Jake Adelstein's Blog, page 91

Deai kissa matchmaking cafes more than just a meet n' greet

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In the wake of the September murder of a 22-year-old university student by a man she met at a deai kissa, or matchmaking cafe, the Mainichi ran an article (Japanese here) that takes a look inside the very same venue where the pair met. The cafe is still running business as usual, still turning a blind eye to the interactions between customers in their "meeting rooms". The Mainichi article gives attention to two potential sides of the deai kissa coin, interviewing both a woman who waits for a customer looking to negotiate, and another who visits to escape the doldrums of life as a telephone receptionist.

But what really goes on in a deai kissa? Are the clubs as management makes them out to be–innocuous meeting places for would-be couples–with a stray shady deal happening now and then, or are they knowingly operated as hotbeds for prostitution?

On the surface, they seem like a great way to take the pains and awkwardness out of dating for a society that has become infamous for its timid youth who are reluctant to kill "the wa". Everything takes place with the cafe staff as mediators. Men can observe unseen from behind glass. Women wait to be chosen, then reject at will without having to say anything directly.

A look online into discussions of the cafes and deai kissa portal sites paints a mixed picture. There is overwhelming yet, for the most part unspoken, implication that these matchmaking cafes are not for those looking to meet members of the opposite sex for simply lunch and karaoke.

Photos of women feature prominently on sites, with many displaying page after page of headless ladies, often claiming that this visit to the kissa is their first experience. Similar lineups of men are nowhere to be found, leading one to believe that free entry and the chance to be ogled by strangers through one-sided windows is enough for women to flock in droves.

One portal site, deai-cafe.net, gives gratuitous PR to certain cafes through contrived conversations with, and lecherous photos of, women who are supposedly just there to blow a few hours talking to strangers.

Although a bit dated, this YouTube video does little to conceal the assumed intention of a visit to a deai kissa: booty.

On his visit to "Cafe de Ai Ai" in Ueno, Abe-san learns how the system works. When he becomes a member of the cafe–a requirement for men using most deai kissa–he holds up the membership card with a grin, the words "passport to sex" flashed below. If you can make it through all the terrible muzak, you see the owner and Abe-san chuckling about a "short engagement" some couples have, and how the possibility of meeting someone (for sex) for much higher than just going up to someone on the street.

Other videos, especially those taken "undercover" and by the cafes themselves are slightly more explicit. In some cases the view pans across a room of waiting women, lingering on the sexy bits. In others, daringly short skirts and low necklines are prostrated in front of the camera. Some have two-way mirrors both above and below the belt, giving men a worms-eye view of stocking-clad ladies seated on high stools.

Explaining the system on a door in Shibuya

Despite all this, there is nothing explicitly illegal or wrong about what the cafes are doing. Most allow only those over 18 to enter–in line with the NPA regulations set to take effect in January–and there is no money changing hands in-store. While they may serve as venues to find a quick fling, on the surface its nothing more than a bunch of randy-but-shy adults going about their business.

Below those waters is a different story, however. For one, men don't have it that easy. The Abe-san video above mentions sakura, or women who work for an establishment secretly, agreeing to go on a date in order to get men to pay the 3,000 to 5,000 yen necessary to take her out then buggering off soon after, or getting a free meal and giving bogus contact information. Likewise, there are women who are habitual deai kissa users known as kaiten-jo, getting free meals or entertainment then extorting money for transportation from their dates before heading back and repeating the process.

This video touches on such kaiten-jo, and explains how high school girls are freely allowed in and out of many establishments despite the fact that minors are technically prohibited. Some cafes split waiting areas into under- and over-18, providing a space where teenagers can go to read manga and eat snacks for free while allowing men to peek up their skirts from the other side of the mirror. One girl says she can get around 20,000 yen from a day at a deai kissa, while a friend has gotten up to 50,000 yen before. Educational analyst Naoki Ogi is interviewed, saying that an estimated 80 percent of men visit matchmaking cafes looking to buy sex. This cafe even uses a high school girl as advertising to attract customers.

Yet there is little hard evidence that these cafes are being used as places to pick up prostitutes, underage or not. A number of people do seem to be using deai kissa for their original intention based on the amount of sites warning against sakura and kaiten-jo. With revisions to the adult-entertainment laws in January putting deai kissa in the same category as love hotels and soaplands, a crackdown on minors in the cafes may succeed in stamping out the problem there, but simply drive enjo-kosai activities to another place.

JSRC is now on Twitter!

Just a bit of housekeeping: Japan Subculture Research Center now has a Twitter feed exclusively for updates. A slightly simpler way to find out about new posts than RSS for those who prefer to communicate in 140 characters or less. Take a look! Also, don't forget to follow Jake Adelstein himself on Twitter.

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Yakuza Not Leaving The Construction Industry With A Whimper But A Bang

Under the guidance of the National Police Agency, the construction industry is taking great steps to remove yakuza (boryokudan) and other anti-social forces from public works projects and all aspects of the construction industry. Apparently, the yakuza are not happy with this new impetus. On the morning of October 12th, in Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Kami Ochiai 4-chome, a gun was found near the entrance of a demolition and construction site for Seibo University. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Totsuka PD were notified and found that a shot had been fired through the steel fence surrounding the construction site. The gun found at the scene was an automatic with several rounds still intact.

