Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (2016) PDF

S TAGE D S E D U C TI O N  S TA G E D S E D U C T I O N SELLING DREAMS IN A TOKYO HOST CLUB A K I KO TA K E YAMA S TANFORD UNIVERSIT Y PRESS S TANFORD, C ALIFORNIA Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 20...

S TAGE D S E D U C TI O N  S TA G E D S E D U C T I O N SELLING DREAMS IN A TOKYO HOST CLUB A K I KO TA K E YAMA S TANFORD UNIVERSIT Y PRESS S TANFORD, C ALIFORNIA Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Takeyama, Akiko, 1970– author. Staged seduction : selling dreams in a Tokyo host club / Akiko Takeyama. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-9124-3 (cloth : alk. paper)—isbn 978-0-8047-9854-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)— isbn 978-0-8047-9855-6 (electronic) 1. Love—Economic aspects—Japan—Tokyo. 2. Man-woman relationships—Japan—Tokyo. 3. Sex-oriented businesses—Japan—Tokyo. 4. Sexual ethics—Japan—Tokyo. 5. Nightclubs— Japan—Tokyo. 6. Tokyo (Japan)—Social life and customs—21st century. I. Title. gt2600.t35 2016 392.60952'135—dc23 2015029298 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion Pro For all dreamers  CONTENTS Notes on Japanese Terms and Currency ix Prelude xi Introduction: Promise of the Future 1 1 The Consumable City 23 2 Commodified Romance 39 3 Entrepreneurial Attraction 71 4 Feminine Restoration 103 5 The Art of Seduction 135 Conclusion: Affect Economy 163 Acknowledgments 175 Notes 179 References 195 Index 209  NOTES ON JAPANESE TERMS AND CURRENCY In this book, Japanese names are written according to the Japanese order, with the surname preceding the given name. An exception is made for authors whose names have been published using the Western name order. Please note that host clubs and participants are given pseudonyms to maintain confiden- tiality. Some of the identifiable information concerning my informants is also modified for the same reason. This text uses the modified Hepburn system of romanization. Long vowels are denoted by macrons (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū), with the exception of places or terms that are well known in English (Tokyo or Hokkaido, for example). Currency exchange has been calculated using a rate of 100 yen per US dollar. Though the exchange rate has fluctuated during the period of my fieldwork and follow-up research over the last ten years, this number is a reflection of the aver- age exchange rate between August 2003 and July 2013.  PRELUDE One late Saturday night in September 2004, I walked alone into Tokyo’s Kabuki- chō red-light district, the restless heart of the country’s sex and entertainment industry. Among Japanese, Kabuki-chō is commonly referred to as the “sleep- less castle” and a “labyrinth of lust.” The district is located in the city’s Shinjuku ward, a major commercial and administrative hub.1 Kabuki-chō is a five-minute walk from Shinjuku eki, the world’s busiest train station. To enter, you walk down a gently sloped grade into a vast arena of adult- entertainment offerings.2 The roughly one-quarter-square-mile area is filled with bars, karaoke boxes, game centers, pachinko parlors, hostess clubs, love hotels, and thousands of other sex-related businesses. It reverberates with the aggressive shouts of club promoters, upbeat techno music from karaoke bars, high-decibel mechanical and digital beeps from game centers, and the occa- sional sirens of patrol cars. When I arrived, darkness had descended and provided a splendid backdrop to a colorful array of billboards and neon signs. Beneath these glowing displays, I watched fashionably dressed women cluster in small groups. Their free-and- easy manner with one another and occasional side glances created unguarded moments in which men would flirtatiously approach them. These advances were part of the night’s entertainment. As I wandered down one of the streets, a young man addressed me from behind, “Hey lady, interested in a host club?” (Onēsan, hosuto kurabu wa ikaga desuka?) Across the district, men in black suits attempt to lure salarymen into hostess clubs and pornographic peep shows. This man was different. He ag- gressively advertised both himself and his club to passing women. Nervously, I wondered, Why did he approach me? I did not intend to visit a host club that night. I just wanted to observe the street scene. I need to be cautious around men like him, I thought. But xii PRELUDE then again, this was a good opportunity to learn more about the hosting busi- ness. I should have dressed up to fit in among the host clubs’ glamorous cli- entele. My outfit—a simple cotton shirt, a pair of khaki pants, and very little makeup—was not appropriate for clubbing. Should I just walk away or ask where he works? On closer inspection, he looked unlike other hosts who bleached their hair, wore gaudy accessories, and pretended to be playboys. These men vigorously sought to draw women into their respective clubs through their flamboyant performance and casual talk. Their tacky appearance and obsequious ap- proaches amused me, but they were not my type and I shied away from them. This man, however, was clean-cut with short black hair and wore a simple suit. He was very polite. I answered back: “Well, I... I am researching host clubs. I came to Kabuki-chō tonight... ” I started to say, but he interrupted. “Why don’t you come over and see my host club? It’s only 5,000 yen [about $50] for the first visit. It’s a good deal, isn’t it?” “Not bad at all,” I said. “Where do you work?” “I work for club Orion.” “I have heard of it. It’s a famous club, isn’t it?” “Yes, it is one of the long-standing clubs [in the district]. Unlike a lot of other unknown ones, our club is known for its fair business practices. You can trust us.” His congeniality put me at ease, and I decided to follow him to Orion. I learned he was twenty-three and had started working at the club five months earlier. His host name was Shin, his brother’s name, and he was the eldest son of four children. When Shin finished middle school in Ibaraki, a Tokyo sub- urb, he started working for his father’s construction company. But he soon quit because of the hard labor. Shin then took a job at a clothing store but grew tired of working under someone else’s supervision. He saw an advertisement for “night work” ( yoru no shigoto) and decided to become a host. Shin told me that he devoted himself exclusively to the hosting business and had no time for a girlfriend.3 Despite our twelve-year or so age difference, I was taken aback by how open Shin was. I began to tell him about my life. I said I was a graduate student in the United States and had returned to Japan for a year to conduct fieldwork. I grew up in Hamamatsu, 130 miles south of Tokyo, where I was an “office lady”  PRELUDE xiii (full-time office worker) at an insurance company until 1997, when I quit my job and left home to go to university. Although I did not mention my marital status, the amount I did share with him surprised me. We both sought alterna- tives to conventional salaryman/housewife roles in Japan’s rigid corporate and family systems. We also aspired to upward social mobility. As our rapport grew, the Kabuki-chō nightlife scene no longer felt so alien to me. I asked Shin if I could conduct my research with him that night, and he agreed. I also questioned whether I should talk to his club manager, but he said it was unnecessary. Hosts are self-employed, independent agents who ex- ercise autonomy over their tables. After passing several clubs and bars, I saw a large black sign with white stylish lettering, “Ladies Only Club, Orion.” Located in a plain, concrete building, Orion had no windows or notable architectural decorations. The entrance was unadorned: no velvet ropes, no curtains, no bouncers. There were a couple of hosts outside, smoking cigarettes and casually talking on the phone. They paid little attention to us. A large, glass showcase stood in the entryway. It featured glossy color