Customers bring their own drinks and pay 6,000 yen for 30 minutes… A “street host” who appeared in Okubo Park talks about his dream for the future.

About 8,000 hosts compete in Kabukicho at night. Among them, there is a man who opens a host club on the street among the “stand-ups,” women in private prostitution in Okubo Park.

My name is Yamada Kaze Ryosuke, and I am 27 years old. I’ve been a fan of Ryosuke Yamada (30) of “Hey! I was a men’s underground idol myself. I originally didn’t want to become a host, but I was in debt while I was an idol. …… Three years ago, I was scouted by a certain restaurant and asked if I would work there to cover my debt, so I became a host.

After that, he moved from one establishment to another, but his debts did not disappear, and he had to incur new debts due to problems with customers. Yamada is still working at one of the host clubs while paying back the 1.7 million yen he owes to his host club.

He says, “I found out after I tried it that I was not suited to be a host, and when I sent out a message that I was not good at it in a frank manner, the tweet got a lot of buzz. So, in mid-June, I started hosting on the street in Okubo Park, hoping to take advantage of this opportunity to make more money. Customers bring their own drinks, and I charge 6,000 yen for 30 minutes. My first customers were a couple of girls who were standing in Okubo Park. They were quite prosperous and had a steady stream of customers every night. Since I can no longer run the place by myself, I’m thinking of recruiting employees to serve customers with me.

Despite her good looks, Yamada says she is not suited to be a host. In fact, since he started hosting, he has gotten into trouble and even lost his house.

I’ve been sleeping in an Internet cafe for four months now,” he says. Sometimes girls who are amused by my activities as a street host will let me stay over at their house, saying, ‘You can come over to my house. That’s very helpful.

There are days when he feels the warmth of humanity, but he lives in Kabukicho. He often gets into trouble with the hosts. On the day a typhoon hit, he went to the house of a woman who had promised to let him stay over via Twitter DM, only to find a completely different woman living there. He said he ended up on the street during the storm.

It seems that a hosiery maniac had sent me to her house to harass a female customer who was also a hostess. I became slightly distrustful of people because of these incidents. Since I came to Kabukicho, I have always been cheated, but it still hurts.

The number of customers is steady. The number of viewers of his video streaming service, which allows viewers to watch his business in real time, is steadily increasing. However, he does not want to succeed as a host.

I plan to quit hosting after I pay off my debts,” he says. I have no plans to quit hosting after I pay off my debts. To be honest, if there was a girl who would give me a raise, I would leave immediately. For the time being, I would like to work hard as a street host and distribute my work in parallel with working at my store to make a living and pay my debts for the time being.

Yamada, who is a diligent and serious person, is a very hardworking person. She still spends an hour and a half every day doing her makeup.

I want to get a stable job as soon as possible. I don’t want to be a pimp even if I get a job. I want to work.”

When will he graduate from being a host? Dreaming of that day, homeless Yamada sits on the street in Okubo Park today.

Sasaki Chihuahua
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 living in Kabukicho and has a wide range of personal connections. At university, he is studying the sociology of the downtown area, including Kabukicho. His book, ” Pien” to shakai” (“The Disease of ‘Pien’: Consumption and Approval of the SNS Generation”), is now on sale.

From the July 7, 2023 issue of FRIDAY