Hostess bar
Encyclopedia
Hostess clubs are a common feature in the night-time entertainment industry of Japan
, east Asia
n countries and other areas with a high east Asian population. They employ primarily female staff and cater to males seeking drinks and attentive conversation. The more recent host clubs are similar establishments where primarily male staff cater to females. Host and hostess clubs are considered part of mizu shōbai
or "water trade" in Japan.
In Japan, two types of bars are hostess clubs and , a portmanteau of and . Hostesses who work at kyabakura are known as , literally club girl, and are generally hired for their looks and personality. Hostesses light cigarette
s, pour drinks, offer flirtatious conversation, and sing karaoke
to entertain customers. Hostesses can be seen as the modern counterpart of geisha
s, providing entertainment to groups of salarymen
after work. A club will often also employ a female bartender
, who is usually well-trained in mixology
, and may also be the manager or mamasan. Hostess clubs are distinguished from strip club
s in that there is no dancing or nudity.
Hostesses often drink with customers each night, and alcohol problems are not uncommon. Most bars run on a commission system in which hostesses receive a percentage of sales.
Businesses may pay for tabs on company expense with the aim of promoting trust among male co-workers or clients. At one establishment, 90% of all tabs were reportedly paid for by companies.
Patrons are generally greeted warmly at the door and seated as far away from other customers as possible. In some instances, a customer is able to choose with whom he spends time, while most often that is decided by the house. In either case, the hostess will leave after a certain amount of time or number of drinks, offering the customer a chance to see a fresh face. While most establishments have male tout
s outside to bring in customers, it may also fall upon a (usually new) hostess to do so.
In addition to their on-site duties, hostesses are generally obliged to engage in paid dates with patrons outside of the bar and regular working hours. This system generates repeat patronage of a particular bar by developing attachments between particular customers and hostesses. Sometimes sex occurs on these paid dates. Hostesses may be deducted pay for not having enough dōhan dates.
There is also a hostess club in Tokyo catering to lesbians.
Hostessing is a popular employment option among young foreign women in Japan, as demand is high. However, work visas can be difficult to obtain, so many choose to work illegally. The clubs sometimes take advantage of the precarious legal situation of the women. The industry and its dangers were highlighted in 1992, when Carita Ridgeway, an Australia
n hostess, was drugged and killed after a paid date, and in 2000 when Lucie Blackman, an English
hostess, was abducted, raped and murdered by a customer. The government promised to crack down on illegal employment of foreigners in hostess bars, but an undercover operation in 2006 found that several hostess bars were willing to employ a foreign woman illegally. In 2007, the Japanese government began to take action against these hostess clubs, causing many clubs to be shut down, and many hostesses to be arrested and deported. Now under strict laws, it is only legal for foreign women to work as hostesses if they are Japanese citizens or have a legal spouse visa.
In December 2009, a trade union
, called the Kyabakura Union, was formed to represent hostess bar workers. The union was formed in response to complaints by hostess bar employees of harassment and unpaid wages by their employers.
that employs female staff that are paid to serve and flirt with male customers. Although they don't charge an entry fee (and often have no set prices on their menus), they usually have an arbitrary (and expensive) bill or charge a set hourly fee plus a "bottle charge". Customers purchase a bottle in their own name and it is kept for future visits.
approximately half of Oahu's 300 bars are licensed as hostess bars. In Hawaii and Guam most of the bars are operated and staffed by Korean people.
Some bars in Thailand label themselves as hostess bars; these are loosely related to the East Asian practice, although they are basically a class of the local go-go bars that do not feature dancing.
A host club (:ja:ホストクラブ) is similar to a hostess club, except that female customers pay for male company. Some host clubs also specialize in female-to-male transsexual hosts. Host clubs are typically found in more populated areas of Japan, and are famed for being numerous in Tokyo
districts such as Kabukichō, and Osaka
's Umeda and Namba. Customers are typically wives of rich men or women working as hostesses in hostess clubs.
The first host club was opened in Tokyo in 1966. In 1996, the number of Tokyo host clubs was estimated to be 200, and a night of non-sexual entertainment could cost $500 to $600. A women's studies professor explained the phenomenon by Japanese men's lack of true listening to the problems of women, and by women's desire to take care of a man and be loved back.
Hosts are often an age between 18 and their mid-20s. They will take a 'stage name' (源氏名), usually taken from a favourite manga, film, or historical figure, that will often describe their character. Men who become hosts either cannot find a white-collar job, or are enticed by the prospect of high earnings through commission.
