The adult industry was rocked by a major announcement yesterday by one of its biggest stars, Miku Abeno.

She wrote on Twitter that she would be retiring from porn.

However, fans shouldn’t panic just yet: she has made her announcement quite in advance. In fact, she won’t actually be retiring until the end of January next year.

So we still have until early 2021 to enjoy new porn releases by Miku Abeno. That said, because of the coronavirus pandemic, we doubt there will be many opportunities for live events in the near future. However, with the state of emergency lifted, video productions should begin again.

Given how she is explicitly announcing a retirement like this, we presume that Abeno won’t be returning to the industry under a different professional name as is often the case with performers who “retire” just because their contract with their agency runs out.

Abeno has been an AV performer for seven years and is one of the most prolific women in the industry, with 853 titles currently listed on DMM.

During her successful career, she has also released photo books and her own clone masturbator toys.

She doesn’t give a clear reason for her retirement in the announcement but says that she had been thinking about since last year and wants to lead a different life from now.

She thanks all her fans, co-stars, industry peers, and management for their support over the years.

Incidentally, Abeno’s announcement came on the same day that news broke that former AKB48 idol Mayu Watanabe would be retiring from show business for health reasons.

After they were blamed for helping to spread the coronavirus in Japan, hostess clubs are once again in the media limelight for causing a second wave of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo.

Nightlife spots are resulting in fresh clusters of cases following the lifting of the state of emergency in Tokyo.

Hostess clubs closed during the state of emergency, leading to economic uncertainty for many women and the emergence of “remote hostessing” services. Now that businesses in the city like restaurants are trying to return to some semblance of normality in the second phase of the post-lockdown reopening, the scapegoat for the inevitable new wave of cases may be pinned on Kabukicho.

Of the 90 cases confirmed in Tokyo in the week since the state of emergency was officially lifted, around 40% have been traced to hostess clubs or other similar establishments (euphemistically called “nighttime entertainment” by the media and officials). Half of these are concentrated in Shinjuku, by which we can presume they are Kabukicho hostess clubs in the area.

Of course, we cannot say for sure when these people were actually infected. Nonetheless, Tokyo has issued an alert and Governor Koike has once again reiterated the risks of the virus spreading through nighttime entertainment and recreation activities.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is apparently considering new measures. One such measure is reintroducing the controversial “guards” who patrolled areas like Kabukicho telling people on the streets to go home and not visit bars or clubs.

Physical and social distancing in a hostess club, or pretty much any club or bar in Tokyo, is impossible — and basically besides the point. People go to these places for intimacy, for affect, for conversation. Strictly speaking, places like karaoke boxes and bars are only meant to open in the third phase of the reopening schedule. But many establishments operate under the radar and there is certainly demand for them during this stressful time.

The city’s movers and shakers want us to travel to work and shop to keep the economy going, but that’s it for now.

If you are in Osaka, though, there is some good news: the brothels in Tobita Shinchi are open again.

Occasionally we like to browse the busy ranks of gradols and showcase a lesser-known or newly emerging talent in the industry. It’s not great for clicks but we feel like it’s our duty.

Our choice today is Yu Yamamoto (山本ゆう), whose star is rising and we can identify at least two reasons for this.

Two large reasons. In fact, two H-cup-sized reasons.

Since 2019, she has released several image videos, with the latest coming out at the end of last month. We have including some screen grabs from this in the post. Be warned, though, that the pictures of the off-camera man’s hands massaging her breasts and stroking her butt might make you green with envy.

Born in 1998 and entering the industry in 2018, Yu has yet to release a regular photo book — often the sign of mainstream career — but has released several digital photo books.

Since the marriage of busty, bubble butt goddess of Yuka Kuramochi, we need another curvy lady in our lives. Could Yu Yamamoto be the one?

A Japanese TV show recently showcased the curvy body of gravure idol and actress Oto Abe (安倍乙).

Nothing new about this, except it wasn’t quite how you might think.

