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Shibuya’s Host Clubs Will Raise Age Limit to 20
As police and politicians put host clubs under a microscope, Shinjuku clubs announced they’ll bar 18- and 19-year-olds from entering.
By Jay Allen
An almost unending series of stories of women who’ve been exploited by host clubs has led to mounting legal pressure on the institutions. In a move apparently intended to forestall strict new regulations, Shinjuku’s club owners say they’ll adopt voluntary rules to help curb abuses.
An exploitative industry?
Host clubs are nightclubs where conventionally attractive men (by Japanese standards) spend time in close conversation with female customers. The clubs make money in several ways, such as by selling expensive bottles of alcohol and pitting hosts’ fans against one another in cash-raising competitions.
Some customers can spend hundreds of thousands of yen (thousands of dollars) in a single evening. Women can also find themselves in debt due to the urikakekin (売掛金) system, where customers make a large financial commitment on temporary credit that…