While hostess bars in Tokyo often have men out on the streets getting clients to come into their clubs, hosts often go out onto the streets to find customers (referred to as 'catch' (キャッチ), but these are usually the younger, less-experienced ones. A common look for a host is a dark suit, collared shirt, silver jewellery, a dark tan, and bleached hair. Recently clubs where hosts wear casual clothes have been increasing, but still the norm is the smart suit look. At these clubs there can be a 私服デー (shifukudē) or 'own clothes day' where the hosts can wear their normal clothes.
Pay is usually determined by commission on drink sales with hosts often drinking far past a healthy limit, usually while trying to hide their drunkenness. Because the base hourly wage is usually extremely low, almost any man can become a host regardless of looks or charisma (depending on the bar). However, hosts who cannot increase their sales usually drop out very soon, because of the minimal wage. The environment in a host bar is usually very competitive, with tens of thousands of dollars sometimes offered to the host who can achieve the highest sales.
Buying bottles of champagne usually means a 'champagne call' (シャンパンコール). All the hosts of the club will gather around the table for a song, talk, or a mic performance of some kind. The champagne will be drunk straight from the bottle by the customer, then her named host, and then the other hosts gathered. Often a wet towel will be held under the chin of the customer and hosts while they drink to prevent spills. The performance differs from club to club, and is believed to have originated at club Ryugujo in Kabukicho by the manager Yoritomo.
Also a 'champagne tower' (シャンパンタワー) can usually be done for special events. Champagne glasses are arranged into a pyramid, and champagne is poured onto the top glass until it trickles down the layers of glasses. A champagne tower uses at least 6 bottles, but for a 7 layer tower, 20 bottles can be used. Depending on the champagne used, this can cost between 1,000,000~2,000,000 yen.
Sometimes a host will go with a customer for a meal or karaoke after hours. This is called 'after', and considered bad manners by some people. Staying longer at the host club is considered the 'proper' way to treat your host. It is possible to go on day trips or travel with a host, but a host can only go with their own customer. A host interacting with another host's customer is liable to be fined or fired from the club. Drinks can be purchased 'on tab' (掛け売り), but contact information is taken and the customer must pay later. If the customer does not pay, the host must.
It is considered rude to leave a customer alone, called 'only' (オンリー). A customer who is abusive and troublesome is called a 'painful customer' (痛客) and may be expelled from a club.
There are other methods of 'business.' For example, 'mail business' (メール営業) is the practice of a host emailing his customer regularly to ensure their return. Similarly, a host may call their customer, but this is fading in popularity now with the rise in popularity of mail business. Hosts will usually carry a business phone (営業電話) and a private phone.
for hostess club employees in Japan. The union was formed on December 22, 2009 by Rin Sakurai. Sakurai formed the union in response to reported problems encountered by hostess club employees with their employers including harassment and unpaid wages. The union is affiliated with the Part-timer, Arbeiter, Freeter & Foreign Workers Union, often referred to as the "Freeter" Union.
, novels, video games, manga
(and anime
based upon them) which revolve around hostesses or host clubs (for example, Club 9
, Bloodhound
and the more light-hearted Ouran High School Host Club
). These are aimed at a general audience, and demonstrate how such clubs have come to be accepted, to some extent, as part of the urban landscape of Japan. This even extends to non-Japanese fiction, for example with the crime novel Tokyo
(2000), by British author Mo Hayder
, which has as its main character a British hostess starting out in the industry. The episode "Meet Market
" of the American TV drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
featured a version of a host club in Las Vegas
. In Isaac Adamson
's novel Dreaming Pachinko
, the character Miyuki worked at an exclusive hostess club in Ginza
. The adventure video game series Yakuza allows the player to attend hostess clubs. Its sequel has a side-quest that allows the main character to become a host himself or manage a hostess club. Rosa Kato
starred in TV Asahi
's Japanese drama
called "Jotei" in which she played a poor high school drop out who is compelled to succeed in the Hostess business and become the number one hostess in Tokyo after her mother passes away to undiagnosed cancer
. The 2004 film Stratosphere Girl
follows a young Belgium woman joining a Tokyo Hostess Club and trying to solve the mystery of a missing Russian hostess. In the Starz show Crash
the character Inez works in a hostess club in Los Angeles
.
The Shohei Imamura
documentary (1970) tells the story of a hostess/prostitute in postwar Yokosuka, Kanagawa
.
