Birth of Adult Entertainment the Origin Story of Happening Bars

Non-fiction writer Mizuho Takagi explores the origins of various genres of adult entertainment and the things associated with them in his work “The Birth of Reportage Sex Industry.” The first installment delves into the roots of the “Happening Bar.”

 

 

At the counter, there’s a woman engaging in lewd conversation with the bartender. On the sofa, a couple is cuddling. Nearby, men are looking enviously with grins on their faces. They each pay a fee of 20,000 yen for single men and 10,000 yen for couples (single women are free).

The scrutiny on “Happening Bars” has been getting stricter year by year. As widely known, Happening Bars are illegal establishments. On the surface, they appear to be ordinary pubs, and there’s no issue with visiting them. However, the legality is questioned when groups of men and women gather, and if they expose their genitals or engage in sexual intercourse inside the establishment, they could be charged with public indecency, especially if such activities become the main attraction of the establishment.

In recent years, the owner and employees of “Sleeping Beauty” in Shibuya, which touted itself as “Japan’s largest” and had a history of about 15 years, were arrested in May 2022 for public indecency. In October 2023, the owner and employees of “Bar Eden 925” in Okubo were also arrested on the same charges.

“925,” which opened in December 2020, was reported to have changed ownership and was actually a related establishment to “Nemurenai Mori no Bijo,” which was previously busted. According to insiders, the business has been operating under the same name for over 15 years. Both “Sleeping Beauty” and “925” were known in the industry as extremely famous establishments, with a long history.

The centerpiece, which involves guests engaging in lewd acts with each other, led to the police crackdown. Surprisingly, this centerpiece encountered unexpectedly, and there is a man who created the first Happening Bar in Japan.

In the heart of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Kabukicho district, there stands a multi-tenant building that blends into its surroundings. In one of the rooms of this building, Kawaguchi Toshiki (65), 39 years old at the time, opened a Happening Bar called “Pure Tea”. Kawaguchi explains:

“It was originally conceived as a bar where perverts would gather. That was the original concept, you see.”

Kawaguchi met a man named Y at the Aoyama “Gray Hall,” a bar where perverts gathered. This was in 1996. Y went on to create the couple’s café “Grand blue” in Kabukicho for regular customers like Kawaguchi, where he often brought several single women to enjoy.

A couple’s café is a café where entry is conditional on both men and women being present. In addition to sofa seats, there are playrooms and shower rooms, where swapping (group sexual activities where multiple couples exchange partners in the same or separate rooms) is possible, setting it apart from companion cafes. Although now classified under the same category, the system of swapping was not present in companion cafes of the past. “Grand blue” further innovated by accepting not only couples but also single men.

Despite its great success with innovative ideas, “Grand blue” gradually drifted away from its initial concept of creating a community for selected perverts. As Kawaguchi’s heart drifted away, troubles arose for the single women he brought with no support. When these women encountered trouble, they were dismissed with comments like, “Since women are given food and drinks for free, they should accept the risks,” indicating that this was no longer a place for them, the perverts.

“So I wanted to create a place where both couples and single men and women could enjoy themselves without feeling uncomfortable and have fun being perverts,” said Kawaguchi.

 

Seeking an ideal, Kawaguchi launched “Purety” in October 1998, following the “Wakayama Poison Curry Incident” in which 67 people suffered acute arsenic poisoning and four died in Enbu, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture. The concept was established, but how to attract perverts? Neither companion cafes nor couple cafes would suffice, and a new catchy phrase was needed. At that time, the term happening bar didn’t even exist, let alone its concept. After much deliberation, they settled on the cryptic slogan 21st-century-style adult bar to differentiate themselves from Grand blue. With this enigmatic tagline, they placed a three-line ad in the Nikkan Gendai newspaper, marking the beginning of their journey.

The response was huge, and perverts began to gather from all over the country. Men and women with a penchant for exposure would strip naked, and it was a common occurrence. One day, one of the customers jokingly said, 

“Why don’t you do it anyway?”

The two men and women got into the mood and began to have sex.

For Kawaguchi, it was undoubtedly a serendipitous and spontaneous turn of events. Those around him also chimed in, saying, “So there’s even this kind of happening!” Thus, the 21st-century-style adult bar evolved into a happening bar. As Kawaguchi puts it, “It was truly a ‘happening’ in every sense of the word.”

The roots of the happening bar were indeed a product of chance. Kawaguchi named it based on the concept of happening. After learning about the originality of Pure Tea, an AV maker approached Kawaguchi some time later with a proposal to co-produce a DVD depicting the reality of a happening bar. However, in happening bars, sexual activities were routinely conducted, so drawing attention to them wasn’t particularly advisable. After refusing several times, an informal agreement was reportedly reached between Kawaguchi and the AV maker until the DVD was released.

“There was an oral agreement to keep the term ‘happening bar’ hidden, with the establishment being presented outwardly as a couple’s café. However, the AV maker broke that agreement and released it as a happening bar,”

This is the background to the spread of the term happening bar.

We asked Kawaguchi, who had been caught red-handed, about his thoughts at the time.

“Indeed, what used to be underground has now become mainstream. That’s why things got a little strange.”

Just as Kawaguchi had feared, the phase changed from there.

What happened to the happening bars that “went crazy” after becoming a major player? To be continued in Part 2 “Like a ‘pickup box’… a ‘transformation’ to commercialism that saddened the enthusiasts. for the full story.