<figure id="attachment_268349" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-268349" style="width: 2148px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3d83e6ea"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/10/0a38564182f6d0ced5f915c9e95b5f06.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-268349" class="wp-caption-text">The streets of Kabukicho are lined with cast members of men&#8217;s con cafes who call out to the public</figcaption></figure>
<p> Kabukicho in the evening has changed a lot in the past few years. Not only do elementary school-aged boys and girls hang out next to the toys, but also a large number of &#8220;con café&#8221; cast members can be seen in the alleys here and there, calling out for customers.</p>
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<p> Konkafé stands for &#8220;concept café,&#8221; an eating and drinking establishment where cast members serve customers with a worldview based on a concept such as &#8220;school-style&#8221; or &#8220;younger sister-style. For about 1,000 yen, you can have a picture taken with your favorite staff member or order a drink to pay tribute, but the business classification is &#8220;café. Therefore, minors are allowed to work and visit.</p>
<p> Some con cafes have male cast members and are called men&#8217;s con cafes (commonly known as men&#8217;s con cafes). There are many gray areas in con cafes, but one particular issue that has recently become a problem is the rapid increase in the number of menkon who charge high prices to underage female customers.</p>
<p> Hacto (pseudonym, 21), who has been working at a menkon for a year, says, &#8220;Bars in Kabukicho are open 24 hours a day.</p>
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<p><strong> Many of the bars in Kabukicho are open from 24:00 until morning, so the boxes are empty during the day and at night. That&#8217;s why more and more people are starting to run con cafes there. The concept is just to have the staff cosplay, so it&#8217;s not uncommon to find stores with a disparate image from the interior.</strong></p>
<p> While host clubs have strict rules, the business style of menkon cafes varies from store to store.</p>
<p> Some host clubs have a &#8220;nomination&#8221; option that allows customers to sit next to the hostess, while others allow customers to accumulate points based on the amount of money they spend and receive services such as out-of-store dates.</p>
<p> The means of communication between cast members and customers also depends on the store. Some stores prohibit any contact at all, some allow only direct messages on Twitter, and some allow the exchange of lines. Some allow only direct messages on Twitter, while others allow the exchange of lines.</p>
<p> In any case, the characteristic of Menkon is that you can work as if you are a part-timer, and many stores leave it up to the individual to deal with customers.</p>
<p><strong> There are cast members who make money in the same way as hosts by accompanying and after-partying with underage customers. Also, there are many menkon who can sell their services (i.e., pay debts to the store). It&#8217;s scary to make middle and high school students borrow money. &#8230;&#8230;&#8221; (Bald)</strong></p>
<p> The quickest way to get the cast members to recognize you and give you special treatment is to spend a high amount of money. As a result, there is no end to the number of underage customers who drop money at Menkon in the 100,000-yen range. There are also a certain number of girls who are earning money through daddy activities in order to go to these establishments.</p>
<p><strong> There are quite a few underage girls who go to Menkon because they can&#8217;t go to host clubs. Since underage girls have limited means of earning money, some of them are prostituting themselves for daddy&#8217;s money. As for non-minors, there are also prostitutes who want to pimp out the good-looking cast members who are unwilling to do so. Menkon cast members are basically only paid hourly wages and drink backs, so if a customer has money, he or she can be pimped out. In any case, if they want to be treated specially, it will cost them money with a blue ceiling. I don&#8217;t want underage children to ruin their lives because of cast members who work there as if they were part-timers.</strong></p>
<p> The day may not be far off when the police will round up all the menkongs that continue to operate in a gray area.</p>
<p> Sasaki Chihuahua <br>
Born in Tokyo in 2000. After attending an integrated school in Tokyo from elementary school to high school, he went on to Keio University. 15 years old, he has been going to Kabukicho and has a wide range of personal connections. At university, he is studying the sociology of the downtown area, including Kabukicho.</p>
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<p> His book, &#8221; <a href="https://amzn.to/370KOi8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pien&#8221; to shakai&#8221; (&#8220;The Disease of &#8216;Pien&#8217;: Consumption and Approval of the SNS Generation&#8221;)</a>, is now on sale.</p>
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<div> From the October 21, 2022 issue of FRIDAY</div>


 Chihuahua Sasaki

 Concept cafes have recently increased in number in Kabukicho. Among them, the most popular among female customers are men's con cafes, but there is a problem with some of them charging high prices to minors. We interviewed one of the cast members, who revealed the legal gray area in which these cafes operate.

Middle and high school students are being forced to borrow money…High charges to minors are occurring frequently at men’s con cafes.

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