I come here to look for healing," said Yuika Amami, 20, who lives and works as a hostess in the distant suburb of Hachioji. "I enjoy my work, though it's tiring."
[...]

[Mulboyne]

MDN: Schoolboys employed as hosts at Sapporo club

Two operators of a Sapporo night club who employed three junior high school boys as hosts were arrested along with a club worker for violating adult entertainment business laws, police said...The boys' jobs were uncovered after the mother of one of them contacted police saying, "My son's not coming home at night." The three boys were friends and two of them had applied for a job at the club after seeing an advertisement in a magazine. "We were interested in being hosts," one of boys was quoted as saying when asked why they applied for the job.

The oddest part is the HOSTESSES are the best clients of hosts.

It's terribly sad. The girls start up as hostesses or sex workers to get some extra spending money then, to alleviate the "stress", they go to host clubs. Soon they are working purely to fund these visits. It wouldn't surprise me if the government was funding host clubs since this represents a far better multiplier effect than any public works project. The velocity of circulation of money in Kabukicho must be phenomenal.

[oyajikun]

I was a Host (19 -20) when I lived up in Hachinohe. I actually made more money by introducing other gaijin candidates to the Sacho than I did from the women though.

All in all it was fun job for my age. Free Hennessey, and some sexy hostesses that had been drinking well into the night before ever coming into the club always made for an interesting time.

I did had to watch myself around some of the overzealous Yakuza customers that would come in with the hostesses, but most of the time we would be end up drinking buddies by the end of the night.

From time to time the Sacho would surprise me with a new designer suit that I would have to pay for out of my wages... Again, fun job for a teenager but I feel sorry for anyone getting stuck in that profession.

[kurohinge1]

I did it part time for free booze.

For some reason, that reminds me of Steve Martin's character - Freddy Benson - in the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

[Jack]

I wish I knew of the existant of this job when I was in my twenties.

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/photospecials/graph/photojournal/1.html

[mr. sparkle]

Dude looks like a lady.

[Jack]

I know but look at his customer. She looks very doable and it hurts me that she has to pay the dude. Hey, I'm here....

[Mulboyne]

Guys get promised riches by host clubs but few make a decent living. Most end up bullied by their sempai and hanging out on the street trying to meet their sales quota.

[GomiGirl]

Guys get promised riches by host clubs but few make a decent living. Most end up bullied by their sempai and hanging out on the street trying to meet their sales quota.

Well a very young looking host tried to entice me into his host club with him last Sunday morning around 3am on Yasukuni Dori. This baby faced, anime-haired sweetie spoke so-so English and I kinda felt sorry for him. He said, "hello, I want to go to a host club with you.." Bless him.

I had to turn him down though as I was headed home, but I was kinda curious as these places are usually off limits to FG's.

[Greji]

I had to turn him down though as I was headed home, but I was kinda curious as these places are usually off limits to FG's.

Yah, right! I also have some ocean front property in Yamanashi I want to sell you!

"Bless him" my foot! GG, I bet you snatched that poor kid down the alleyway so fast there was nothing left but his shoes and a cloud of dust! Hi-O-Silver and Away!

[kurohinge1]

Well a very young looking host tried to entice me into his host club with him last Sunday morning around 3am on Yasukuni Dori. This baby faced, anime-haired sweetie spoke so-so English and I kinda felt sorry for him. He said, "hello, I want to go to a host club with you.." . . .

I think he probably said " . . . Post Club . . ." - as in a stamp collecting club.

Those philatelist number over 30,000 in their national society, and Yasukuni Dori at 3am sounds like their kind of caper - those crazy kids. You should've just told him "not this time, but practice your licking for next time".

[GomiGirl]

"Bless him" my foot! GG, I bet you snatched that poor kid down the alleyway so fast there was nothing left but his shoes and a cloud of dust! Hi-O-Silver and Away!

Well I was on my way home to do unspeakable things with my partner who had just sent me rude photos to my keitai... so the young boy had to be disappointed.

[Greji]

Well I was on my way home to do unspeakable things with my partner who had just sent me rude photos to my keitai... so the young boy had to be disappointed.

No sense in creating undue disappointment. You do them both and then talk bad about them over a pint. Keeps them in line that way!

[GomiGirl]

No sense in creating undue disappointment. You do them both and then talk bad about them over a pint. Keeps them in line that way!

You should teach a class in

[Greji]

[quote="GomiGirl"]You should teach a class in ]

My Forte!:devil2:

[Mulboyne]

...I was kinda curious as these places are usually off limits to FG's.

Host clubs are a bit more flexible about letting in FGs, especially if you arrange it beforehand. Their biggest beef is that foreigners don't tend to spend very much so they'd rather not lose high-earning seats on a busy night. However, just because the guy approached you is no guarantee that you'd get in. If he was struggling to meet his quota then he might have just hoped to blag you in if the club was quiet. Kyabakura girls say that they sometimes lose their FG regulars when moving club because the new place won't take their word for it that they aren't potential wa-busters. The only way they find that out is when the big-nosed bloke turns up and is given the crossed arms treatment.

[Mulboyne]

Here's the Reuters article that goes with the picture that Jack linked to initially.

Washington Post: Japan host clubs provide ersatz love for a price

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Yakuza targeting host clubs as new source of income

...The Metropolitan Police Department said most of the estimated 200 host clubs in the Kabukicho district in Shinjuku Ward are paying fees to organized crime syndicates for "protection" and "troubleshooting services"... Tokyo police in July arrested workers at the Sea host club in Kabukicho, including the 27-year-old manager, on suspicion of confinement and extortion...The gangsters are affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate and received 50,000 yen a month from the Sea club to fix problems, such as fights with other clubs over customers and headhunting of its employees, the police said.
...The MPD said the number of host clubs in Kabukicho was about 120 in early 2005. But the figure has since soared to about 200. A wave of TV dramas and movies featuring hosts has apparently fueled the rapid growth in the industry... In Kabukicho, a lucrative sex-related shop usually pays 200,000 yen a month to yakuza, while a prosperous underground casino forks over 500,000 yen, police said. The Sea club, which paid 50,000 yen a month, has 20 to 30 registered hosts. The MPD believes larger clubs with about 100 hosts and monthly revenues of 100 million yen pay much more to the yakuza, officials said...more...

[Greji]

Asahi: Yakuza targeting host clubs as new source of income

What newby did Asahi get to write this? The fellas been playing "five bucks or you don't work this corner" longer then the NYPD. It is almost tradition in the heavy traveled watering hole areas to provide the weekly or monthly envelope. Anybody who has spent any reasonable amount of time on either side of the bar knows this. It's just amazing that Asahi has just found out about it!

[Mulboyne]

I was wondering why this article appeared too. Everyone knows those businesses pay off the yakuza. There is no question of gangsters "turning to" host clubs as if they had somehow ignored them when they opened.

I was wondering whether the police might have become irritated by the way that hosts have become staple parts of mainstream TV and decided talk up the seamy side too. Marxy over at neomarxisme had a recent entry about the character of a host appearing in a Boss TV commercial. As one commenter said, the ad gets its impact because the host is incongruous set against the salaryman but its hard to imagine an advertiser using a hostess in contrast to a housewife in the same way.