Not too long ago I wrote a post primarily about Japanese hostesses here. Japanese "hosts" are the male  equivalent of Japanese "hostesses". Now that we have that out of the way. 

My input on this film was pretty simple. Yes I understand why a man would become a host; you can earn a significant amount of money, you could improve your social skills, have women fawn over you & you can drink all you want. Doesn't sound to shabby. But as I kept watching I had mixed feelings. Feelings of sadness, excitement, relating and annoyance washed over me.



  In society (even in Japan) it's much easier for women to get by. Disagree if you want but I find it very true, at least from my view point.

Hm let me try to explain. In Japan many men take there college entrance exams, go to college (if they pass), graduate, start working at a company where they wear a suit and tie each day and work crazy hours with no paid overtime, to make less money than the soda machine on the side of the road. That's every day for the rest of there working life. Salary men.

So now you have hosts who become hosts for a wide variety of reasons but there lives are entirely different than a salary man. They get paid thousands of dollars to BS women, binge drink expensive booze, go on dohans, and damage there hair with excessive hair dyeing and heat from hair styling tools. They usually do this until they're past a certain age and then they retire early with the savings they made from work, die from liver failure, or open there own business mizu shobai related.

But Salary man and host never mix!
Now you have the hostess (the female equivalent of a host) who can work as an OL(office lady) during the day and have the option to work as a hostess at night. I've seen and heard of plenty of women who mixed the two worlds together. They have that option. Now correct me if I'm wrong but men don't get that luxury.

Now in this documentary, I felt many of these hosts, became emotionally & physically damaged. I felt as though they couldn't get out of this lifestyle even if they tried. I don't think a lot of them want to lie & pressure these women out of there money but that's their only way to survive. The director of the film made a comment in a interview stating that many of these hosts don't come from money & more than often they become a host in order to support their family.

The female customers in the documentary especially made me sad. Almost majority of the female customers also worked in the mizu shobai in order to pay the dangerously high prices of the club. Some women worked as hostesses themselves & some worked at soap lands as prostitutes.

What struck me as odd was how some of these women had normal lives before going to host clubs. One woman was even engaged to a man but she gave up her marriage & instead got a job at soap land so she could afford to spend money on a host. They would go to the club so the hosts could temporarily distract them from the stresses of work but many of the women got the nightclub jobs in the first place in order to pay for the host clubs....? Someone explain that one to me. 

Here is a very common misconception, that customers are normally women that are also from the mizu shobai. That's not the case. In this documentary, this club particularly catered to women working in the nightlife because it was known as a fun, young and laid back host bar. Many upscale clubs cater to rich housewife's, normal OL's, as well as sex workers.





Anyone if interested here is a link to the documentary. The Great Happiness Space