Lonely Japanese find solace in 'rent a friend' agencies
...Ryuichi Ichinokawa...is a professional stand-in, part of a growing service sector that rents out fake spouses, best men, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends to spare their clients' blushes at social functions such as weddings and funerals...The number of rent-a-friend agencies in Japan has doubled to about 10 in the past eight years. The best known, Office Agent, has 1,000 people on its books. The rise of the phony friend is a symptom of social and economic changes, combined with a deep-seated cultural aversion to giving personal and professional problems a public airing...
McMurry describes this business as a growing trend but perhaps the real trend is the tendency of the foreign press to write about this subject. Hagemashitai featured in a January report by the BBC while Office Agents mention on their website that they have appeared in reports by the Daily Telegraph, Reuters, Business Week and the Japan Times. Not to mention numerous blogs. Neojaponisme was quite miffed that the BBC had covered it. To be slightly fairer to the foreign press, Japanese media outlets have also given the firms considerable coverage.