According to news reports, an unidentifed man working close to the site, heard sounds like a tire being punctured at 2:40 am on the same day. Since October of last year, there have been four other construction sites in Tokyo where bullets were fired.  The construction company working on the Seibo University site has gone on record that it will be severing ties with all organized crime groups and implementing that policy in its larger public works as well.  Police sources believe that this case was a clear warning by an organized crime group, hungry for construction projects, that they will not be easily dismissed.  The relationships between this shooting and previous incidents is unclear. If you were in a punny mood, you could say that gunshots represent yakuza "destructive criticism" of the new policies rather than the usual "constructive criticism" that one would hope for from these chivalorous groups.

[image error]NHK News Report.

Note: On a more serious note, for the safety of the construction firms and their employees, that are being targetted for reprisals by organized crime, we have omitted the company names from the article.

Construction companies begin to lay yakuza-free foundations

For those who don't keep up with the Japan Times, Brett Bull has a great article up about efforts within the construction industry to drive out yakuza groups, focusing on the shitamachi behemoth, Tokyo Sky Tree.

In November 2008, members of construction companies formed a committee designed to exclude gangster groups. A similar arrangement was conceived for the new incarnation of the Kabuki-za theater in Ginza, Chuo Ward, whose historic building closed this year.

"We have formed alliances with construction companies that are designed to shut off yakuza involvement in these projects," says Hiroichi Katayama, superintendent of the Organized Crime Elimination division within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

Like organized crime in other countries, yakuza gangs have traditionally been tightly intertwined with Japan's construction corporations, but the industry might now be seeing criminal organizations as something other than a necessary evil.

Read the full article here.

While the yakuza have wisened up and now boast a wide range of revenue streams–from child porn to IT venture companies–having a finger in Tokyo's delectable construction pie still appears to be important in the groups' financial strategy, based on the series of retaliations described towards the end of the piece. The article goes on to discuss how Fukuoka prefecture has enacted regulations to fine any individual or company that contributes funds to organized crime activities because, according to the NPA, "cutting off funds to gangs is the best way to eliminate their influence." That may be true, but considering the violent measures used by yakuza when they don't receive the cooperation they expected, those being extorted may have quite a vital decision to make.

Check out Brett's Tokyo Reporter site for more on the yakuza along some steamy smut from the weeklies.

Singing cops throw away retirement plans to serenade fellow seniors

Could we somehow combine the two?

From the sugary sweet yet sexy AKB48 to… retired cops?! Yasushi Akimoto, the producer and director famous for pandering to the desires of millions of 40s and 50s-ish salarymen in a socially-acceptable way with the infamous Akiba-kei idol group, has set an October date for the debut of his next project: OJS48.

News of OJS48, whose letters stand for "OJi-San," hit the Japanese media Tuesday. A bit of a misnomer, the group is formed by only 16 members but...

Playing the yakuza puppet master in "The Yakuza Diaries"

For all those who spent hours as a child delightfully flipping to page 28, back to page 11, then on to page 19 to discover their fate in the popular "choose your own adventure" books, this is for you. Someone took the time and wrote up a short yakuza version of those multiple choice stories, documenting the fateful night of one "Yamashita-gumi" member in The Yakuza Diaries. While the adventure is a bit short and there's some creative license taken in parts, it's worth a few giggles and not a ...

Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From the Yakuza or the Cops That Arrest Them #3: If you love your family, don't shoot yourself to death

A few weeks ago, a yakuza boss who I only knew vaguely shot himself to death. He was badly in debt and facing charges of extortion. I'm sure he was guilty.  I knew his son from a story I did years ago on a Korean-Japanese Savings and Loan Bank that had folded  (Saitama Shogin).

When I read the article about his death, I called the son and expressed my condolences. He was relatively calm about it all. He ran a pachinko parlor in Saitama and unlike his father had stayed out of organized crime.

"Y...

"Mister Vice Guy" (if you can guess who that is) interviewed in Australian Penthouse

In one of his classiest interviews yet, Jake lets loose in Australian Penthouse magazine to inquiries on regrets, working as a hostess, sumo, and just how hard it was to get those guys to review Yakuza 3.

Read "Touring the Tokyo Underworld"

WARNING: To be expected from Penthouse magazine, but ads on the page are very NSFW.

Eikaiwa Underworld: Lessons Taught, Lessons Learned

By Jason Gray

Early 2004.

When teaching conversational English, at least in Japan, fascinating students are a rarity. This isn't necessarily because there aren't interesting people who want to learn English, but perhaps because they don't reveal themselves as such (it should be noted that most English teachers don't come across as fascinating either). It could be due to the obvious barriers of language and culture, or the context and limited time frame in which teacher and student meet...

Upcoming Event: Polaris Project seminar

Jake will be giving a talk about the law-enforcement side of fighting human trafficking at Polaris Project's monthly seminar series, "You Know Human Trafficking?"

Date: Saturday, September 25 from 7-9pm

Location: JICA Chikyu Hiroba Seminar Room 301 (Map)

(One-minute walk from Exit 3, Hiroo Station, Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line)

Admission: 1,000 yen, 500 yen for students with ID

To register for the seminar, please fill out this form (Japanese only),

For more information, contact:
Polaris Project Japan...