Similar to the strange show we blogged about a while back that demonstrated how unfit certain ex-AKB48 idols were, this program broadcast on the local Nagoya-based station Chukyo TV exposed the tummy fat that Otome Abe has been cultivating.

She openly shared the secrets of her body as well as the effects of doing a lack of exercise, such as constipation. We will never look at her gravure shoots the same way again!

Abe gets her waist measured and it comes in at 71.5 centimeters (28 inches). She openly admits that the measurements on her official profile are fake. Everyone back in the studio chuckles over the close-ups of her stomach.

So is this effectively voluntary body shaming?

She then does a light weeklong workout regime with a hula hoop to tackle her excess body fat, which seemed mostly like an excuse just to film her moving around in skimpy clothing. She is pleased to see her waist measurement has dropped to 69 centimeters (27 inches) at the end of it.

Let’s hope that her bowel movements also improved. Feeling constipated during an intimate gravure photo shoot doesn’t sound like anyone’s idea of a fun time.

Due to COVID-19, pretty much all of us have been spending a lot more time at home. Which means a lot more mess. Which means a lot more cleaning.

And in our case, this means a lot more fantasies about sexy wives hanging around in skimpy clothing, ready to clean things up for us.

All right, fantasy and reality are often poles apart, but you can’t blame a man’s mind for trying.

And so we were pleased to spot this new arrival in the Japanese adult toys market recently.

The Pururin Pai Onahole by adult brand Mate features a novel design that integrates a costume into the torso on the masturbator toy.

If you are into busty wife characters in aprons, then you are in for a treat because both the box art and the onahole design have this in spades.

While we have seen plenty of maid fetish costumes, pillows, and other onaholes over the years, we think this is our first time to encounter a masturbator that actually incorporates clothing like this into the exterior.

The Pururin Pai Onahole is available now globally from Kanojo Toys, your online destination for all things adult about Japan.

As the city reopens following its soft lockdown, one establishment has made headlines for changing its operating style to fit the new normal that is post-COVID-19 Tokyo — and also opening itself up to a broader demographic ahead of its closure.

The host club Ai Honten (literally, Love Head Office) will open only on Saturdays and Sundays as a cafe. For once, male customers will also be admitted. So this is also a kind of education project, helping people experience what a host club is like without having to pay the usual costs entailed.

First opened in 1971 and one of the most renowned clubs in the Kabukicho district, the long-running Ai Honten will actually close for good at its current location the end of June, so this is effectively a kind of “last chance” for fans or the curious to see what the club is like inside. (Hint: it’s glitzy.) The building is set to be demolished as part of the ongoing gentrification and redevelopment of Kabukicho, though Ai Honten plans to reopen in a new location.

The hosts will not be on hand to offer their usual services per se, but will rather be hanging around to give information and floor guidance.

Despite the similarity of name (“honten” looks at a glance like “bookstore”), Ai Honten should not confused with the now-closed (and since relocated) Kabukicho Book Center, a love-themed bookstore operated by genuine hosts.

The Ai Honten cafe has a menu with the standard fare and prices (as opposed to a break-the-bank costs of a visit to a host club). You pay ¥1,000 for all-you-can-drink, which is a heck of a lot more reasonable than Starbuck’s. Alcoholic beverages are available for around ¥600 each.

Social distancing measures are in place, with customers having their temperatures checked at the door and asked to sanitize their hands, and with the tables properly spaced apart.

Ai Honten is famous from its frequent use as a location for filming. Its gaudy, flamboyant style seems to epitomize the garish host lifestyle. The interior is filled with chandeliers, mirrors, and gold statues. Subtle, this ain’t.

This promotion by the club is taking place at a point when the reputation of host and hostess clubs has been severely blighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with such nightlife establishments receiving much of the blame for spreading infections. The facts have, unfortunately or otherwise, continued to support this perception: of the 26 new infections in Tokyo announced on June 6, 12 were from a single Kabukicho host club.