head- shots of five of Orion’s top-ranking hosts. They were young, handsome men with androgynous features. The photos reminded me of David Bowie in the film Labyrinth or members of Japan’s “visual bands,” known for their flashy out- fits, hairstyles, cosmetics, and performances. The hosts’ shaggy, feathered hair with brown highlights framed their pale faces. A few rested their delicate hands against their faces. Others stroked their hair with their long, thin fingers. Some smiled innocently, while others provocatively pursed their rose-colored lips. Once Shin opened the club’s heavy door, it seemed as if a theater curtain had been lifted, and I was thrust onto a stage in the midst of a lively show. In front of me were four or five female customers whose conversations and laugh- ter kept pace with the music’s upbeat tempo. Their fashionable attire accentu- ated the venue’s modern decor—a calculated palette of white walls, red leather sofas, and round black tables. Indirect lighting cast shadows of the vibrant scene around the room. These elements lent the club an atmosphere much like that of lounges in trendy hotels. As I entered, a couple of hosts greeted me with irasshaimase! (welcome) and deep bows. I sat on a sofa, buffered from the other clients by empty tables. Shin swiftly sat down next to me. “So, what do you think of the club?” His two “helper hosts” assembled beside us. They opened a bottle of shōchū wheat liquor and served it in highball glasses with iced water. Another helper host carefully laid a lace napkin on my lap. They commented on how slow business xiv PRELUDE was and how much my presence had “lightened” the club’s mood. I was then given a toast. “What is your name?” a helper host asked me. “Akiko,” I replied. “No wonder you are so pretty! There are statistics showing that women named Akiko tend to be beautiful,” he said. I doubted there were such statistics, but his remarks reminded me that many Japanese parents, including my own, named their daughters Akiko after the 1959 Miss Universe, Akiko Kojima—the first Asian to ever win the pageant. “Have you ever been told that you look like a TV announcer?” another helper jumped in and asked. The term he used was joshiana, a female announcer typically seen on ­Tokyo-based national broadcasts. The joshiana is a symbol of an ideal Japanese ­femininity—a rare combination of intelligence, beauty, and popularity. “Um... no, not really,” I said, but I was flattered. “You know, the kind of announcer at a local station who is lovable... but not quite sophisticated!” Everyone at the table, including myself, burst into laughter. Around the club, men provide attentive service to women, as well as their main hosts, as if they were royalty. Hosts would rest their hands on their clients’ shoulders, arms, or laps to gauge their reactions and ensure they were having a good time. If a helper host saw a woman pulling out a cigarette, he would quickly produce a lighter and wait for her to put the cigarette in her mouth. They did the same for the main host as a show of respect. At the table, these men supported the hosts’ flirtatious gestures, felicitously reacting to their jokes and compliments. The hosts’ body movements—lighting cigarettes, mixing drinks, flirting, and laughing—were highly stylized and exaggerated. They made every possible effort to please their clientele. Surrounded by this attention, unusual for women in Japan’s male-centered society, I felt like a celebrity. In the club, women were excused from traditional feminine roles and instead experienced what it was like to be cared for by men. Though I was swept away by all of the attention, I wondered why these hosts asked me such personal questions. Were they actually interested in my research? Or did they simply treat me as they would any client? They asked,  PRELUDE xv among other things, how much I enjoyed drinking alcohol, where I lived, and what my hobbies were. I came to realize that their inquiries were designed to gauge my wealth and whether I might solicit their hosting services again. While I contemplated the hosts’ intent, I noticed my knee was slightly touching Shin’s. I straightened myself and slid my leg away. As I was drawn back into the conversation, my pant leg once again rubbed against Shin’s. He inched slightly closer and leaned over to me. “Are you having a good time?” he murmured into my ear. I nodded. His whisper was ticklish, and, mildly affected by the alcohol, I became entranced by the sweet fragrance of his cologne. His subtle gestures had transformed the club’s open space into an intimate environ- ment where his proximity, whether accidental or not, seemed deliberate. Shin conveyed nothing substantive to me in his furtive whispers. However, by with- holding the content of these exchanges from others, I grew attracted to him. These feelings arose because of—not despite—the existence of others in the open space. Shin created a fantasy, wherein my sensual experience and cogni- tive interpretation felt all-encompassing. Orion closed around 1:00 a.m. I paid a total of 5,000 yen, which covered the table charge, a bottle of shōchū, and water. Shin then invited me to a bar for afutā—after-hours activities, in which hosts privately express appreciation to their clients by accompanying them to a restaurant, pub, or karaoke bar. “I usually don’t drink this much, but I feel so good and special tonight for some reason,” he said as he loosened his tie. “So, how common is it for a host to go out with women after hours?” I asked him. “It depends upon the host, but I usually don’t go to the ‘after,’” he ­replied. “When do you go then?” “Only when a client asks me or I feel like inviting a woman to spend more time together. Yeah, I wouldn’t go unless I’m interested in the woman and want to know her better.” His remarks made me wonder if he really was interested in me. No way, I thought to myself. “So, what kind of women are you interested in, as clients?” I continued. “Well, I like a woman who has things that I don’t, like... intelligence,” Shin said as he looked straight at me. “I like an intelligent woman,” he re- peated, as if to gauge my reaction. xvi PRELUDE “You were hungry tonight, anyway,” I managed to say jokingly. “You don’t understand men’s minds, do you?” he said. Shin looked disappointed and turned his back to me. Changing the subject, I asked Shin about his hosting experience. He told me that he had lost some important clients and was struggling to maintain his sales. The owner recently promoted Shin to kanbu in the club—a position of elevated managerial status. Because of this, he felt too busy to focus personal attention on his clients. “It’s such a critical time for me to keep this position, you know?” he sighed. I was honored that Shin felt comfortable enough to share his vulnerability. But I also understood that by appealing to my omoiyari (sympathies), he expected me to respond sympathetically and contribute to his sales. It was already past three in the morning when he finished telling me about his struggles and motivations, as well as the rewards he sought by hosting. Although I tried to pay the 4,000-yen bill, Shin insisted that it was at his invitation and therefore on him. Outside the bar, it was drizzling. It had been a long day and I was worn out. Shin said that he would help me find a taxi. As we walked, I kept my eyes on the pavement, trying to avoid puddles. When I looked up, we were on Hoteru- gai (Hotel Street), lined with love hotels—establishments where couples can book rooms for a few hours up to an entire night. Discomfort crept in when I realized where we were. Shin and I were both tired and intoxicated, and I was unsure of his intentions as we continued together at this late hour. Trying to avoid this awkward silence, I said: “I’ve read an account about makura eigyō [literally, ‘pillow business,’ meaning to have sex with clients for money],” I said. “Oh, how did you know about that? What did it say?” “Well, hosts who do ‘pillow business’ intentionally walk this street to lure their clients into the hotels. Those who don’t avoid walking here to stay away from the business.” “These are just building boxes and mean nothing to me,” Shin said. I was impressed by his response. Indeed, in Kabuki-chō, I had often thought about how physical spaces were merely screens upon which people’s desires were inscribed. “Why are we walking here?” I asked, still seeking his real intentions. “It’s a slight shortcut to the main road. No special reason,” he said.  