> Japan's rent-a-family industry was completely fake
That's really not what that article is claiming. It's claiming that a particular individual has lied about the industry and made it seem stranger than it actually is and the western media has sensationalized that even further.
There absolutely are rental services for boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, etc. in Japan, they're just not as bizarre as some of these articles would lead you to believe.
Girlfriend experience-escorts are also not that uncommon outside of Japan.
Bars where one buys a good conversation along with the meal, cafés where the waiters roleplay as one's doting sibling, renting a parent, used underwear from vending machines, maid cafés, maid cafés where the maids are all cross-dressing males, cafés where the attractive male waiters make out with each other for the viewing pleasure of the customer base, cafés where the attractive female waiters wear no underwear, short skirts, and the floors are mirrored — well, that's the joie de vivre that has a big “only in Japan” sticker on it.
The second place with distance is the U.S.A. that at least has cafés where the attractive female waiters wear skimpy outfits, cheerleaders, and bikini car wash — but the rest of the world that has nothing that comes close to this well-inspired madness.
> but the rest of the world that has nothing that comes close to this well-inspired madness.
I raise you the slightly hidden world of "tits on toast" from Australia. In regional cities/towns, you can go to certain local pubs early in the day (10AM - 12PM) and get a cheap breakfast served by topless waitresses.
If the waitresses get enough tips, they allegedly remove everything.
The breakfast is usually terrible (cold canned beans on toast with an egg).
In certain areas yeah, but painting all the regions with that brush is strange. Most of the country couldn't handle anything of the sort and the place would be raided by the police in a day. Despite how many pretend play it up to be, Australia is an incredibly conservative country.
The stuff you'll find in mining towns is far worse and basically the wild west. Barstaff will pour you out a beer using their bare asscheeks for a tip. Always wondered what the health authorities think of that.
Used underwear vending machine, last I heard, there's only one. Yaoi cafe, AFAIK, there's only one. And I would be surprised if there's more than one cafe with the glass floor and no underwear.
You also need to understand a bit of Japan. Ikebukuro is the womens/girls Akiba. So it's really normal to see the oppoiste of Akiba there. There are countless cafes there that cater to females, where in Akiba it is male.
And akiba is short for akihabara.
The underwear vending machine are out, and hidden now, mostly Akiba from what I hear on whispers, not in public. Maybe even one in Nakano broaddway...
And Kissa's in general are in decline, not just no pantsu kissas.
How is that similar to maid cafés, let alone cafés where the waiters act as if they be one's doting sibling?
You seem to have reduced my rather wild and spectacular examples to something so mundane as: “Cafes that cater to lonely straight men or misogynistic businessmen exist”, especially when most of my examples have nothing to do with “straight men” or “misogynistic businessmen”.
I don't know if there exists a cafe with a "sibling theme", but café con piernas is pretty similar in the other respects. There are a variety of different establishments where clientele are served coffee and pastries by women in revealing outfits, ranging from traditional outfits in short-skirts, to much more revealing costumes (often with partial nudity). All I was saying is that businesses that follow the model of "cafe, but also sex work" are world-wide, not just Japan and the US.
Disclaimer: I have been living in Japan for two years, but I'm nowhere an expert in their culture.
Some of my female coworkers have confirmed this to be true. They say younger guys have problems finding a girlfriend, because they expect her to take care of him the same way his mother did, and younger Japanese women don't want to put up with that kind of attitude anymore.
Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries.
> They say younger guys have problems finding a girlfriend, because they expect her to take care of him the same way his mother did, and younger Japanese women don't want to put up with that kind of attitude anymore.
This is rampantly common in (esp. Southern) Europe as well. The stereotype of the Italian or Greek "mama's boy" who can't do anything around the house and expects their SO to be their surrogate mother is very real.
I really don't think you should be using this as evidence to paint Japan as developmentally retarded as compared to "Western" countries. Respectfully, it comes off as parochial if I'm being charitable, or as working backwards from a desired conclusion if I'm not.
Moreover, this is a trend that crops up all around the world, not just in Japan or Europe. There are plenty of people like this in the US as well. I've met several grown men with well paying jobs who eat out for every meal and have their mothers do their laundry every weekend.
I don't know about Italy or Greece, but I was born and raised in Spain, which I guess is quite similar. Yes, young guys (and girls) who are used to their parents providing them everything and who don't even know how to cook an omelette or wash their clothes exist, but they are heavily looked down upon.
When I say Japan looks to me to be one or two generations behind, is because some of the things I see or hear here are the kind of situations my parents or grandparents got to experience when they were young. Not only what we already discussed, look also at the situation of women in the workplace, or LGBT rights.