Governor Koike will set up regular testing for nightlife workers to prevent a second wave hitting the city.

The ever-reliable Tenga has just released a batch of great cooling toys in time for the summer.

Of course, this is far from the first time that Tenga, the Apple of the adult industry in Japan, has created menthol and other types of “cool-you-down” masturbation aids. But this year’s set of toys is particularly broad and ambitious, and includes both new releases and re-releases.

Let’s start with the basics: a cool version of the classic Tenga Cup.

The Tenga Deep Throat Cup Special Cool Edition is, as the name suggests, a special cooling version of the popular Deep Throat Cup. So you can get a blow-job-like slurping sensation that is pleasant for your johnson even during the hot and sticky months of the year.

That’s great, of course, but how about raising things to the next level of cooling? The Tenga Deep Throat Cup Extra Cool Edition does just that, adding peppermint oil and menthol to the lube for an even more chilled experience.

If you are one of the many who likes some more oomph with his masturbation and so combines a Tenga Cup with the powered Tenga Gyro, the Rolling Tenga Gyro Roller Cup Cool means you get the usual dose of pleasure with a dose of cooling menthol.

Tenga has also wound back the clock, so to speak, by returning to its roots with the Tenga Egg Wavy Special Cool Edition. The compact masturbation “egg” was an early success for the brand, but this new version shows that it can keep on updating the design.

The Tenga Egg is pretty discreet, but if you want to be even more careful, the disposable Pocket Tenga Block Edge Special Cool Edition is your choice. As with all Pocket Tenga toys, the masturbation sleeve slips flat into your pocket or bag. It is a special cooling version and also comes with resealable lube.

Talking of which, the toys come with lube but you might want some extra supply or a decent lube for use on its own. In that case, the Tenga Play Gel Ice Cool has you covered. But still cool.

And finally, we all love a cooler bag during the summer. Nothing beats a lazy day in the summer, dipping into a box filled with chilled beers, right? If you rather want a masturbatory version of that experience (that is, a value pack of Tenga’s cooling toys), the Tenga Extra Cool Bag is where you should start, containing a Tenga Deep Throat Cup Extra Cool Edition, a Tenga Deep Throat Cup Special Cool Edition, and two Tenga Egg Wavy Special Cool Edition toys.

If you are keeping track of such particulars, this “cool bag” bundle is a new release for 2020, along with the Tenga Deep Throat Cup Extra Cool Edition, while the other items are re-releases from Tenga’s previous lineup of cooling adult toys available only during the summer.

So this year, get hot and masturbate, yet stay cool. All thanks to Tenga.

Japanese netizens: savvy, beady-eyed, industrious, curious, or just too much free time?

Pick your descriptor, but they all apply to some extent in the end.

The latest example of this was exposed, if you will pardon the expression, by a bikini photo shoot by NGT48’s Ayuka Nakamura.

In the Australian shoot, the up-and-coming idol in the Niigata-based group is sitting down and turning to the camera. She is wearing an orange and white swimwear set that shows off her very slim body — rather too slim for our liking, in case you wondered — and graceful legs in profile.

But she forgot something.

With a little help from zoom functions and an inquiring mind, netizens took a close look at 21-year-old Ayuka Nakamura’s modest assets. Only to find an unexpected addition to her bust.

Nakamura forgot to take out her bra pads before the shoot. Or perhaps the editors forgot to brush them out before publishing the photo in (we believe) the June edition of the Forty-Eight Times, the digital version of the now-shuttered AKB48 Shimbun. It covers the army of idols in the sprawling AKB48 Group.

The efforts of netizens previously enlightened the world to the naked butt of Kei Jonishi.

You might think that being married to the beautiful model and actress Nozomi Sasaki would be enough to satisfy a man. You’d be wrong.

A scandal has broken out in the Japanese entertainment world after a tabloid scooped an interview with a mistress of popular comedian Ken Watabe.