PRELUDE xvii At this point, I stopped asking questions. By saying what I knew about his business, I revealed more about my own state of mind than I learned about his. Shin hailed a taxi and I entered the back seat. “Here is my card,” Shin said, reaching into his breast pocket. “Please call me anytime. I will assist you in any possible way.” He then pulled out my card, which I had given him earlier, from his side pocket and looked at it carefully. He leaned toward me, lowering his back. “I will give you a call,” he said. “Thank you and goodbye.” I nodded back. The automatic taxi door shut quietly, muting the street noise of Kabuki-chō. The dazzling neon lights faded into the blackness of the night as the car slowly drove away. I felt a wave of late-night fatigue as if a long, thrilling movie had ended and I was left alone in the dark theater. But it was merely the end of the first act. Shin’s words, “I will give you a call,” echoed pleasantly in my mind and hinted of something more to happen. He told me earlier that he did not like phone calls and would never offer to call clients. I could not help looking forward to hearing from him again. Shin did not follow through on his promise, but he did send me a text mes- sage the following day: “How is your research progressing?” I replied and asked to set up an official interview. He wanted me to visit him at Orion again. I sought something more neutral and suggested a coffee shop. My research and Shin’s business interests were evidently at odds. Unsurprisingly, Shin’s texts then took on an indifferent tone. Unlike previ- ous ones, which addressed me by name and involved some back and forth, they became shorter, more general, and less frequent. My anticipation of our friend- ship and memories of my thrilling night gradually dimmed. A few weeks later, Shin stopped contacting me after I told him that I had received permission to do research at a different host club. Though I ostensibly hung out with Shin for research, I was unsure how to characterize the nature of our relationship. Was it researcher-informant? ­Client-host? Friend-friend? My confusion was compounded by the ambiguous meanings of his suggestive acts: spending time with me, showing his vulner- ability, paying the bill, and caring about my work. Did he genuinely want to be my friend? Or was this a business investment aimed at luring me back to his club? A future visit could cost a minimum of 20,000 yen ($200). As I later learned, this rumination is a common experience among host club clients. Women I interviewed had also engaged in extended interior dialogues xviii PRELUDE about their feelings, hosts’ intentions, and anticipated romance. In this sense, my exchange with Shin was not unlike the performance of romance between all of the hosts and their customers. I tasted the experience of what it is like to buy this “staged” seduction. At the same time, I futilely attempted to resolve my feelings of confusion, hope, and despair, which persisted well beyond my im- mediate encounter with Shin. Just as the host cannot ascertain the full worth of his client in their early meetings—what we might call the initial staging of seduction—the client also does not fully realize the value of the seduction at the moment of their first exchange. The latent value of it comes from the “eclipse”—the not-yet fully real- ized meanings of these early transactions, which allow us to imagine the hori- zons of our relationship trajectories. They set a mood for a future, marked by questions of whether it will be prosperous or purposeless. In this respect, the future collapses into the present. At the same time that women fantasize over their futures, the past is inevita- bly invoked in their visions. Their corporeal experiences of arousal and reverie from their host encounters, for example, are shaped by recollections of former exchanges with these men. They may be remembered as thrilling, rewarding, and pleasurable, or painful, disappointing, and even devastating. This collapsing and stretching of the temporal dimension of value—contouring our orientation toward future experiences and nostalgia over past relationships—is neither de- termined beforehand nor fixed. It is contingent on how long the process of seduc- tion itself remains in play and what kinds of meanings are attached to the process. Staged Seduction is an ethnographic account of host club participants’ human dramas. Their performances take place in elaborate club spaces and af- fective cityscapes, against a backdrop of politico-economic rhetoric of struc- tural reforms and enterprising individualism. These accounts unveil how people’s temporal sense of future, present, and past, as well as spatial orienta- tions of here and there, fold into restless feelings of both hope and despair. ­Japan’s expanding service economy evokes and capitalizes on these feelings. As I demonstrate throughout this book, these feelings heighten individuals’ per- ceptions of freedom, fuel business profit, and reinforce state-sponsored incen- tives for a prosperous future of the nation. S TAGE D S E D U C TI O N  INTRODUCTION Promise of the Future “So do you fall in love with your clients?” A mildly intoxicated young woman poses this question to a man in a shadowy corner of an Osaka host club. Dim light refracts through the club’s opulent fixtures, turning her white cocktail dress deep sepia. It shines on the host’s flaxen hair and reflects off his glittering gold pendant. As they sit together on a red sofa, the host attempts to dodge his client’s penetrating eyes. He appears a bit nervous and chooses his words care- fully: “I guess I do [fall in love with my clients].... This is the only place I meet girls.” A melancholy love song playing in the background carries his voice and dramatizes the scene. The woman asks him to repeat what he just said. “This is the only place I can fall in love, right? All my ex-girlfriends were customers.” The host awkwardly shifts his eyes from her face to the floor below. He fid­ gets with a sparkling gold bracelet that peeks out from his casual black suit. The woman’s gaze follows his hands as he proceeds to stroke his slender neck and then comb his tousled hair with his delicate fingers. He feigns tiredness. For clients unfamiliar with these gestures, they might be read as a spontaneous display of sensitivity or even shyness. They belie hosts’ actual intentions, which involve calculated efforts to arouse women’s sensual fantasies. These deft mo- tions are the result of habit—a careful array of movement and body language, repeated again and again with each new client. “How does a relationship develop?” the woman presses him. “I don’t know,” the host answers. “Just a feeling. But you have to be a long-term customer. That’s my experience.” The woman then abandons her solemn look. She nods 2 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE deeply, pleased with his answer. He looks directly at her and adds: “So you’re in a pretty good spot... at least in my eyes.” The woman’s interrogative posture gives way to a warm, inviting, playful stare. She flips her head back and giggles. Then she purposefully touches her forehead against his and places her hand on top of his hand. The host responds by closing his eyes and rolling his head back against the sofa, with a slight smile. He knows he said the right thing and is clearly pleased with her reaction. This typical host club scene, depicted in the award-winning