Sitting Around” as Kabukicho Expands Standing Areas a Report from Okubo Park

The “stand-up” crowd in Okubo Park in Kabukicho is still going strong. About 100 women hang out in Kabukicho every day on tropical nights to earn money to pay host clubs, men’s con cafes, and underground idol clubs. Shiori (pseudonym, 19), an actual “tachinbo” worker, reveals the inside story.

Unlike sex clubs, there is no middleman in the customer’s payment, nor is there the hassle of establishing a relationship through social networking sites, as is the case with “papa katsu” (father’s activities). The market price is around 10,000 to 15,000 yen at Okubo Park; if you offer 20,000 yen, the customer will lower the price. In mass-market soaps, the middleman cuts out the middleman and what you get is about 10,000 yen per hour, so it’s high risk, but the strongest in terms of time performance. I can choose my clients, and I don’t have to worry about working hours or store rules.

I think there are a lot of girls who are standing around and doing the daddy app at the same time. The price for the app is 30,000 yen, and the price for the dating club is 50,000 yen and up. You might think that you should just do that one, but since you can get more customers doing stand-up dating, it’s better to do both of them as sub activities,” he said.

However, recently, it may be that the number of customers is not so good, or perhaps it is just that the number of “zarimbo,” as opposed to tachimbo, is increasing.

Standing-rinbo are becoming “neighborhoods” among themselves.

Girls who used to stand awkwardly in front of each other are now sitting and chatting with each other. I’m a ‘stand-up’ girl, but I’m not making any money, so I’m sitting down now (laughs). (Laughs.) Before, the turnover was so fast that I was going back and forth between the street and the hotel without a moment to catch my breath, but now that the turnover has slowed down and the girls have settled into their positions, they always talk with other girls nearby, and a community has developed. Recently, I have the impression that the number of onlookers has increased. There are many men who walk around for an hour or so staring at the girls without doing anything.

The sight of several young girls sitting directly on the ground in the vicinity of Okubo Park, fiddling with their phones, is like a street version of a “chon-no-ma” (a place for young girls to play with their phones). It is a bizarre scene that makes one forget that this is a public street. As usual, after 6 p.m., women line up around Okubo Park with their backs to the street, but since the end of last year, a new zone has emerged. According to Mika (pseudonym, 21), a hosiery fanatic, the number of times she stands in the new area has increased.

Since last year, there have been a series of busts by the police, so I’ve been fleeing not only to Okubo Park but also to the back alleys leading to Okubo Park. The buildings along the quiet alleyway leading to Okubo Park at the end of the Shokunin Dori side of the street are used as waiting areas for delicatessens, and are even darker than the rest of Kabukicho. The area around Okubo Park is busy with massage parlors, restaurants frequented by Kabukicho residents, and a popular night parfait store, so many people take refuge there when police patrols arrive.

After passing through a quiet alley lined with small buildings and private diners, one comes to a desolate hotel district. Even deeper than Okubo Park, this street is also lined with stand-ups, sometimes with women sitting in the gaps between buildings. Even in this environment, where people have to flee from police officers who patrol the area on a daily basis, there are no signs of the disappearance of the stand-up dummies.

Why Hosts Can No Longer Force Their Customers to Stand on Their Feet

The hosts are becoming more and more cautious about their customers, because if a host sends a text to a girl asking her to play stand-up, it could lead to the host’s establishment being busted. There are quite a few girls who hide the fact that they are playing stand-up because they don’t want the hosts to think they are a nuisance.

However, the tricky part is that even if you warn the hosts, there is an unspoken understanding between them. A boy who left a host club at the same time as me before headed straight for Okubo Park. The host in charge of that girl also said in a knowing and muddled way, ‘You’ll come back when you make more money, right? It’s a 10-second walk to work, and the love hotel is close by. It is also a short walk to the host club where he spends his money. The economy revolves within a radius of 200 meters.

The police and the host clubs, the standing pigs being chased by the police, and the male buyers observing them from a delicate distance. The loop of strange weasel words that is unfolding within a 200-meter radius of Kabukicho does not seem to be ending.