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[Blade2.0]

Host clubs. These have to be one of the strangest mainstream aspects of Japanese culture. Anime hair guys caked in makeup who pretend to fall in love with women, then extract tens of thousands of dollars from them, sometimes forcing them into prostitution to pay their debts to the club for the extravagant fees they incur by drinking there and experiencing the fantasy of Sephiroth charming them. Heavily tied to organized crime, of course. But still popular.

There's a short documentary on Youtube about it that's worth a watch. In this one, the host admits that one of his young clients sold herself into prostitution to pay for her drink tab after falling in love with him, which is horrifying and bizarre. But there's another big twist...




I also found this full length documentary from 2006 called The Great Happiness Space: Tales of an Osaka Love Thief, which delves into Osaka host club culture. Watching it now and it's interesting and depraved.




There's also a British youtuber who took on the role of a host for a night. This video sidesteps all the grimdark realities of the clubs (kind of a disservice) but still highlights how strange they are. The number one host at this club is a very obese guy with an outrageously faulty personality who extracts tens of thousands of dollars a night from his female customers.




Japan is endlessly fascinating...

obese male, you say. Guess I'm going to Japan.

 

[poppabk]

Well, every culture has things that other cultures don't understand. As long as no one gets hurt, let them do what they want.

Seems like everyone is getting hurt. The women are getting fleeced, the men are drinking and puking repeatedly, some puking up blood.

 

[Krappadizzle]

When we pulled into Japan when I was in the military they gave us a briefing on these places. They have a very unique night life and cafe culture that was cool to see. I will say though, I spent more time being kicked out of nightclubs than actually getting to spend much time in the atmosphere. Can't say I blame them, a lot just had blanket bans or A. Americans or B. Military. I can imagine there's been a lot of drunk sailors messing shit up...

 

[Beer Baelly]

 

[Porcile]

I read a news article in Japanese recently about a girl who started working in a hostess club or something but eventually got in debt and had to start prostituting herself. Ended up with 4 STDs, all four at the same time, and was on the verge of a prolapsed anus from all the anal sex. She had to do anal sex because she couldn't make enough money doing the more vanilla stuff. But she didn't have any other out except more sex work but she didn't really seem that bothered about it.

I would say let people do and spend money however they want, but there is such a dark underbelly of mental illness, addiction and exploitation to this industry in Japan. It isn't unusual to see guys that look this like brazenly trying to pick up regular girls on the street for club jobs (and eventually porn etc) and it's pretty obvious those girls can be as young as like 13 or 14 years old. To be fair, that kind of stuff was definitely worse during the pandemic and some of these areas have cleaned up a little, but obviously industries like that just go more underground.

 

[EviLore]

Squeaky voiced maid cafe girl is actually a human trafficker who gets paid to sell girls to brothels and hostess bars.

She lures girls in by posting hyper-kawaii innocent maid girl photos on instagram and DMs the girls who comment on her posts, appealing to their desire to be like her. Then sells the girls into prostitution, getting an upfront fee based on their looks and 10% of their ongoing earnings.

Obviously this sort of thing happens everywhere in different forms, but phew, something particularly sinister about her approach and disposition.