The market price is 15,000 yen and 20,000 yen without a rubber…Some of them earn 2 million yen a month.

The area is within walking distance of Umeda, the center of Osaka’s Kita district, and is dotted with love hotels. A little less than 20 women were standing in a row in a narrow alleyway, where barely a single mini-car could pass. It was past 9:00 p.m., and like insects swarming around a moth-eaten lamp, the men appeared one after another and made contact with the women. One by one, they disappeared into the hotel.

While the “tachinbo” (standing-up job) in Shinjuku, Tokyo, has become a social problem, a similar scene has been observed here in Osaka. The women waiting for customers ranged widely in age, most of them in their early 20s, but there was also a woman who appeared to be in her 40s.

The going rate is 15,000 yen, and the rest is hotel charges. The price is about 20,000 yen without a rubber, plus 10,000 yen for Nakadashi.

The women never approached me, but when I spoke to them, they explained their fees in a matter-of-fact manner. One of the “hard-core” girls here was 18-year-old Mika (pseudonym), who earns 2 million yen a month.

She said, “I earn about 1.3 million yen at Umeda. 300,000 yen from direct messages on Twitter (now X). My monthly income is about 400,000 yen from papa-katsu. I get paid 100,000 yen once for papa-katsu, even if we don’t have sex. I haven’t counted the number of guys I’ve had sex with, but it’s over 1,000.”

Mika was originally enrolled in a famous private high school with a deviation score of over 60, but she left the school because she could not get used to the school culture. She then began working at a maid cafe, and at the age of 16 was a very successful girl earning 400,000 yen a month.

She says, “Maids are nice, but this place is right next door to a hotel, and each session takes 20 to 40 minutes, so it’s very efficient. I haven’t had any scares, and I haven’t gotten sick, so it’s safe (laughs). I use the money I earn for ‘guess work. My guess is that my guess is a bar clerk, and I think I pay him roughly 1.5 million yen a month.”

According to a regular customer, the number of stand-up bars in Usagano-cho began to increase around last fall. Speaking of Osaka’s stand-up spots, there was a shocking incident in which 61 stand-ups were caught red-handed at “Izumi no Hiroba,” a meeting spot in the Umeda underground shopping mall, between 1919 and 2008. Did they drift away?

I don’t know when I’ll get busted here either, so I guess I’ll be working at a migrant soap shop starting in the fall. ……

Mika stared at the glamorous woman slumped on the street and muttered, “I’m going to start working at a soap opera in the fall.

From the August 18-25, 2023 issue of FRIDAY