In the 1994 book Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club
, anthropologist Anne Allison
, informed by her own work in the mid-1980s as a hostess in a Japanese bar, describes hostess bars as providing an atmosphere where masculinity is "collectively realized and ritualized."
The 1995 documentary Shinjuku Boys
by Kim Longinotto
describes a Tokyo host club in Shinjuku staffed exclusively by female-to-male crossdressers.
Tokyo Girls is a 2000 documentary in which four Canadian women share their experiences working as hostesses in Japan.
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
is a 2006 documentary about a host club in Osaka
.
Justin Lee Collins
, in a documentary called 'Turning Japanese' on UK television channel 'Channel 5' visits a host bar in Osaka and tries being a host for the night himself.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, east Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n countries and other areas with a high east Asian population. They employ primarily female staff and cater to males seeking drinks and attentive conversation. The more recent host clubs are similar establishments where primarily male staff cater to females. Host and hostess clubs are considered part of mizu shōbai
Mizu shobai
Mizu shōbai , or the water trade, is the traditional euphemism for the night-time entertainment business in Japan, provided by hostess or snack bars, bars, and cabarets...
or "water trade" in Japan.
Japan
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s, pour drinks, offer flirtatious conversation, and sing karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...
to entertain customers. Hostesses can be seen as the modern counterpart of geisha
Geisha
, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
s, providing entertainment to groups of salarymen
Salaryman
refers to someone whose income is salary based; particularly those working for corporations. Its frequent use by Japanese corporations, and its prevalence in Japanese manga and anime has gradually led to its acceptance in English-speaking countries as a noun for a Japanese white-collar...
after work. A club will often also employ a female bartender
Bartender
A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...
, who is usually well-trained in mixology
Cocktail
A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink that contains two or more ingredients—at least one of the ingredients must be a spirit.Cocktails were originally a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters. The word has come to mean almost any mixed drink that contains alcohol...
, and may also be the manager or mamasan. Hostess clubs are distinguished from strip club
Strip club
A strip club is an adult entertainment venue in which striptease or other erotic or exotic dance is regularly performed. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, but can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style....
s in that there is no dancing or nudity.
Hostesses often drink with customers each night, and alcohol problems are not uncommon. Most bars run on a commission system in which hostesses receive a percentage of sales.
Businesses may pay for tabs on company expense with the aim of promoting trust among male co-workers or clients. At one establishment, 90% of all tabs were reportedly paid for by companies.
Patrons are generally greeted warmly at the door and seated as far away from other customers as possible. In some instances, a customer is able to choose with whom he spends time, while most often that is decided by the house. In either case, the hostess will leave after a certain amount of time or number of drinks, offering the customer a chance to see a fresh face. While most establishments have male tout
Tout
In British English, a tout is any person who solicits business or employment in a persistent and annoying manner...
s outside to bring in customers, it may also fall upon a (usually new) hostess to do so.
In addition to their on-site duties, hostesses are generally obliged to engage in paid dates with patrons outside of the bar and regular working hours. This system generates repeat patronage of a particular bar by developing attachments between particular customers and hostesses. Sometimes sex occurs on these paid dates. Hostesses may be deducted pay for not having enough dōhan dates.
There is also a hostess club in Tokyo catering to lesbians.
Hostessing is a popular employment option among young foreign women in Japan, as demand is high. However, work visas can be difficult to obtain, so many choose to work illegally. The clubs sometimes take advantage of the precarious legal situation of the women. The industry and its dangers were highlighted in 1992, when Carita Ridgeway, an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n hostess, was drugged and killed after a paid date, and in 2000 when Lucie Blackman, an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
hostess, was abducted, raped and murdered by a customer. The government promised to crack down on illegal employment of foreigners in hostess bars, but an undercover operation in 2006 found that several hostess bars were willing to employ a foreign woman illegally. In 2007, the Japanese government began to take action against these hostess clubs, causing many clubs to be shut down, and many hostesses to be arrested and deported. Now under strict laws, it is only legal for foreign women to work as hostesses if they are Japanese citizens or have a legal spouse visa.
In December 2009, a trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, called the Kyabakura Union, was formed to represent hostess bar workers. The union was formed in response to complaints by hostess bar employees of harassment and unpaid wages by their employers.
Snack bars
A "snack bar" (スナックバー sunakku bā), or "snack" for short, refers to a kind of hostess bar, an alcohol-serving barBar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
that employs female staff that are paid to serve and flirt with male customers. Although they don't charge an entry fee (and often have no set prices on their menus), they usually have an arbitrary (and expensive) bill or charge a set hourly fee plus a "bottle charge". Customers purchase a bottle in their own name and it is kept for future visits.