Apparently they met numerous times even after his marriage to have sex in public toilets. The 47-year-old Watabe would drive around in his car, according to the woman, scouting out a suitably quiet toilet in the basement of the Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo, and then message his office lady lover to come. He would then promptly lock them both inside one of those larger, multipurpose toilets meant primarily for people with disabilities. Hardly what you might call romance, perhaps, though this allegedly happened about twice per week.

Disgruntled at his increasingly demeaning behavior that treated her almost literally like a human toilet (a term in Japanese for a slut and a whole subgenre of Japanese porn), it seems she went to the tabloid with her story.

It is reported that Watabe had affairs with several other women.

Now he has temporarily withdrawn from his lucrative television jobs (eight regular gigs). Rumors are swilling online that he also learned English for a time in order to make it big in the United States — and, naturally, only picked certain kinds of female teachers.

Sasaki is now 32 and married Watabe in 2017. Their first child was born in 2018.

If this all sounds incredible, think again.

Being married to (and having three children with) Anne Watanabe was not good enough for Masahiro Higashide, who was having a long-running affair with a young actress, Erika Karata. The fallout has derailed both Higashide and Karata’s careers.

Nor was being in a relationship with the stunning Haruna Yabuki good enough for Masaki Nishina, who was cheating on her with a hostess.

Just Ai Tominaga was not enough for actor Shun Shioya and got punched for his infidelity.

Rainy season has officially begun in Tokyo. Last year’s season was protracted and desultory, stretching on until July. We hope that won’t be the case this year, though the measures against the coronavirus will mean that many places are anyway closed and typical summer events won’t happen.

When the rains started last week, they brought with them winds.

All this spelled trouble for commuters, struggling to get to work against the elements. And for schoolgirls, it was especially difficult conditions to walk around in.

Even more so in if you have a voyeur on your trail. Schoolgirls must deal with tosatsu (secret filming) and panchira (upskirting) fetishists, who prowl the streets looking for new additions to their collections.

The windy weather that ushered in this year’s rainy season was a particular problem, as these schoolgirls found in Yokohama.

They were trailed by an unknown male admirer, who photographed their attempts to keep their skirts down in the gale. Savvy young ladies that they are, they were largely successful and the frustrated voyeur was unable to snap a decent shot of any panchira despite his obvious tenacity. But for some people, this delicate borderline between glimpsing and not glimpsing the Holy Grail is precisely where the allure lies…

Sexually provocative VTuber DeepWebUnderground has already released her own range of tie-in adult toys with top brand Tama Toys.

But now DWU and Tama Toys have given us another — and rewarded us for our patience with a breasts toy.

Oh, and it’s super inventive, too.

The DWU Nipple Fuck Onahole is not just a replica of DeepWebUnderground’s breasts. It’s more than yet another paizuri bust toy, which are pretty familiar by now. No, this toy lets you penetrate the nipples. It’s a tittyfuck or titjob taken to the next level.

We saw a similar design with, for instance, the Chichikan Nipple Penetration Onahole, but we prefer the DWU version — not least because there are two breasts. And two is always better than one, especially when it comes to breasts.

This is a realistically hefty toy that you will love holding and squeezing almost as much as penetrating. Each breast features a different internal texture, so you can choose between a zigzagging internal pattern in one and a set of gentle vertical and horizontal ridges in the other.

The DWU Nipple Fuck Onahole is available now globally from our friends at Kanojo Toys, along with all the other DeepWebUnderground toys.

We can’t go to tumblr these days, after the platform banned nude images. Twitter can be a bit hit or miss.

So it’s to Instagram that our wandering eyes stray, always on the look out for new beauties.

There is a lot of buzz right now about Mai Watanabe (わたなべ麻衣), who has gained a following on Instagram and has now made her gravure debut (promoting a digital photo book).

And what a shoot it is, getting progressively nude as it goes on and ending with Watanabe’s wet and semi-nude body.

