Otaku now dominate the streets of Tokyo’s Akihabara and the district once best-known for its clusters of electronics shops now has more than its share of sex services aimed at the geeks’ bizarre tastes, according to Spa! (5/20).

Though love doll outcall sex services first appeared in Akihabara several years ago, they’ve now disappeared, according to the men’s weekly.

Instead, Akihabara has a host of knocking shops and massage parlors where the workers are decked out in maid outfits, the object of desire for a vast number of otaku.

Women dressed in skimpy French maid outfits will provide erotic massages in places like Melrose and Eternity, establishments located along the Showa Dori avenue that serves as one of Akihabara’s major strips. Along the same thoroughfare are Hot Hands and Cherish Akiba, where faux au pair display their handiwork to relieve male customers of more than just their cash.

Most otaku, however, have a yen for something deeper than paid sex -– and it seems they need to.

“Some operations hand out pamphlets around Akihabara Station advertising maid dates. For 6,000 yen an hour, the customer can go around Akihabara together with a woman dressed up as a maid, and even go out for a meal or karaoke if they want,” a writer on otaku topics identified only as K tells Spa!

Maid dates strictly forbid any unsolicited touching. But the girls let their customers know that their services can always be optioned for an extra fee.

After a few of these designated dates, the guy might be permitted the occasional touch. If things progress really smoothly, some maids are rumored to eventually go the whole way for a fee of 50,000 yen.

“As a rule, otaku hate the sex business,” K says. “They’d much rather go to a maid café or meet a cosplayer and have sex after building up a real relationship with them. Sex for otaku always means making an investment at first.”

Akihabara still has simpler pleasures, though, as a salaryman tells the weekly.

“There’s a handjob bar located in the building immediately to the left of Akihabara Station exit,” the salaryman tells Spa! “There are plenty of young girls there and the service charge is just 5,000 yen. Mind you, there are more than a few old women working there, too, so it’s best to be careful.” (By Ryann Connell)

By Ryann Connell

Even months into retirement, porn star-cum-celebrity advisor and IT explorer Ai Iijima can’t stay out of the news, with Shukan Asahi reporting that now she’s moaning about her insatiable urge to break a sex drought.

Citing a serious liver illness, 34-year-old Iijima quit the showbiz world at the end of March, but has since maintained a high-profile blog that has managed to keep people talking about her.

Earlier this month, she used her blog to let it be known that she’s becoming sexually frustrated.

“I was thinking the other day that ever since my life started, it has lacked sensuality,” Shukan Asahi quotes Iijima posting on her blog. “I haven’t got a boyfriend. I haven’t even got a sex friend. Oh my god, I’m dying for a bit. I’ve just got to have some nooky.”

The comments were typically Iijima in that they easily shocked. Her request for advice from visitors to her blog elicited over 300 replies, many from men predictably willing to meet her and alleviate her plight.

Despite Iijima lamenting a lack of lustiness, recent reports suggest that may not necessarily be the case. In July, women’s weekly Josei Jishin caught Iijima meeting with a guy at a posh hotel.

A couple of weeks after that, Shukan Asahi itself reported that Iijima had developed a very close relationship with Hiroyuki Nishimura, 30, the maverick operator of anything-goes online bulletin board Ni-Chaneru. Iijima works part-time for an IT company in which Nishimura is a director, and she has made no bones about how much she likes his bones. After posting on her blog footage of the interview she undertook with him to get the IT job, Iijima also remarked about her feelings for the board operator.

“I quite fancy this Hiroyuki,” the weekly quotes Iijima writing.

Despite the attraction, some pals say it’s unlikely Iijima and Nishimura have consummated their relationship.

“Ai is pretty free and easy and it’s common for her to whine to her friends about a lack of decent sex. She also complains about the fact that as soon as she leaves her home, the paparazzi are there to swoop on her so she basically has to remain cooped up in her apartment all the time,” an Iijima buddy tells Shukan Asahi. “I guess if she’s holed up inside all the time, she would be getting a bit bored.

Shukan Asahi (9/7)Iijima won’t be offering any insight into her relationship with Nishimura, refusing to divulge any details even for Shukan Asahi, for which she was once a columnist. She wouldn’t open up when the weekly approached her for a comment.