Venues outside Japan
Hostess bars are also found in other east Asian countries, Hawaii, Guam, and California. In HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
approximately half of Oahu's 300 bars are licensed as hostess bars. In Hawaii and Guam most of the bars are operated and staffed by Korean people.
Some bars in Thailand label themselves as hostess bars; these are loosely related to the East Asian practice, although they are basically a class of the local go-go bars that do not feature dancing.
Host clubs
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
districts such as Kabukichō, and Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
's Umeda and Namba. Customers are typically wives of rich men or women working as hostesses in hostess clubs.
The first host club was opened in Tokyo in 1966. In 1996, the number of Tokyo host clubs was estimated to be 200, and a night of non-sexual entertainment could cost $500 to $600. A women's studies professor explained the phenomenon by Japanese men's lack of true listening to the problems of women, and by women's desire to take care of a man and be loved back.
Hosts
Male hosts pour drinks and will often flirt with their clients, more so than their female counterparts. The conversations are generally light-hearted; hosts may have a variety of entertainment skills, be it simple magic tricks or charisma with which to tell a story. Some host clubs have a dedicated stage for a performance, usually a dance, comedy sketch, etc.Hosts are often an age between 18 and their mid-20s. They will take a 'stage name' (源氏名), usually taken from a favourite manga, film, or historical figure, that will often describe their character. Men who become hosts either cannot find a white-collar job, or are enticed by the prospect of high earnings through commission.
While hostess bars in Tokyo often have men out on the streets getting clients to come into their clubs, hosts often go out onto the streets to find customers (referred to as 'catch' (キャッチ), but these are usually the younger, less-experienced ones. A common look for a host is a dark suit, collared shirt, silver jewellery, a dark tan, and bleached hair. Recently clubs where hosts wear casual clothes have been increasing, but still the norm is the smart suit look. At these clubs there can be a 私服デー (shifukudē) or 'own clothes day' where the hosts can wear their normal clothes.
Pay is usually determined by commission on drink sales with hosts often drinking far past a healthy limit, usually while trying to hide their drunkenness. Because the base hourly wage is usually extremely low, almost any man can become a host regardless of looks or charisma (depending on the bar). However, hosts who cannot increase their sales usually drop out very soon, because of the minimal wage. The environment in a host bar is usually very competitive, with tens of thousands of dollars sometimes offered to the host who can achieve the highest sales.
Drinks
Many of the clientele who visit host bars are female hostesses who finish work at around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., causing host bars to often begin business at around midnight and finish in the morning or midday, and hosts to work to the point of exhaustion. The business time changed in the past years due to police order. The reason was the increased incidence of illegal minor prostitution of host club visitors who could not pay the debts they accumulated by chalking up the host club fee. Nowadays most of these clubs open about 4:00 p.m. and have to be closed between midnight and 2:00 a.m. However even after the order, some clubs are still open all night, or, which is the "new strategy", the out of club business increased. Drinks usually start at about 1000 yen but can reach around 3 million yen ($US 25,000) for a bottle of champagne.Buying bottles of champagne usually means a 'champagne call' (シャンパンコール). All the hosts of the club will gather around the table for a song, talk, or a mic performance of some kind. The champagne will be drunk straight from the bottle by the customer, then her named host, and then the other hosts gathered. Often a wet towel will be held under the chin of the customer and hosts while they drink to prevent spills. The performance differs from club to club, and is believed to have originated at club Ryugujo in Kabukicho by the manager Yoritomo.
Also a 'champagne tower' (シャンパンタワー) can usually be done for special events. Champagne glasses are arranged into a pyramid, and champagne is poured onto the top glass until it trickles down the layers of glasses. A champagne tower uses at least 6 bottles, but for a 7 layer tower, 20 bottles can be used. Depending on the champagne used, this can cost between 1,000,000~2,000,000 yen.