Also not an expert, but it seems to exist in culture overall. You can see reflection in movies, (where it's not the main topic) for example in "Tokyo Family" (2013) you'll see that when his wife dies, an older, physically capable man starts getting his cooked meals provided by neighbours like it's obvious that happens now.
> Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries.
There are a great many “western” countries where this is even worse than Japan including the one so often named the primordial “western” country.
I have no idea idea why so often when Japanese culture specifically is discussed the idea is sooner or later proffered that there is some homogeneous “western” culture with common elements that supposedly exists. It certainly doesn't seem to rise when, say, Russian, or Indian culture is discussed.
The gist of this is that the parent-child relationship is the ideal one and that extends into the relationships in a collectivist society including that of a manager to an employee.
And so the doting mother to her child... extends a bit longer. The doting mother part isn't new - but rather that that relationship is seen as the ideal one... gets into cultural comparisons.
... but that's the word that can set you on the search for understanding of that phenomena.
These do not dive all that much into sexual media however. The Anglo-Saxon is infamously sexually traditional and repressed, and the Englishman second only to the Australiaman. Australia recently actually banned the import of Japanese pornography.
He's wrong, however — Eromanga Sensei is far from the worst. I would love for him to take a stab at Night Shift Nurses or Aki-Sora — the latter so amazing that even Tokyo itself made laws to contain it's carnal sins against mankind.
Man, you have not been major city areas if you think japan is tidy. Sure, compared to the US it maybe is, but a lot of european countries are better. But travel a bit further from the city centres in japan and you’ll start seeing all those illegal trash sites at quiet mountain roads and yards full of old trash.
I live in Aomori prefecture, and I have seen everything you describe first hand. Not to mention all the decaying abandoned buildings and the super dirty beaches.
I wonder how much it's the fault of the ridiculous Japanese trash collection system. Sorting the trash in 20 different bags that you can only dispose of once a month... No wonder at some point people just get fed up and throw it away in a somewhat hidden place.
Well, I must have fallen prey to the narrative yet again.
That being said I can see an illegal trash site from my window, so I guess my reference point may be pretty far away from both the Swiss and Japanese standard.
The difference is that this article alleges the existence of a single individual, rather than a trend.
The other article spoke in vague words of quantity, which is quite common in news articles, that a certain quantity is suggested, but actual numbers are never shown.
They are then not technically wrong but know full well most readers would infer a more spectacular claim than what they know the truth is.
I'd argue that when numbers actually be spectacular, news articles invariably cite them, and when they not be, cover them up in vague words — in this case however the number is 1, as it's about a single man only.
Yes, but the article's critique is a good one. "Look at this weird thing that they do in Japan" is practically a genre of online story. Japan gets a special media callout, to quote the article, as a "menagerie of the weird, the alien, the freakish."
When you see these articles about folks in the U.S., it's framed at "this guy is weird." When you see these articles about folks in Japan, it's frequently framed as "Japan is weird, and anti-social, and they don't have enough sex, and if we're not careful this could be us one day!"
Yes, it does seem to be about stereotypes, not so much quirks per se.
The Japanese stereotype is that they are lonely, and it is true that in Japan various things that cater to that, such as Host Clubs, are more common place.
There was also an article about how the Netherlands supposedly pays for prostitutes for the disabled, diving into the stereotype how the Netherlands tends to sit at the vanguard of encouraging sexual nontraditionality — the reality was less interesting and could be summed up as: A) disabled persons obtain financial support from the state; B) prostitution is legal.
I also read articles about the Norwegian military having unisex showers and dorms, which also ties into stereotypical expectations, notwithstanding their existence in other places, I'm sure.
>> about how weird Japan is (especially the Japanese)
Like countries where you can rent young girls to help launch your latest computer game? There are people in LA that can provide babies for TV/film appearances, preferably twins, with only a few hours notice. That's how the Olsen twins got started. The entire entertainment industry, from strip clubs to hollywood, is premised on renting people to pretend to be something they aren't, to provide personal appearances in places they would otherwise not. It only become weird when you describe it in non-industry terms.
No the article is odd/fascinating because most people's "rent-a-person" would be a friend or family member. And there would be no exchange of money.
It's kind of sad people have to hire people to do friendly things, but this is a pandemic. And you would "rent-a-person" to move probably in most places (unless you had great friends haha).
Also this makes sense "I'm not a friend or an acquaintance. I'm free of the bothersome things that accompany relationships, but can ease people's sense of loneliness"
So you want a throwaway friend. Or a casual therapist that does things with you. Rent them. Ok I guess not as weird as first glance. We have something similar in the US - life coaches which seemingly everyone on LinkedIn is nowadays.
