Japan’s ‘men’s concept cafes’ face scrutiny over unlicensed adult services
By operating as restaurants, these cafes have managed to skirt Japan’s adult entertainment law licensing requirements
Japan’s growing number of so-called men’s concept cafes – where male staffers offer to fulfil women patrons’ fantasies for as much as 1.65 million yen (US$11,500) a drink – has sparked scrutiny over their role in exploiting regulatory loopholes to provide unlicensed adult services.
Police arrested nine operators of several men’s concept cafes on Tuesday in downtown Osaka on suspicion of operating without proper adult entertainment business licenses and engaging in illegal customer service activities.
One of them, Masao Ota, ran a chain of five such cafes, according to commercial broadcaster KTV News. He was arrested for allowing employees to engage in prolonged customer entertainment without permits. Ota has denied the allegations.
Often called “men-kon” or “men-ko”, men’s concept cafes are often described as the male equivalents of Japan’s iconic maid cafes, staffed with good-looking men dressed to provide services based on a specific concept or fantasy.
Unlike host clubs or boys’ bars, these cafes are not licensed to allow for prolonged interactions between customers and staff. However, while customers were technically not allowed to exchange contact information with staff and conversations were supposed to be kept to a minimum, these rules were often disregarded.
Blurred lines
Operating as restaurants, they often blur the lines between table service and hosting – a distinction that, under Japan’s adult entertainment law, requires strict licensing.
Former patrons and people familiar with the scene said these cafes are not as harmless as they portray themselves, with staff aggressively coercing patrons to buy drinks and pressuring them for return visits. “It’s getting scarier in some areas,” a woman who declined to identify herself told KTV News.
Experts caution that the innocuous branding of men’s concept cafes and similar venues allow them to easily recruit workers and attract younger patrons – creating the potential for youth exploitation and other crimes. In Japan, those under 18 are prohibited from entering host clubs, but can go to themed cafes that do not serve alcohol.
This practice comes under tighter scrutiny given how the rules governing host clubs have become even stricter. On Tuesday, the country’s parliament passed a bill to curb abusive practices forcing female patrons into prostitution to pay off their debts, after police received over 2,700 complaints last year, according to The Japan Times newspaper.
“Now that host clubs face tighter rules, some of that business is shifting into these cafes, where even underage customers can get in,” sociologist Hiroshi Kanzaki told KTV News. “That raises the risk of similar harm being repeated in a new form.”
Already there have been an increasing number of cases involving teenage girls being reported in local media.
On May 2, Tokyo police arrested a men-ko employee for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old customer at a hotel on New Year’s Eve last year, public broadcaster NHK reported.
In an effort to boost his takings at Fukuro Lounge, Towa Kudo, 21, invited the high-schooler to “end my last day [of the year] with you”. The girl had visited the cafe about 30 times since October last year, spending about 1 million yen, money she had earned via prostitution and compensated dating, according to police.
A similar incident happened to a 15-year-old girl in April 2023. Pressured into paying a 600,000-yen bill at Meta – a men’s concept cafe that charged exorbitant prices, such as 600,000 yen for a bottle of champagne – the teenager turned to compensated dating to find the money to settle her debt.