“Considering everything your magazine has done for me, I’d really love to help, but in this case, I’m really, really sorry, I just can’t cooperate with the story,” Iijima tells Shukan Asahi. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Copyright 1999-2007, Mainchi Daily.

“Chirasshaimase!”

Enter just about any Japanese business establishment and you’ll almost invariably be greeted by an employee with a call of “irrashaimase,” or welcome.

But “chirasshaimase,” a combination of the welcome and “chirarism”, the Japanese term used to describe a flash of bra or panties, has become the traditional greeting for new kinds of exhibitionist, saucy services now operating in Tokyo, according to Friday (4/25).

During the heady days of Japan’s economic bubble in the 1980s, the country saw an explosion in the number of bottomless cafes and restaurants, where waitresses worked without any panties and offered customers a fleeting glimpse of their nether regions courtesy of strategically placed cameras, mirrors or fans.

And though a combination of modern. more conservative attitudes and Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara’s crackdown on adult entertainment districts mean the raw flesh servings are limited to sushi, the practice of chirarism remains as popular — and in some cases, as profitable — as ever.

Fetish Kissa Chirarism P is a chirarism cafe in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district. At first glance, it looks like any ordinary cafe, with a 15-seat counter, a few round tables and LCD monitors placed on each table. It starts getting different with cups of coffee that cost 1,200 yen, about three times the price of the equivalent latte in a regular coffee shop. And things really change when it comes to the way the waitress presents the coffee as hidden cameras film up her skirt and beam the images to LCD monitors in front of the client.

“If you chat with us, we’ll even lean our arms down on the counter and talk to you,” waitress Nao tells Friday, implying the table staff will also offer a glimpse of cleavage through their uniforms.

In the newly opened Pan Kissh in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho, slipping a pre-paid gambling chip into the high heels of a waitress entitles the customer to watch as the waitress removes her bra, puts on a business shirt and then carries their drink to him between her breasts. Another payment allows customers to use a fishing rod and line to raise the already skimpy skirts on waiting staff, once again gaining a glimpse of garters and other goodies.

Also in Kabukicho is Panchira Cafe and Bar Maidol, a dimly lit drinking spot with mirrors built in to its counter bar. Entry to the bar is 3,000 yen, and customers buy poker chips at an additional 500 yen apiece. Ordering a drink, the waitress will fling one leg up onto the bar with the mirror giving a flashing glimpse of her undies. Attached to her leg is a money box. Insert a chip and you get the drink handed to you. For 2,000 yen’s worth of chips, waitresses will sit up on the mirrored counter bar with their legs spread for 30 seconds.

“We don’t allow any touching at all,” Panchira Cafe’s Ichigo tells Friday. “Even so, everyone who comes here enjoys the sexy atmosphere.” (By Ryann Connell)

Growing numbers of salarymen are giving “phone sex” an entirely different meaning recently as the business of supplying adult movie for mobiles steadily swells, according to Asahi Geino (5/1-8).

Mobile phone users have now got the option of using the device to watch as many stick flicks at they’d like for a monthly fee of just a few hundred yen.

“Mobile phone adult movie channels have all the different genres. Some major adult productions normally on sale in the marketplace have also been reformatted to suit mobile phones,” a source well-versed in the mobile phone contents market tells Asahi Geino. “These options are becoming really popular, mainly among salarymen who want to be able to watch these movies without their families finding out.”

Lovestyle is providing adult movies to mobile phones. A company spokesman explains the type of material it is making available.

“We take old contents like the shijuhate (literally “The 48 Hands,” the name given to the traditional Japanese charts of different sex positions), give it a new name like ‘Titanic’ or something and then provide photo and video footage of each of the positions. We use the video footage to show the insertion angles that achieve the greatest feeling and each position has its own individual explanation,” the spokesman says.

Even as calls to these services are ringing up increasingly attractive profits, they’re also a clarion call for scam artists. More than a few people whose identities have been stolen have ended up with hefty bills from mobile phone adult movie contents providers whose services they’ve never heard of but will pay anyway rather than taking up an embarrassing fight against them that may wrongfully expose them as having a proclivity for portable porn.