documentary film The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief, is frozen on the screen, allowing the documentary’s viewers to contemplate their euphoric and triumphant expressions.1 The still image of happiness is juxtaposed with voice- over narration by the host: “We have to keep [women] dreaming, so if we have to lie, we lie.” Shot in the Osaka host club Rakkyo, the documentary follows Issei, a twenty-two-year-old host and club owner, and depicts the heartbreak- ing human dramas surrounding Japan’s underground “love business.” In these clubs, young Japanese men, like Issei, sell love, romance, companionship, and sometimes sex to their female clients. Issei put the business best: “To make it sound cool, we can call it Neverland. Peter Pan took people to a world that doesn’t exist. We take the girls to a dream world. That’s the best way to describe it. Girls spend their money to buy a product, ‘Dream.’”2 For this fantasy, women pay inflated prices for drinks and entertainment offered at host clubs. These sexualized services include flirtatious banter, sweet conversations, and the promise of romantic love from an attractive man. “Sometimes,” the other woman in the film says, “girls really fall in love with their hosts and end up financially ‘worshipping’ them.” Even if the retail price of a bottle of liquor is only a few hundred dollars, hosts can sell it for tens of thousands of dollars as long as women consider it a worthy expense in the pur- suit of their desires. And many women do. For them, the host club’s menu of dreams is priceless. The melodrama presented in The Great Happiness Space is typical of popular representations of host-client interactions in Japanese television series, feature films, and other depictions in blogs and online novels. My key informants, however, stressed that if I focused exclusively on host club venues as confined sites, where for a few short late-night hours women could purchase intimate experiences with handsome young men, I would miss the point. The fantasy,  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 3 excitement, and magical experience that women, as well as men, desire go well beyond these fixed times and formal spaces. Staged Seduction is an ethnographic study about men and women who pro- duce and consume love in Japan’s host clubs. The commodified product nego- tiated between hosts and clients is not ready made. It is coproduced through flirtatious exchanges, as men and women engage in discreet conversations, stimulating touches, tender gazes, and after-hours exploits. Its value is based on a promised future wherein host and client build a dream world together and set one another’s fantasies into motion. For hosts, the promise is an invitation to make a substantial amount of money out of the relationship; for women, it is a hopeful moment to experience feelings of true pleasure and desirability. Both parties thus fetishize relationships that performatively produce the fan- tasies they seek. Aside from fantasy, the host club provides a unique window into the com- mercialization of feelings, emotions, and aspirational efforts in Japan’s struc- tural reforms aimed at deregulating and expanding service sectors. Broadly, this ethnography traces the cultural imaginary and political economy that enables people to buy and sell such fetishized objects as love, dreams, and a hopeful future, as they center on particular notions of time, space, and the self in contemporary Japanese society. These products, which entail imagined time and space, whether it is emerging or vanishing in the minds of social ac- tors, engender restless feelings of hope and anxiety, presence and absence, and ephemerality and eternity. These feelings feed back into how these actors con- template questions of what they could and should do in the time to come. I argue that the future, as envisioned today, is a political arena in which individuals are equally foregrounded as autonomous and self-responsible ­citizens—they may either freely succeed or fail to realize their dreams—­ regardless of social inequality in a given condition of uncertainty. A social con- sequence of this kind of politics surrounding future success then creates new ­stratifications—the winner’s group and the loser’s group—based on the state of hopeful mind between those who buy into aspirations of rose-colored pros- pects and those who don’t. Hope is thus at the center of and at stake in Japan’s so-called hope disparity society (kibōkakusa shakai) in the new millennium.3 To understand why and how certain men and women are compelled to pur- sue their hopes and dreams, often at great personal and financial cost, I demon- strate the meanings, values, and magical potency that the promise of future and freedom provides in gender-, class-, and age-specific ways. I not only illustrate 4 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE the actors, scripts, and dramas being performed but also shed light on the ways that the theater itself is constructed for actors to experience what it is like to be a successful citizen.4 I also demonstrate how the pursuit of a future is capitalized on in Japan’s sophisticated service-centered economy. Host clubs, I contend, are one of the most outstanding theatrical manifestations of marketing and profiting from emotions, aspirations, and a particular kind of freedom in that economy. Staged Seduction thus offers an entry point to explore broader questions about future-oriented temporality, perceptions of individual freedom, and moral questions about truthfulness in the highly personalized service and en- tertainment industries. To inquire about these anthropological and philosophi- cal questions, I use an analytical lens I call “staged seduction.” By this I mean the commercially staged force that seduces people into acting on their desires for self-satisfaction, as well as for meeting others’ ends: increasing business profits and fulfilling their roles as citizens, who participate in political efforts to promote the country’s prosperous future. The book guides the reader on a journey that uncovers the ways that individual consent is crafted to satisfy multiple goals simultaneously, while structural inequalities are relegated to the background. In so doing, it shows the often-invisible affective dimensions of gender politics and class struggle embodying vulnerability, insecurity, and risky endeavors at the heart of sex commerce and neoliberal dreams. The Rise of Neoliberalism and Host Clubs Not long ago, host clubs were practically unheard of in Japan, unlike hostess clubs or geisha entertainment establishments.5 I first learned about them in the summer of 2001 when I returned from the United States to my hometown of Hamamatsu, located halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. At the time I needed a part-time job and found one working as a secretary at a used-car lot. There I met a Mr. Suzuki, a nineteen-year-old who was new to the company. Unlike the other salesmen, most of whom were older and unremarkable in appear- ance, Mr. Suzuki had a well-cut shag hairstyle with outward-feathered bangs, a thin body, very smooth skin, and polished nails. He wore a tight-­fitting, Italian- made suit to work every day. When the company president ordered Mr. Suzuki to cut his hair to look like a “respectable” salesman, he refused and said he would quit the job before doing so. As I soon learned, Mr. Suzuki prioritized his self-image over employ- ment security. He told me that work was just a financial means to pursue his  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 5 dream of becoming a renowned racecar driver. Despite his lack of experience racing cars, he was confident about his future success. His conviction, he told me, stemmed from his experience working as a host in Tokyo with his best friend after high school. He watched his friend become a top-ranking host, earning more than 5 million yen, about $50,000, per