Truth is, Japan is a country with a lot more freedom than most western countries, so it is not surprising to find weird things or things that most people would find unethical.
You can certainly trash 99% of the "weird Japan" stories you see in western medias.
Most of what you hear is from foreign people that did not even remotely try to learn the language or understand the culture. They make a fuss from minor cultural differences. It only gets worse when they experience Japan exclusively through the resonance chambers of the online expat communities.
Note that Family Romance is the company GP's article is about. It may not be entirely fake, but the stories that made the news were. (and both your links are about that company)
You'll have to admit it's hard to take any of these seriously when they are all about the same company that has been reported to embellish things to put it mildly. Well, except for Max D. Capo's, he used a different service.
Obviously the existence of the Twitter handle is just the first step in some kind of real verification. But it does confirm that, if it's a con, it's a long lived, dedicated one.
The pinned tweet explains the service. Auto-translation is a bit broken, but should translate roughly to this:
"I'm starting a service called 'rental person who does nothing'. [For example] for stores where entering alone is difficult[0], for matching the number of players in a game, to hold a hanami[1] spot. Please only use it for cases where one person is needed. I charge 10,000 yen, plus transportation fare from Kokubunji station, and food and drink (if applicable). I won't do anything other than very simple responses."
So it's not strictly a listening service per se.
[0] in Japan, there are food stores that are geared towards couples
The translated tweet matches the impression I got from the article. The article didn't make me think that it is specifically a "listening service".
> "People rent him for various reasons. At times he will participate in a gaming session to make up numbers, turn up to send off people who are moving away, accompany those filing for divorce, or listen to health care workers who have become mentally unwell due to their exhausting work."
> The article didn't make me think that it is specifically a "listening service"
Yeah, I agree, but it seems like people are drawing parallels to emotional support things like that rent-a-family thing. While they are both extremely unusual gigs, it seems like this guy's interactions would at best be just nodding along, rather than reciprocating (even if in a fake way).
I'm Japanese twitter user and I confirm that his interesting activity is very famous around my twitter world, but not nationwide and I don't know similar style worker is growing well (maybe not).
I also should say that this work is very different from "rent a girl" work.
I noticed this effect on me after years of living in Europe. The perception of Japanese culture / society I had from before I moved to Europe was quite different (these phenomena are to some extent well-known but not an obsession). Now I fear my understanding of all things Japanese is a little bit off (or at least diverged) from my peers in my country.
From China yes. The popular shows / movies (including anime) have quite different themes, which is easy to understand since countries import different productions. The exported culture for our consumption is mostly typical of asian interest, or more 'Americanised' / westernised even. Whereas comparing with western media there are more 'culture shock' type of eyeball-catching material, which to be frank doesn't stir much attention in east asia.
There are good side effects though. I have been to so many museums with Japanese art exhibitions showcasing varieties of works since it draws much interest in western population. The latest (pre pandemic) being the "inspiration from Japan" in Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which is eye-opening (I never realised the Japanese art that have connections with European art).
In conclusion, Japan portrayed in the west for me is more about obsession of elegance, extreme aesthetics, and bizarrity. These are merely my terrible personal generalisation / opinions.
I think it only makes Japan a hotbed for interesting and new ideas. Don't start it up in Silicon Valley when you can get free press by doing it in Japan instead!
Yeah if you just read all these articles about Japan, you'd think that all young men beat off to hentai all day at their parent's home, and that everyone is visiting "love hotels", or buys used panties from vending machines. The media loves to spin up an image of Japan to naive westerners by exaggerating its quirks.
It reminds me of HN. If you read HN too much, you might think that you can only write applications in Rust and Go using K8s, no JavaScript but Typescript only, but in reality the vast majority of apps being written are using boring technologies to implement CRUD around a relational database.
> Yeah if you just read all these articles about Japan, you'd think that all young men beat off to hentai all day at their parent's home, and that everyone is visiting "love hotels", or buys used panties from vending machines.
Firstly, love hotels are a sign of not being lonely. They do not offer a prostitute; those batteries are not included
Secondly, I do not gain the impression from that that all do it, merely that they note that the very existence thereof is exceptional. In particular, of the used underwear vending machines, when the story broke many would not believe it and thought it was a hoax, but it actually exists.
No one thinks that every U.S.A.-man bought an assault rifle at a gas station or got one as a gift for opening up a bank account, but that the practice even exists, that the number of occurrence isn't zero — that is something remarkable in and of itself.
> The media loves to spin up an image of Japan to naive westerners by exaggerating its quirks.
What I must ask is why the term “western” invariably always drops whenever Japan is discussed.
Experience taught me that more often than not “the west” in that context simply means “The U.S.A.”.