The Hiroshima-born 30-year-old has modeled for various women’s magazines like VOCE. She has released a photo book, “every moment,” and maintains a regularly updated Instagram account that has over half a million followers.

In 2019, she married a celebrity called JOY, which does not come as a joy for us. But hopefully she will continue to do gravure shoots to make up for this. Sadly, this made me a long shot as she just announced that she is pregnant with her first child…

So this may be the only such shoot we ever get to see. They are taken from a digital photo book called “change.”

Intriguingly, or provocatively, she sports her wedding ring even in the most revealing photos of the shoot.

Netizens have discovered that a man recently arrested for threatening to kill the director of an anime may have appeared as an extra in an adult video.

In early June, the 21-year-old Fukuta Kishimoto was arrested by Tokyo police on suspicion of posting to an internet bulletin board that he would stab the director of Kemono Friends and “feed his meat to cannibals.” He also said he would set fire to the production office, chillingly echoing the horrific attack on the Kyoto Animation office in July 2019 that left 36 dead.

Kishimoto has admitted to the allegations that he made the online threats in April. Police are now investigating if he made related threats at other times.

Netizens, though, launched their own kind of inquiry and have published their findings: they suspect that Kishimoto also made a cameo in a porn production a few years ago starring Iroha Natsume (aka Sarasa Hara). The AV title is あなたに愛されたくて。夏目彩春 (part of a series) and the code is adn00084.

The Kishimoto lookalike does not get to have sex in the video that was produced by Attackers, instead playing a customer in an internet cafe that plays host to kinky escapades between Natsume and another man.

The jury is still out, officially speaking.

The man in the picture from the AV preview images certainly looks like Kishimoto, but he would have been probably too young to appear in a mainstream porn production even as an extra. It was first release digitally on December 31, 2015 and then on DVD in January 2016.

If it is true, though, it recalls other cases of secret porn careers.

Earlier this year we blogged about a serial thief who had worked in porn.

One notorious example is the man who stabbed a music idol and who was subsequently found to have appeared in a major porn production with Yui Hatano.

Given the sheer magnitude of the porn industry in Japan, it does not surprise that so many men and women do have these hidden entries on the résumés.

Incidentally, Kemono Friends has also inspired at least one porn parody (pictured below).

Okamoto, creator of the “Zero” range of ultra-thin condoms, has made an online anime series to promote safe sex.

Condom Battler Goro is packed with nods to past animes like Dragon Ball, Pokemon, Fist of the North Star, and Yu-Gi-Oh.

As first reported by Kotaku and SoraNews, the 56-episode series stars a 24-year-old Condom Battler named Goro. Naturally, prophylactics are his arsenal and his particular rubber of choice is the Zero One 0.01mm condom. He gains condom armor when he opens up the Zero One condom foil packet. Goro has an ally, the 24-year-old Hayato, and a girlfriend, 24-year-old Miku.

The individual episodes are about a minute long and incorporate lessons about how to use condoms. For now, a few digest episodes are available online.

Japanese condom manufacturers not only make some of the thinnest and most respected condoms in the world, they also create most original marketing campaigns to promote their products.

In the past, we have seen dinosaur sex ads, a fake horror movie, and a condom cookbook. It’s a far cry from the usual Japanese approach to advertising, which typically involves just hiring some cookie-cutter celebrity to hold the product and smile.

This is probably because Japanese men by and large don’t use condoms, preferring to pull out (and finish off on their partner’s body or face). It is reinforced by pornography, which gives the impression to young men that doing this is the norm. Adult video performers, though, generally do use condoms but putting them and taking them off is frequently not shown to the viewer.

One of the many, many things we love about Tama Toys — perhaps the most prolific brand in the Japanese adult toys industry — is how it goes beyond the usual array of onaholes, lubes, and vibes.

As fans will know, it has created several series of “Insert” dakimakura hug pillows with now dozens and dozens of covers featuring fantastic character art prints.