“Actually, of all Japan’s mobile phone companies, only au allows adult contents for an audience over 18. Adult content is banned from the official sites on all the other carriers,” the mobile phone contents source says.

The men’s weekly says that though the market is limited to au, that should also serve as a safety valve for users because they know if they use a service on that carrier it should have been confirmed as a legitimate provider. On the other hand, any adult movies connected with companies like Softbank or NTT DoCoMo should be approached with caution.

“That’s true, but even so adult movie makers are setting up sites for DoCoMo users one after the other and mobile phone AV is on the verge of becoming an everyday service,” a writer on the flesh film industry tells Asahi Geino.

“Some adult movie production companies have mobile phone site links on their official sites. If you check these out, it greatly reduces the risk of getting caught up in a scam.” (By Ryann Connell)

By William Sparrow

BANGKOK - The Japanese population is believed to have peaked at about 127.5 million in 2005. Since then the figure has declined, with some estimates suggesting the population could shrink to 105 million by 2050. The drop is feared to have negative impacts on the nation’s labor force and grave social and economic consequences. Recent reports seem to indicate that the sexual proclivities of Japanese men are contributing adversely to the situation.

More and more men, reports maintain, are turning to masturbation and sex toys rather than to their female counterparts. And further exacerbating an already declining birthrate of 1.29 children per women found in a 2004 survey by The Daily Yomiuri, is the fact that some men are increasingly turning their backs on sex.

“Sex is just way too much trouble,” a 35-year-old Japanese man told Shukan Asahi this week, adding that ever since he used masturbation as a teenager, he’s never desired a woman again. “As long as I have a sex toy available, I don’t need women. I can’t come when I have sex, and you’ve got to put a lot of emotion into dealing with women. Self-pleasure is a hell of a lot less demanding than trying to please somebody else.”

Pornography, masturbation aids, Internet porn sites and social networks that lead to “virtual relationships”, soaplands and Japan’s widespread prostitution industry all allow men outlets for sexual fulfillment while not fulfilling other needs, such as procreation. The alarming trend has led medical experts in Japan to coin a new term for a condition they call “vaginal ejaculation dysfunctional disorder”.

“There has been a definite increase in the number of men showing signs of vaginal ejaculation dysfunction disorder, which includes such afflictions as premature and delayed ejaculation. There are physical reasons believed to be behind this, including prejudice against women, past trauma and overuse of masturbatory aids so that a vagina is unable to provide sufficient stimulation,” Dr Tsuneo Akaeda, head of the Akaeda Clinic in Tokyo’s Roppongi entertainment district, told Shukan Asahi.

“Some of the masturbation aids coming out nowadays are absolutely incredible. Guys become used to using these and there is no doubt that many men are unable to obtain the necessary satisfaction from a female vagina that they need to ejaculate.”

Meanwhile, Japan is quickly becoming the world’s oldest population. By 2025, 27.3%, or 33.2 million people, will be aged over 60, a study titled “The Illusion of Immigration Control” found.

Low birth rate coupled with the aforementioned sexual dysfunctions make the problems that Japan faces immediate and daunting.

“With Japan’s labor force expected to decrease by 10% in the next 25 years, the economic outlook is far from bright. In all likelihood, the domestic market will shrink, production will fall, the government’s revenue base will contract inexorably and it will struggle to meet welfare and medical payments for an increasing number of elderly as the dependency ratio (the number of workers supporting the elderly) will shift dramatically. In 1950, one elderly person was supported by 12 members of the working population, by 1990 it was 5.5 workers, and by 2020 it is estimated to be 2.3 workers. Naturally, the government is concerned about such a scenario,” Julian Chapple wrote in a 2005 study titled “The Dilemma Posed by Japan’s Population Decline”.

The government has put forward a number of proposals to reverse the trend. These have included the “Plus 1″ (indicating the increase the government hopes to see to the birthrate), softening of immigration laws, child care initiatives, subsidies to parents for medical care and child care and working with Japanese employers to allow more “flex” time for parents. While the government has given the situation the appropriate attention, so far most of the initiatives have made little change and failed to stem the decline.

Japan, like many societies, can at times struggle with open communication and education about sex. So, perhaps the answer is being overlooked: encourage more sex between partners and husbands and wives through better communication and education.