month. Hosting, however, was not Mr. Suzuki’s passion, and he reoriented his ambitions. Although he did not say exactly why he quit, he implied that he had been unable to handle the escalation of his clients’ desire for seduction into demands for sex. In his uncompromising individualism, grandiose future dreams, and the precarious- ness of his present condition—as well as in his troubled relation to sex work— Mr. Suzuki offered a good introduction to the hosting business. Today, it would be difficult to find anyone in Japan unfamiliar with host- ing. But for many years, the host club business was relegated to the shadows of Japanese culture. It was perceived as sleazy and immoral by a patriarchal society in which the pursuit of commercialized extramarital sex was an exclu- sively male domain.6 This perception can be traced to the very first host club, Naito Tokyo (Night Tokyo), which opened in the mid-1960s during Japan’s “leisure boom.” The club began as a dance hall serving mostly upper-class matrons and wealthy widows. They would stop by on their way home from shopping while their husbands worked or engaged in other nightlife activities. Self-employed male dancers were given the name “hosts” (hosuto), referring to their role as entertainers, but their occupation was not considered a profession. Although hosts charmed women with sophisticated conversation, songs, and dance per- formances, outside the club they were commonly called otoko mekake (male mistresses or lovers) and often labeled as gigolos and pimps.7 Women visited the club in secret to avoid the stigma of socializing with these hosts.8 Early on there were only five host clubs in Tokyo. But the number gradually increased to about twenty in the 1970s and to fifty by the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Nearly all the clubs were located in Kabuki-chō.9 During the 1980s, the negative image of host clubs began to change as the business took off at the height of the “bubble economy.”10 The success of host clubs piqued people’s curiosity about the new business that catered to women’s erotic desires. By the 1990s and into the 2000s, the business grew exponentially and quickly shed its reputation as an obscure sexual subculture. The public came to regard it as a successful business model and an antidote to the reces- sionary “lost decade.” The business has barely slowed down since. 6 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE Intense media attention has followed the rise in popularity of host clubs, to the extent that some hosts have enjoyed household name recognition and a few have become genuine celebrities. One of the best known is Reiji, a former host and now club owner in Roppongi, Tokyo’s upscale neighborhood. Reiji has been profiled in Forbes magazine as Japan’s “geisha guy” and praised as an entrepreneur. (Like Madonna and Prince, he is known only by his first name.) In the mid-2000s, he appeared regularly on television variety shows as a pro- fessional womanizer and sex therapist. He also started a consulting company, providing businesses with marketing advice, interior design, and female con- sumer psychology. Shirosaki Jin is another example. Jin distinguished himself as a rarefied densetsu no hosuto (legendary host) who maintained number-one status in Club Ai, the most prestigious host club in Japan, for five years in a row and earned about 100 million yen ($1 million) per year—more than twice the salary of Japan’s prime minister. Japanese television and radio broadcasting, as well as popular news media and women’s lifestyle magazines, featured his lavish living and business endeavors frequently. After solidifying his legacy as a charismatic number-one host in Japan, Jin quit hosting to pursue a career as a media per- sonality and multitalented artist: actor, musician, dancer, and womanizer. In the public eye, Reiji and Jin epitomize the neoliberal promise of a better and more affluent future in the social field of Japan’s entertainment industry: that is, the opportunity and luck, coupled with one’s talent and effort, to become singularly successful, regardless of background. Along with the media production of celebrity life and public interest in the host club phenomenon, Japan’s thriving hosting business has further expanded the country’s sex-related entertainment industry. The estimated annual revenue of Japan’s sex industry accounts for 2.37 trillion yen (roughly $23.7 billion) and is equal to about half the country’s defense budget.11 Put in perspective, Americans spend slightly less than half that of Japan on commercial sex, at an estimated $13.3 billion.12 Japan’s hosting business alone generates estimated annual reve- nues of about $1.5 billion.13 Mostly found in the big cities, there are today an es- timated seven hundred clubs and bars and twelve thousand hosts nationwide.14 Within Tokyo’s Kabuki-chō district alone, more than three hundred establish- ments and more than five thousand hosts ply an increasingly lucrative trade.15 The emergence of the hosting industry runs parallel to the development of Japanese postindustrial consumer capitalism and neoliberal reforms. It is also a reaction and an adaptation to these changes. Beginning in the 1970s,  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 7 the national economy shifted from a manufacturing-centered industrial one to a consumer-oriented postindustrial one following the oil shocks, a crisis that pushed Japan to restructure and diversify. As originally envisioned, Japan’s new economy hinged on the development of information technology, finance, real estate, and service and entertainment sectors. In an attempt to first expand domestic consumer markets in the 1980s and then pull the nation out of the recession that took hold soon afterward, the Japanese government began to enact neoliberal reforms to deregulate the national economy, privatize social support networks, and encourage corporations and individuals to participate in the economic reconstruction process. The government started to dismantle the vaunted Japanese-style manage- ment system, represented by lifetime employment and seniority benefits, in order to create labor conditions that flexibly adjust to fluctuating demand in the service economy and economic externalities amid globalization. Corpora- tions also adopted a more results-oriented salary system and replaced many lifetime employees with contract workers to cut costs. This transformation was carried out in the name of enhancing individual freedom of choice. In this context, hosts, especially successful ones, symbolically manifested neo- liberal ideals and female clients embodied liberated consumer-citizens in the postindustrial culture. Though the host club in general is more accepted today as a business in Jap- anese society, participants typically do not reveal their association outside the club to avoid prejudice against male sex work and female promiscuity. This am- bivalence reflects the new possibilities and constraints they face. Their hopes and concerns thus shed light on the tensions surrounding pervasive gender, sexual, and class norms despite the rapidly changing socioeconomic structure marked by neoliberal reforms and postindustrial consumerism. Hopes and Dreams Beginning in the 1980s, young Japanese women joined the flexible labor force and progressively gained disposable income in new service industries. At the height of the bubble economy of the late 1980s, they were celebrated as con- sumer citizens who pursued “a life of [their] own” ( jibun no jinsei) and reveled in their new consumer power.16 Japan’s postindustrial capitalism continued to encourage women to buy more even during the prolonged economic reces- sion that followed the bubble’s collapse in the early 1990s. In marked contrast 8 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE to the stagnated national economy, women’s wanton spending in the host club became a media spectacle in the postrecession era. Soon after women