It is also recently making original t-shirts, like these two awesome examples with ahegao or fellagao designs. We challenge you to wear these on the school run or your next grocery shopping trip.

The industrious brand has even started to make towels — specifically, large and absorbent towels made from microfibers that are useful for clean-up after masturbating. Of course, the towels also have stunning erotic art prints on them in the usual Tama Toys style.

A spin-off from the first set of towels is this Blowjob Hole Microfiber Big Towel Naughty Schoolgirls Lolicept.

With hentai art by regular Tama Toys illustrator Lolicept, the towel focuses all the pleasure and attention firmly on your johnson, which pokes up through the integrated hole so that it seems like these two JK characters are licking and sucking your cock.

Frankly, we don’t think there’s anything more self-indulgent than this fantasy. Sadly for most of us, it has to remain just that — a fantasy. But this towel at least makes it so much realer than others.

The Blowjob Hole Microfiber Big Towel Naughty Schoolgirls Lolicept is now available globally from our friends at Kanojo Toys, your one-stop store for everything adult about Japan.

In these coronavirus times, Zoom has become an essential tool for life and work.

But it has also led to some amusement, like when actor Yosuke Kubozuka recently got drunk during a live Zoom session with fans and fell asleep.

People like to opt for virtual backgrounds to hide anything embarrassing that may appear on camera behind them, but what about something in front? And between their legs?

NMB48’s Chihiro Kawakami suffered this manner of misfortune when she gave fans much more than they were expecting during a Zoom session.

Her skirt had hitched itself up so high while she sitting that she ended up flashing her white panties to viewers.

This is a classic panchira — an upskirt view of panties — that is so yearned for by fetishists in Japan.

The video was streamed live on June 18, but you can still watch it on YouTube. You have to watch very carefully — something at which, fortunately, netizens excel — but the patient viewer is rewarded at around the 56:40 mark.

Should we coin a new subgenre for this? Zoom-panchira?

The coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdown has hit AKB48 and its sister groups hard, since large-scale live concerts are still out of the question and the handshaking events that were such a major part of the fandom (and economics of the groups) are also impossible to imagine returning soon.

The fashion model Angelica Michibata has rewarded very patient fans and admirers by showing off her nipples (and perhaps more) at long last.

Michibata will release a new photo book, “Angelica,” on August 7 that promises to be fully nude and showcase her stunning body. The shoot was done in a Tokyo studio in early June just after the state of emergency was lifted. The photographer is Hajime Sawatari, a veteran of nude shoots, and the publisher is another big name — Futabasha.

These are the initially announced preview images.

The news has been greeted with glee by the mainstream media, which is relatively starved of such positive tidings to report in these corona days.

Some, though, were quick to comment that she has missed the boat and should have stripped ten years ago, before she got married and had a child. Now aged 34, we would argue that she is still in her prime womanhood but by mainstream industry standards, she is jukujo territory.

Angelica is, of course, the sister of Jessica Michibata, who is no stranger herself to provocative and semi-nude shoots.

Angelica has actually done semi-nude shoots before, including ones that showed off her butt. But this is the first time that she has shown her breasts and nipples. Here are some examples of previous shoots.

She also did a “maternity nude” shoot in 2018 — which is something of a popular subgenre of nude shoots among pregnant celebrities in Japan.

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The model, who is biracial (half-Brazilian, half-Japanese), was embroiled in controversy last year. Her husband was accused of attempted extortion and, though her involvement was denied by her husband, she was present during the incident and may have been implicated in other ways in what led up to it. She was eventually referred to the prosecutors, though no charges were brought. Nonetheless, she suspended her work activities and her reputation was seriously tarnished. This month marks the first time she has worked in the entertainment industry since last autumn.

It is a bold attempt to relaunch her career. After all, there’s nothing quite like going nude for generating headlines and clicks. We are now waiting to see if she is going fully nude (known in Japan as a “hair nude”). She may well be nude in the photo book but not actually show any bush.