There is no “west” relevant to what you claim. All that matters is “Japan” vs. “everything else” or at least anyone not particularly experienced with Japan which applies as easily to, say, India, Russia, Uganda, or Indonesia.
> It reminds me of HN. If you read HN too much, you might think that you can only write applications in Rust and Go using K8s, no JavaScript but Typescript only, but in reality the vast majority of apps being written are using boring technologies to implement CRUD around a relational database.
I find that every time an article about a, shall we call it “exciting language” is posted most of the comments, though impressed with the theoretical innovations thereof, doubt it's real world applicability.
> Firstly, love hotels are a sign of not being lonely.
My observation from travel is that love hotels are a sign of multigenerational housing. Young adults need somewhere to go without their parents watching.
Fascinating, which country is that? Do you just walk in and say that you'd like to rent a room for 2 hours? (These questions make it sound like I want to use this service, but I'm just interested to hear about this concept, lol)
How many languages do you speak to confirm this idea?
Do you speak Pashto enough to know that Afghanistan does not take the crown in this, for instance? Do you speak Danish enough to know that Denmark also participates?
For him to confirm his claim that it is a specifically “western” thing to treat Japan so in news sources, he has to speak a variety of both “western" and “non western" languages to truly ascertain that trend.
He must both confirm that it happens in “western” news sources of many different countries, as well as that it doesn't happen in ”non western” news sources.
One would have to speak a considerable number of languages to claim sufficient expertise in world news reporting to make this claim.
Perhaps, but you suggested there was fault to be found with my argument.
I'm not sure as to how I'm supposed to challenge the challenge to my challenge without being “confrontational” as you call it and point out the faults with the argument.
> I'm not sure as to how I'm supposed to challenge the challenge to my challenge without being “confrontational” as you call it and point out the faults with the argument.
This is a hard problem, and a difficult lesson to learn. I know it took me a while, and I'm still bad at it.
I find it helps to make your points, while trying to maintain a pleasant tone (Easier said than done, and I'm not a good person to teach this). I also find it helps to add questions asking for either other peoples opinions or clarifications on their position, as that helps show that you're not just talking, but also listening.
Edit: Also, the largest part for me at least is to remember that an attack on your argument is not a personal attack against you. I've had issues with doing this my whole life, and am still working on it.
Interesting, how many books have you read on the topic of confrontation vs argumentation? I think you need at least two to have a sufficient background to discuss the concept.
> Firstly, love hotels are a sign of not being lonely. They do not offer a prostitute; those batteries are not included
Look up "delivery health". The batteries may not be included at the love hotel itself (although I've heard of places that do come with a menu), but it's also a common use of love hotels.
But who's 'the media' here? Occasionally you'll see a piece in a major publication about Japanese consumer trends or strange products that become big hits. More recently I've seen articles about the hikikomori (sp?) "lost generation" people that graduated just as the bubble burst 30 years ago. But the rest of the coverage is 'normal'; political, business and sports news.
The only place I ever see "weird Japan" content regularly is Reddit and western vloggers living in Japan posting the most sensationalist stuff possible.
I mentioned this phenomenon in a comment on an HN article about caste in India:
“ Something I've also noticed in Western media is that when covering issues about other cultures (ie India, Middle East, etc), the bar for evidence is pitifully low, especially if the story matches existing confirmation bias.”
I also think Kpop's influence is also exaggerated but I won't argue against it's popularity amongst the young female/some male crowd.
It's like when a Kpop/Kdrama fan approaches me expecting me to know all of the pop culture when in my experience most Koreans simply consider BTS to be like Justin Bieber.
Imagine if people from Japan starts asking you if you watch Justin Bieber sing and then getting offended when you speak the truth. This is exactly what people in Korea and Japan are going through but you will almost never see them express it but its getting extreme in some situations like below:
Here you can see her physically harassing Korean men by hugging them or trying to kiss them. It's getting to the point where Western women are fetishizing Korean men similar to how Asian women are often fetishized by foreigners (not through popular culture but mainly through pornography).
It would be extraordinary if young couples were having sex within earshot of their parents, or not at all. “Love hotels” seem like a pretty mundane adaptation to dating while living with family.
We need a new name for this kind of fallacy/bias. It's not new, but more potent and prevalent than ever. Only saucy stories get told, so we think it's all sauce.
Reading HN comments yesterday I learned that if I can't quickly devise an algorithm to lay out stars evenly on a flag, I'm worse than programmers in training.
I wish there was a way to thank and promote fact-checkers/remindes like you to a level on par with the liars. We need better reputation network management tools.
Everyone loves stories about how weird Japan is (especially the Japanese), so these stories should be taken with a grain of salt.