began to reshape the labor force landscape, a form of labor called furītā (an amalgam of the English loanword “free” and the German word arbeiter, or “worker”), emerged in the late 1980s initially as an alternative lifestyle choice.17 The kind of flexible work epitomized by the furītā aligned with neoliberal values that stressed individual freedom of choice, self-promo- tion, and independence rather than inflexible positions in rigidly hierarchi- cal corporate structure. Such flexible work grew rapidly in popularity among young women and men, and especially among Japanese companies.18 But while flexible labor and the entrepreneurial self-discipline that it neces- sitates might initially have begun as a lifestyle choice, today furītā has become an unavoidable economic reality for many.19 One out of every 2.5 workers in Japan is a non-regular worker—more than 20 million who make up 38.2 percent of the workforce, the largest in the country’s labor history.20 The number is ever increas- ing, especially in service sectors, where low-paid non-regular workers have little chance of securing a regular full-time job. They typically move from one low- paying job to another. Under these conditions, social mobility is nearly impos- sible. In this milieu, the image of the hosting business as a successful alternative has become attractive to young men who seek upward mobility in career paths that nurture their creativity and help them get ahead in a given professional field. The Koizumi administration (2001–2006) propelled these changes in con- sumption and labor by carrying out a comprehensive package of regulatory reforms that effectively shrunk the welfare state, cut corporate taxes, and de- regulated the labor market.21 Koizumi Jun’ichiro used popular media and catchy slogans such as “Structural Reforms without Sanctuary,” “No Reform, No Growth,” and “A Japan Where Youth Can Embrace Hopes and Dreams” to promote his economic policies.22 Much like the symbiotic relationship between venture capitalists and start-up entrepreneurs, Koizumi sought to seed incen- tives for Japanese citizens to cultivate their potential and adapt to new market exigencies. As before, what was striking about these campaigns was the strategic use of promise for a better future to leverage consumer and labor action. The government’s insistence on change, however, has fallen mostly on the shoulders of Japanese youth and the growing ranks of those without secure, full-time jobs. Even so, neoliberal discourses have rearticulated aspiration and speculation as an opportunity for young people to break free from the status quo and bet on their life to “win” a better future. And while there are a handful of successful  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 9 cases in information technology, financial investment, and professional sports, as well as “legendary hosts,” for many, the adjustment has been accompanied by anxiety and despair. Those who are hopeful about their futures and those who are not have come to terms with this reality, creating the aforementioned “hope disparity society.”23 Indeed, hope and dreams in millennial Japan are no longer simply a per- sonal state of mind. They are closely intertwined with socioeconomic restruc- turing and as culturally significant resources that are unequally distributed. At the same time, they are rearticulated as individual self-improvement projects that all citizens are equally eligible to undertake for a better future. As I further discuss in Chapter 1, hopes and dreams have become classification markers of the social winners, who have (and will potentially have) realized their dreams, and the losers, who have given up hope, shaping a new class consciousness. In this sociohistorical context, Koizumi’s emphasizing that Japanese youth should “embrace hopes and dreams” has become politically charged even though it originally sought to leverage consumer spending and labor fluidity. Discourses on hopes and dreams have been widely circulated ever since by other political, business, and community leaders alike. Ultimately, the political rhetoric of hopes and dreams functions as an empty promise that draws atten- tion yet merely points to a future direction and is open to multiple interpreta- tions. Citizens thus must envision, feel, and commit to the substance of the message on their own terms. While globalizing neoliberalism has been criticized as a top-down ideology to justify the current capitalist system based on the ruling class’s interests,24 neoliberalism in Japan has been imbricated with the social practice of imagin- ing a national future as much as establishing a free market.25 Imagining a future, though, is not mere daydreaming but a national project in which citizens are expected to participate. The process, as anthropologist Ann Anagnost claims, requires “a futurology, an ability to conceptualize a future that has not only not yet appeared but that, once conceptualized, must be performed into being.” Once performed successfully, a future needs to be continuously imagined and produced anew.26 Otherwise, hopeful states of mind fade away. In this ideology, neoliberalism is a future-oriented venture based on an empty promise—one that citizens are compelled to undertake for their own (and collective) futures. The “empty promise” is so malleable and universally applicable that it is articulated in business fields, too. Within the host club, men describe hosting as a “business of selling dreams” ( yume o uru shōbai), and women often state 10 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE that they pay for a service wherein they are “allowed to dream” (yume o misa- sete kureru). From their perspectives, these dreams entail a cluster of emo- tions, relationships, and visions of future fulfillment. For example, men seek feelings of self-entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and coolness that produce their desirable self-images of masculinity. Women pursue senses of romantic excitement, youthfulness, and lovability that assure their ideal images of femi- ninity. Their aspirational acts consequently fuel their hopeful states of mind and metonymically symbolize potentially successful citizens, thus elevating their social status. While neoliberal societies provide new opportunities for people to dream of alternative ways of achieving professional success, luxurious lifestyles, and fulfillment of dreams, these visions also obfuscate the social and financial con- straints on individuals. While Mr. Suzuki may dream of becoming a famous host or a celebrated racecar driver, his actual chance of extravagant success is exceedingly slim. If he does not succeed, as so many like him will not, the neo- liberal emphasis on individual agency will make it easy for him to blame him- self for his failure. After all, citizens are not forced but enticed to tacitly consent to the aspirational enterprise. The host club thus can be viewed as a microcosm of the socioeconomic dynamics of the neoliberal state. It is a space in which men and women are free to dream but also to fail, free to make their fortunes and to lose them. Likewise, while hosts and clients operate under the belief that they are free agents, we will also see how the deck is stacked against them. Yet, because the host club is also a site in which dreams are not just dreamed but lived, not only kept silent but shared, these spaces of seduction have the potential to help us understand what it is like to live in a future-oriented temporality and commit to an empty promise of hopes and dreams despite the mounting burdens of uncertainty, vulnerability, and fear of failure. The ethnography of such temporality offers us greater insight into the socioeconomic and psychodynamic creation of sub- jectivity, hopes and dreams, and the aspirational imperative in contemporary Japan’s service economy and the larger global economy. Values of Service In many ways, the domestic Japanese media’s fascination with host clubs is a reflection of the public’s yearning for extraordinarily affluent images and aspi- rational vigor that have been missing during the country’s economic downturn.  