Etiquette
On the first visit to a host club, the customer is presented with a 'menu' of the hosts available, (男メニュー), and decide which host to meet first, but over the course of the night, the customer will meet most of the hosts. The customer then decides which host they like most, and can make him their named host, (指名). This can be done by buying a 'keep bottle' (a bottle of liquor that can be saved for next time), stating your interest in a host, or inviting them to sit by you. The named host will receive a percentage of the future sales generated by that customer. Most clubs operate on an 'permanent nomination' system, (永久指名): once the named host has been nominated, a customer cannot change hosts at that club.Sometimes a host will go with a customer for a meal or karaoke after hours. This is called 'after', and considered bad manners by some people. Staying longer at the host club is considered the 'proper' way to treat your host. It is possible to go on day trips or travel with a host, but a host can only go with their own customer. A host interacting with another host's customer is liable to be fined or fired from the club. Drinks can be purchased 'on tab' (掛け売り), but contact information is taken and the customer must pay later. If the customer does not pay, the host must.
It is considered rude to leave a customer alone, called 'only' (オンリー). A customer who is abusive and troublesome is called a 'painful customer' (痛客) and may be expelled from a club.
Business strategy
Usually, hosts try to make the clients feel loved without having sex with them, as it takes up their time and energy. Sometimes, for instance if a customer pays a large amount of money and/or if the host likes them in return, the host can have sex with the client. If the same host meets the same client, they have a higher chance of having sex than the host having sex with another client. There are various terms for a host who has a sexual relationship with his customer, e.g. a 'colourful love business' (色恋営業), 'colourful love' (色恋), 'colourful guy' (色彼), 'pillow business' (枕営業) or 'pillow' (枕).There are other methods of 'business.' For example, 'mail business' (メール営業) is the practice of a host emailing his customer regularly to ensure their return. Similarly, a host may call their customer, but this is fading in popularity now with the rise in popularity of mail business. Hosts will usually carry a business phone (営業電話) and a private phone.
Kyabakura Union
The is a trade unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
for hostess club employees in Japan. The union was formed on December 22, 2009 by Rin Sakurai. Sakurai formed the union in response to reported problems encountered by hostess club employees with their employers including harassment and unpaid wages. The union is affiliated with the Part-timer, Arbeiter, Freeter & Foreign Workers Union, often referred to as the "Freeter" Union.
Fiction
There are many Japanese fictional works, such as TV dramasJapanese television drama
, also called , are a staple of Japanese television and are broadcast daily. All major TV networks in Japan produce a variety of drama series including murder romance, comedy, detective stories, horror, and many others...
, novels, video games, manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
(and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
based upon them) which revolve around hostesses or host clubs (for example, Club 9
Club 9
is a Japanese comedy manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Kobayashi. It was licensed in the USA by Dark Horse Comics. It has 42 chapters. The series is currently out of print, and the company has no plans to renew the license or reprint the series...
, Bloodhound
Blood Hound (manga)
is a manga by Kaori Yuki. Appearing as a serial in the Japanese magazine Hana to Yume, the chapters of Blood Hound were compiled into one tankōbon volume, published by Hakusensha on June 5, 2004...
and the more light-hearted Ouran High School Host Club
Ouran High School Host Club
is a manga series by Bisco Hatori, serialized in Hakusensha's LaLa magazine since August 5, 2003. The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at Ouran High School, and the other members of the popular host club. The romantic comedy focuses on the relationships within and without the...
). These are aimed at a general audience, and demonstrate how such clubs have come to be accepted, to some extent, as part of the urban landscape of Japan. This even extends to non-Japanese fiction, for example with the crime novel Tokyo
Tokyo (novel)
Tokyo is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Mo Hayder. It was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award, as well as several others...
(2000), by British author Mo Hayder
Mo Hayder
Mo Hayder is a British author of crime and thriller fiction.She is the author of eight novels. Her debut, Birdman, was published in January 2000 and was an international bestseller. Her second novel, The Treatment, was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 2002 WH Smith Thumping Good Read award....
, which has as its main character a British hostess starting out in the industry. The episode "Meet Market
Meet market
Meet market or meat market, is an originally pejorative term referring to two related phenomena:*a location or activity in which people are viewed as commodities and*a business like a nightclub where people typically look for a casual sex partner....
" of the American TV drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
featured a version of a host club in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. In Isaac Adamson
Isaac Adamson
Isaac Adamson, born in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1971, is the American author of a series of mystery novels set in Japan and featuring journalist and amateur detective Billy Chaka. Adamson currently lives in Chicago, Illinois...
's novel Dreaming Pachinko
Pachinko
is a type of game originating in Japan, and used as both a form of recreational arcade game and much more frequently as a gambling device, filling a niche in gambling in Japan comparable to that of the slot machine in Western gambling. A pachinko machine resembles a vertical pinball machine, but...
