Inside Club Ai: Knife Threats and a Clientele of 60–70% Enjo-kōsei Girls
as the success of “Ai” grew, host clubs that imitated it began to appear. More and more people were trying to catch a second lucky break.
However, at that time in Kabukichō, it was not only difficult to run a nightlife business without ties to crime syndicates such as the Kyokutō-kai or Sumiyoshi-kai, which effectively controlled the area, but there were also cases where gang members themselves opened host clubs.
Noguchi Sakon, a former host who appears in my book Mugen no Machi: 50 Years of Kabukichō Host Clubs (Kadokawa Shoten), says:
“Among the host clubs in Kabukichō, the long-established ‘Ai’ was the only one in a different league. The customers at ‘Ai’ were exceptionally high quality, and there were many cultural figures. Sales were incredibly good. But the host clubs created in imitation of ‘Ai’ were nothing like that. Back then, there were maybe around ten such places—‘Yoru no Teiō,’ ‘Cat’s Eye,’ and so on.
The owner of the shop I belonged to was basically like a yakuza himself. If a host said he wanted to quit, the owner would pull out a knife and say something like, ‘Cut off your finger.’ The customer quality at these kinds of shops was also poor. It was the kind of place where a gang leader would bring his mistress and cause a huge commotion. The gap in quality between ‘Ai’ and the other host clubs just kept widening.”
Because of the increase in such host clubs, the entire host club industry became an underground world. There were shops that overcharged customers, hosts who controlled women using illegal drugs, and frequent troubles such as violence between shops or between hosts.
A new host club that high school girls got hooked on
The map of host clubs in Kabukicho was redrawn by the collapse of the bubble in the early 1990s.
Host clubs were hit head-on by the recession, and all but love quickly went bankrupt. In their place emerged a new form of host club known as the new host club.
During this period, snack bars in commercial buildings in Kabukicho were also struggling due to the same recession. Consequently, it became popular among the snack bar owners to rent their premises after closing, past midnight.
Young hosts who had lost their jobs due to the bankruptcy of host clubs noticed this opportunity. They began renting these premises and started operating small-scale host clubs without permission from 1 a.m. until morning. This was the new host club.
Compared to the established large stores, new host clubs were cheaper. As a result, instead of the wealthy women who patronized traditional host clubs, women working in health and cabaret clubs began using these as places to hang out after their shifts ended.
Among the female customers, there were surprisingly many schoolgirls involved in compensated dating. At the time, it was popular for high school girls from ordinary families to sell their underwear at burusera shops or to sell their bodies under the name of compensated dating. During the boom, prices soared, and earning 100,000 to 200,000 yen per session was common, with some making over 300,000 yen in one go.
These girls had more money than they knew what to do with, but due to bad home environments, they had no place in their own homes. However, being minors, they were not in a position to be independent or to frequent famous places like “Ai.” For them, the new host clubs were more convenient.
Eiji, one of the popular hosts at the time, answered during an interview for “Mugen no Machi.”
“I had the impression that there were a lot of girls doing compensated dating. I think 60-70% of the customers were like that. I didn’t check their ages, but there must have been girls as young as 15-16.
Back then, they were earning more than professional sex workers. Since most of them lived at home, they had no sense of money, and they spent everything they got that day. They were compensating for their loneliness and problems with their families by spending extravagantly at host clubs.”
Among the new host clubs, “Romance,” created by Takuya Morisawa, was a leading presence. It was a popular store where even Eiji mentioned earlier was affiliated.
In the history of host clubs, if Aida Takeshi is the pioneer, Morisawa should be called the game changer who revolutionized the host business until then. His major achievements can be summarized in the following three points:
・Salary reform
・Advertising strategy
・Idolization of hosts
Enormous Advertising Costs
Let’s begin with the salary reform.
What Aida introduced was a system in which hosts were given employee status and paid a salary with a minimum guarantee. However, because the profits that could be made in the club were not very large, it was common for hosts to receive private financial support from customers outside the club (today this is called urabiki, or off-the-books kickbacks). In such a system, a host’s devotion to the club tended to be weak.
Morisawa devised a salary structure that would motivate hosts to actively contribute to the club’s revenue. This was the system—still used today—where half of a host’s subtotal sales becomes the host’s salary. In other words, if a host produced a subtotal of 10 million yen, 5 million yen would become the host’s profit. This created a mechanism by which salaries could grow without limit.
Morisawa also decided to clearly display rankings based on sales. He improved the treatment of the top host and spent enormous amounts on advertising. He put their photos on the back covers of magazines, on billboards in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, created photo books and videos.
Traditional host club advertising strategies consisted of placing the club’s name in magazines or on signs. Morisawa, however, pushed the top hosts—starting with the No.1—into the spotlight and attracted customers not with the club’s name but with the hosts themselves.
As hosts became idol-like figures in Kabukichō, media outlets such as television and magazines began to approach them proactively. Offers came in to feature them on variety shows and documentary programs.
The Achievements of the Two Men
Until then, host clubs had existed as underground establishments that never appeared openly in public. But Morisawa began sending the club’s top hosts into the media one after another. As a result, he succeeded in attracting not only women working in nightlife and the sex industry but also ordinary young women.
Today, if you walk through Kabukichō, you’ll see host club signs featuring star hosts photographed like idols. Flashy advertising trucks boast messages like “Sales reached tens of millions of yen!”
As we have seen in this article, it was Take Aida who created the host club business and made Kabukichō its sacred ground, and it was Takuya Morisawa who turned hosts into high-earning idol-like figures.
The achievements of these two men lie in the tremendous commercial growth they brought to the host club industry. But behind this, they also triggered excessive competition among hosts, which in turn caused young female customers to accumulate large debts, and even led to cases—now often in the news—of forced prostitution based on unpaid tabs.
What drives young men to aspire to become hosts? What are the fierce rivalries like between hosts? Why do female customers throw themselves into the hellish frenzy of host club life?
For those questions, I hope you will read Mugen no Machi. But to understand this half-century-long history is to peer into the depths of business and human desire.
Interview, text, and photography： Kota Ishii (Nonfiction writer)
Born in Tokyo in 1977. Nonfiction writer. He has reported and written about culture, history, and medicine in Japan and abroad. His books include "Absolute Poverty," "The Body," "The House of 'Demons'," "43 Killing Intentions," "Let's Talk about Real Poverty," "Social Map of Disparity and Divide," and "Children Who Hurt Each Other.