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 11 By presenting the club as a fast-paced route to wealth and status for men and a prestaged opportunity for female consumers to satisfy their desires, media im- ages of host clubs serve as screens on which the hopes and dreams of Japanese men and women are projected. In the media, just as in the club, the fascinating image of hosting itself becomes a consumable object. Male and female viewers’ desires are stimulated to incite fantasy, and fantasy is paramount. But unlike the image commodity in the two-dimensional media world, the host club is a live theater in which the bystander actually experiences the real thing. On the stage set in the real world, fantasies are projected, and the stage scene, or the screen image, evolves in response to changing atmospheres, power dynamics, and actors’ interests. Trade in the host club is thus a highly personal and intimate kind of exchange, unlike that in other sectors where products are premade and priced for sale. The immediacy is in a sense similar to just-in- time manufacturing—known as the Toyota Production System—whereby parts and finished products are delivered based on demand. In the host club, men provide services to cater to women’s romantic fantasies on demand. This ser- vice, however, depends not only on the host’s production of the service com- modity but also the consumer need itself. While the host club phenomenon is sometimes cited as another example of Japan’s consumer fads, the host club trade itself magnifies changing forms of labor, consumption, and value operating in the burgeoning service sector. Information, technology, design, leisure, dining, entertainment, beauty, health and well-being, and security are commercialized in an increasingly large seg- ment of the Japanese economy. The service sector today accounts for roughly 75 percent of the country’s national gross domestic product.27 In tandem with larger global economic trends, sales, rather than production, have become the engines of profit making in consumer-oriented postindustrial capitalism. Workers’ creativity, communication skills, and affective capacities are conse- quently crucial in making value through their services. In this regard the host club accentuates neoliberalism’s emphasis on free trade, self-promotion, and individual creativity.28 By the same token, consum- ers also play a key role in generating economic value. Without actual purchase, a service produces no economic value no matter how much preparation on the part of the service provider. Unlike manufacturing products, unsold services cannot be held in stock for future sales. The moment of exchange is, after all, most crucial: Karl Marx called the moment the salto mortale of a commodity, or “deadly jump,” meaning sales determine whether a thing—a material object, 12 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE an immaterial piece of information, or a particular human activity—succeeds or fails to transform its status into a commodity with economic value. If the service provider errs in judgment or performance on sales promotion, then the labor that a service provider has expended ends up economically worthless toil.29 Thus, the politico-economic model assumes that the service provider car- ries economic burdens when sales fail. In host clubs, hosts face these challenges constantly. Although they fully prepare to host a wealthy woman, for instance, such chances are rare. Even if a host secures a client, he usually provides extended service during “after hours” beyond the physical time and space within the host club. He may meet her on dates in an attempt to create an atmosphere in which she feels as if they are, in fact, a “real” couple. In these venues, outside the formal procedure of the club, a woman may feel uninhibited. Further, these meetings deflect attention from the decisive moment of sale itself to an open-ended relationship just like other intimate relationships. Because of these indeterminate factors, these outings become a gamble for each person.30 Hosts, for example, may wonder if a cli- ent is willing to invest both emotionally and financially in their sales success. Women may speculate how well their men will perform as their ideal lovers and satisfy their romantic fantasies. Their emotional, financial, and time com- mitment may or may not pay off depending on successful delivery of mutual satisfaction. Indeed, economic calculations take place on both sides. The calcu- lation, however, is not limited to economic worthiness. It is extended to include a discursive, symbolic, and affective one spread over time. When the exchange is neither a one-time event nor for a particular com- modity but an irreproducible process itself to perform desirable self-images and realize hopes and dreams, the law of salto mortale may need to be modi- fied to include stretching temporality beyond the moment of sale. Criticizing the production-centered Marxist view of the commodity, anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has theorized the concept of “commodity situation,” whereby the commodity is not a fixed thing but anything that potentially gains and loses its commodity status in the process of circulation and consumption.31 If the host-client relationship breaks down, the service commodity itself essentially disappears. Yet the sentimental value of the host-client relationship continues to exist in the client’s memories. The money (and sometimes debts when clients disappear without paying bills) is still possessed by the host, and potentially in his own memories and emotions. In fact, the potential economic value of this relationship may precede its actual existence. The host’s aspirations and  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 13 the client’s dreams may already have aligned in the future-oriented neoliberal cultural ethos before they were actually traded in the host club. Such extended temporality creates other forms of value beyond economic ones. The service provider’s risky undertaking of sales promotion activities may gain value in the form of cultural capital as a hopeful citizen—one who aspires to a better future and who will be potentially successful down the road. His en- thusiasm for a better future and courage to take risks may attract other indi- viduals who share the same attitude and shape a social network across different professional fields. Just as class status is not solely determined by economic in- come, social actions are also multifaceted. Cultural, social, and emotional capital can be accumulated as class markers over the course of both service ­providers’ and recipients’ pursuit of desirable selves and futures. Thus, the service sector, particularly those activities that accompany highly personalized labor and po- tentially produce greater satisfaction, complicates the value of the service com- modity. Its labor is only retrospectively qualified as productive or unproductive. Its temporality—that is, the way the moment of sale collapses discrete boundar- ies of the past and the future as the exchange cuts across economic, symbolic, and affective values—is a unique element of the service economy. Of Seduction By bringing workers and consumers into communication with each other to coproduce commodities and values, the service sector could be interpreted as working against the neoliberal conception of autonomous individualism. If ser- vice providers’ economic interests rely on consumers, then consumers’ visits to salons, restaurants, or host clubs reveal the providers’ reliance on others to attain a specific self-image, personal care, or a general feeling of well-being. Though individual freedom of choice is in the foreground of buying and selling services, the mutual reliance is a reminder of the