, the character Miyuki worked at an exclusive hostess club in Ginza
Ginza
is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi.It is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses. Ginza is recognized as one of the most...
. The adventure video game series Yakuza allows the player to attend hostess clubs. Its sequel has a side-quest that allows the main character to become a host himself or manage a hostess club. Rosa Kato
Rosa Kato
is a Japanese actress and commercial model.-Career:From April 2004 to March 2005, Kato was a regular guest student on Italian Conversation, a 25-minute NHK TV program for beginners of Italian....
starred in TV Asahi
TV Asahi
, also known as EX and , is a Japanese television network headquartered in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company writes its name in lower-case letters, tv asahi, in its logo and public-image materials. The company also owns All-Nippon News Network....
's Japanese drama
Japanese drama
Japanese drama may refer to:*Japanese television drama or Dorama, about dramatic television shows in Japan*Radio drama in Japan, often related to anime and manga series- See also :...
called "Jotei" in which she played a poor high school drop out who is compelled to succeed in the Hostess business and become the number one hostess in Tokyo after her mother passes away to undiagnosed cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. The 2004 film Stratosphere Girl
Stratosphere Girl
Stratosphere Girl is a 2004 film written and directed by Matthias X. Oberg.The film is about a Belgian teenager who travels to Japan to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen.-Plot:...
follows a young Belgium woman joining a Tokyo Hostess Club and trying to solve the mystery of a missing Russian hostess. In the Starz show Crash
Crash (2008 TV series)
Crash is an American television drama series set in Los Angeles, California. It is the first original series produced by the Starz network. The network ordered a 13 episode season which premiered on October 17, 2008. The series is based on the 2004 film of the same name. It was developed for...
the character Inez works in a hostess club in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Non-fiction
There are several fashion and lifestyle magazines, for example Koakuma Ageha, which mainly cater to hostesses, and Men's Knuckle, which cater to hosts and sometimes also to their recruiters and fans. Koakuma Ageha is known as an unconventional fashion magazine modeled by real hostesses, and it is one of the highest-selling fashion magazines in Japan.The Shohei Imamura
Shohei Imamura
was a Japanese film director. Imamura was the first Japanese director to win two Palme d'Or awards.His eldest son Daisuke Tengan is also a script writer and film director, and worked on the screenplays to Imamura's filmsThe Eel , Dr...
documentary (1970) tells the story of a hostess/prostitute in postwar Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Yokosuka, Kanagawa
is a city located in Kanagawa, Japan. As of 2010, the city had an estimated population of 419,067 and a population density of 4,160 people per km². It covered an area of 100.62 km²...
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In the 1994 book Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club
Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club
Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club is a book-length study in the field of cultural anthropology of contemporary Japan by Anne Allison...
, anthropologist Anne Allison
Anne Allison
Anne Allison is a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University in the United States, specializing in contemporary Japanese society. She wrote the book Nightwork on hostess clubs and Japanese corporate culture after having worked at a hostess club in Tokyo.She received her BA from the...
, informed by her own work in the mid-1980s as a hostess in a Japanese bar, describes hostess bars as providing an atmosphere where masculinity is "collectively realized and ritualized."
The 1995 documentary Shinjuku Boys
Shinjuku Boys
Shinjuku Boys is a 1995 film by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams. It explores the lives of three transgender women to men who work at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo, Japan.-Plot:...
by Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto is a British documentary film maker, well known for making films which highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination...
describes a Tokyo host club in Shinjuku staffed exclusively by female-to-male crossdressers.
Tokyo Girls is a 2000 documentary in which four Canadian women share their experiences working as hostesses in Japan.
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief is a 2006 documentary film by Jake Clennell, describing a host club in Osaka. The male hosts and their female customers are interviewed, and through the interviews we learn about the nature of hosts clubs and why the customers are coming...
is a 2006 documentary about a host club in Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
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Justin Lee Collins
Justin Lee Collins
Justin Lee Collins, commonly known as JLC, is an award-winning English comedian and television presenter.A Bristolian, he's well known for his strong West Country accent, shaggy appearance and colourful shirts....
, in a documentary called 'Turning Japanese' on UK television channel 'Channel 5' visits a host bar in Osaka and tries being a host for the night himself.
External links
- The Great Happiness Space: Documentary of Host Bar
- Diary of a Tokyo hostess, Salon.com
- My month as a poor man's geisha, The Standard, 22 April 2006
- Ken Tanaka interviews hosts and hostesses in Tokyo's Kabukichoo red light district, Youtube video.