We will update with a new post after more images become available.

We previously blogged about the explicit sex scenes in the film It Feels So Good (Kako no Futari) but came across better-quality images, so we wanted to showcase the film again.

As readers may recall, It Feels So Good stars Kumi Takiuchi and is also known in English as Lovers at the Crater. It was released last year in Japan to great acclaim.

Perhaps the best sex scene sees the two lovers start to have sex in a doorway, with the man penetrating Takiuchi from behind. They then continue on a bed, with her riding him and then sucking him off when he finishes.

Another scene sees them lie in bed next to each other, masturbating one another.

In another, they have sex on a table.

In yet another, they sit next to each other in bed and she starts to jerks him off and then begins to give him oral sex.

There are numerous other scenes that unfold in beds, in a bath, and beyond. Takiuchi does full-frontal nudity (not censored in these images taken from the overseas release) and the film bravely and refreshingly also does not shy away from showing the mechanics of sex, including cunnilingus, unprotected sex, and cleaning up cum.

Takiuchi also did several nude sex scenes in the film Side Job, which fans will definitely want to check out.

We love a comeback, hence our interest in the apparently nude photo book by Angelica Michibata scheduled for release in August. We also love a jukujo, hence our interest in the comebacks by single mom Hiroko Sato and former Morning Musume Asuka Fukuda.

So now there’s Asami Kumakiri, whose summer-themed photo book “Bare Self” more or less lives up to the name.

It’s the first time in sixteen years that the forty-year-old idol, a former member of the group Checkicco and (we understand) still unmarried, has released a photo book.

It’s not nude, and barely qualifies as semi-nude, but Asami does give us the classic tebura “hand bra” pose that is so beloved of female celebrities.

It’s tempting to resort to cliches at these times and write something like she likes amazing for her age — but why shouldn’t she? Why should we be surprised? Forty is the new thirty, and a woman in her forties can still be a sex symbol.

“Bare Self” hit stores in Japan last week.

As previously discussed on this blog before, hostesses and hosts have received much of the blame for the spread of the coronavirus in Japan, especially in Tokyo.

The nightlife scene, particularly the seedier side in areas like Kabukicho, has found itself demonized by the authorities and media as the most obvious source of infection clusters.

While we don’t doubt that intimate encounters with prostitutes or long sessions in small hostess club booths does increase the risk of infection, we are very suspicious of the narrative that the media is pushing.

Indeed, this week Tokyo announced 55 new infections — the most in a single day for several weeks — and blamed clusters at workplaces, so the situation is certainly more complex.

Hostesses and prostitutes, and their bosses, have seen their income plummet, if not completely disappear. Some hostesses have tried to invigorate the industry through new virtual or remote services.

Attempts to reassure potential customers may also backfire, as a sex parlor in Osaka found out when it advertised that its working girls were COVID-19 negative but had actually tested none. The managers were arrested.

Could the answer simply be masks? Would you like to spend a lot of money talking to a hostess whose face is covered by a mask — and perhaps there is a sheet of plastic between you or she is also wearing an eye shield? Hardly realistic.

But one kimono maker believes that its mask may be the solution.

According to a report from Kyodo News, the Yamagata-based company Otozuki has teamed up with a nightclub operator to produce “hostess-friendly face masks that make it easy to sip drinks and create an alluring atmosphere.”

Inspired by face veils worn by belly dancers, the masks feature three vertical strips of cloth that form a curtain covering the nose and mouth, with the strip in the center of double thickness.

Users of Face Veil are able to eat and drink without removing the covering just by raising the middle strip of cloth.

“They are less uncomfortable than (normal) face masks,” an official claimed, in a dubiously worded double negative. “They are becoming popular among women working in the nightlife industry.”

Here you can see a demonstration of how the mask/veil is used.

The masks come in various colors and materials, including lace, and are priced between ¥2,200 and ¥3,850, which is pretty hefty for a single mask.

Is this what the future of hostessing looks like?