The residents of a condo block near JR Nakano Station in the west of Tokyo started to become suspicious about some of the apartments in their building.
Every day, different men seemed to come and go out of the apartments. Those well-meaning but perhaps a little nosy neighbors even went so far as to contact the cops, who promptly investigated.
Sure enough, those gentlemen callers were up to no good — at least, in the eyes of the law.
A business called Nakano Men’s Esthe Renga Spa was operating out of 33 apartments in the building, providing sex services to male clients.
The police pounced and arrested 13 men and women, including several male employees, on suspicion of illegally offering sexual services for sale last October.
“Esthe” (short for “aesthetic”) is a common euphemism for places that offer sex services of various kinds.
The Nakano Mens Esthe Renga Spa website is no long online but it seems the basic “course” was ¥14,000, plus various optional “extras” were available. We found an image of the menu and are particularly intrigued by the “sexual harassment training” option, which is advertised as a “Nakano specialty.”
According to police statements in media reports this week, the business earned over ¥1 billion in a year.
An All Nippon News report showed the yield from the police raid: menus and dozens of keys for all the rooms the business was operating.
It was quite a mini business empire. From what we can tell, there were actually several related “spa” establishments.
Brothels are legal in Japan if registered with the police — there is a prominent soapland right next to a police substation in the heart of Shibuya’s commercial district — and provided they obey the fuzoku law, which prohibits payment for penetrative sex.