dependence of individuals on a social system to attain their desires and needs. Further, it is a key component of seduction itself. Seduction is operated secretly in a way that poststructuralist scholar Jean Baudrillard describes: “I know another’s secret but do not reveal it and he knows that I know, but does not acknowledge it.”32 The interaction through the psychodynamic process of seduction—what Baudrillard calls “an uninter- rupted ritual exchange where seducer and seduced constantly raise the stakes in a game that never ends.” He explains, “And cannot end since the dividing line 14 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE that defines the victory of the one and the defeat of the other, is illegible. And because there is no limit to the challenge to love more than one is loved, or to be always more seduced—if not death.”33 While productive power, including neoliberalism, seeks to be “irreversible, cumulative, and immortal,” seduction is, Baudrillard describes, the “emptiness” beneath, behind, and malleable to such wishes and yet threatens the power with its reversible, mortal, and decep- tive nature.34 In common use, seduction is defined as the means by which an in- dividual manipulates his or her appearance, conversation, body language, and gestures to entice the seducee into complying with his or her—usually sexual— wishes. In Baudrillard’s definition, seduction contingently complies with and subverts the logic of rationality, production, and progress that dominate most modern nation-states and capitalist cultures. It is at the “very heart of power and production,” he argues, precisely because it is secretly operated.35 While Baudrillard’s definition adds spatial depth and complexity to our perception of seduction in relation to the power structure, Judith Butler sheds light on the temporal and bodily dimensions within the seductive speech act and its accomplishment. She suggests that seduction is about promise making, that is, unknown bodily communication, placing value on fantasy, reversibility, and indeterminacy:36 Seductive speech is what the body does, is a present action of the body, at the same time that it portends what the body will do. Thus it is, as it were, the body on its way, figured in its possibilities. Since the body cannot be fully known or represented by the promise, the promise cannot be kept, or, rather, it is always a question whether the promise can be kept, whether its “intentions” will be derailed along the way.37 With the incongruence between body and language and the moment a prom- ise is made and when it will be potentially accomplished, Butler points out that seduction provides only the possibilities to bind these elements. Indeed, without the body, no promise can be convincingly made. Without the prem- ise of promise that stands for intention carried through over time, no utter- ance about the future is believable. Butler’s view provides us an opportunity to critically contemplate the metaphysical convention that weights the mind over the body as language exceeds what is stated and resonates with one’s own yet-to-be realized wishes, dreams, and desires. Unknowable things such as a promise are seductive because they possess the magical quality of making things happen.  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 15 In seduction, language is not so much constative—transmitting truth and knowing reality—as performative. “Saying, for [a seducer] is in no case tan- tamount to knowing, but rather to doing: acting on the interlocutor, modify- ing the situation and the interplay of forces within it,” French literary scholar Shoshana Felman writes. Particularly promise, a performative speech act, “does” something other than what it explicitly claims to do. Thus, doing with language cannot be evaluated as either true or false but as “felicitous or infe- licitous, successful or unsuccessful.”38 This does not mean, however, that the performative is outside the referential system of reality. According to Felman, Referential knowledge of language is not knowledge about reality... but knowl- edge that has to do with reality, that acts within reality, since it is itself—at least in part—what this reality is made of. The referent is no longer simply a preexisting substance, but an act, that is, a dynamic movement of modification of reality.39 Felman, along with Butler and Baudrillard, challenges the epistemological conflation among language, knowledge, and truth that discursively produces reality and covers up the fact that the reality can be altered.40 In this vein, se- duction, which underlies and acts on the interlocutor secretly, shapes a pecu- liar dynamic whereby people do things with their speech and bodily acts and modify the reality in which they live. The dynamic challenges the seducer and the seducee to reengage with each other to actualize the performative possibilities and trade fantasies and desires, identities and information, as well as—or even in lieu of—capital. This is the place where social practice of neoliberal imagination and its actual practice meet with seduction. Both operate under the belief of empty promises to suc- cessfully entice the other to modify his or her referential world and act out for both the seducer’s and seducee’s ends. Referencing Foucault’s notion of neoliberal governmentality,41 sociologist Nikolas Rose theorizes neoliberal governance as a conduct of governing indi- viduals through freedom, not by force, and “empowers” them to act out: To dominate is to ignore or to attempt to crash the capacity for action of the dominated. But to govern is to recognize that capacity for action and to adjust oneself to it. To govern is to act upon action. This entails trying to understand what mobilizes the domains or entities to be governed.... Hence, when it comes to governing human beings, to govern is to presuppose the freedom of the gov- erned. To govern humans is not to crush their capacity to act, but to acknowl- edge it and to utilize it for one’s own objectives.42 16 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE Thus, neoliberal governance resonates strongly with interpersonal negotiation skills, both of which entail acknowledging and employing human capacities to control the other for one’s own objectives rather than destroying them to dom- inate the other. The power of freedom and seduction engenders its control- ling possibility and perpetuates it only insofar as social actors and institutions alike engage in and struggle through the process. Foucault’s famous statement reminds us, “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”43 By the same token, power becomes inef- fective if it is not practiced ubiquitously. The art of seduction mirrors neoliberal governance and permeates social interactions. The host club stages the game of seduction, inviting both men and women to openly perform the roles of seducer and seducee to fulfill one anoth- er’s wishes. Likewise, other businesses and interactions in the highly personal- ized service sector are shot through with commodified relationships based on the dynamics of seduction. Regardless of the service provided (personal care, counseling, a haircut, wining and dining), individuals bodily communicate each other’s fantasies and desires to be satisfied through (im)material, discur- sive, and affective exchanges. Seduction is a second level of value, below the one officially being exchanged, and therefore, it tends to be invisible, phantas- mic, and indeterminate even though it is powerful in its own way.44 Ordinary exchanges in the service economy vividly display the significance of the enigmatic nature of seduction. Since the host club manifests many of the same socioeconomic dynamics of the larger neoliberal state, it reveals both the secretive operation and magical quality of seduction in the social practice of individual freedom and promise-based aspirations. By bringing individuals together into a mutually dependent relationship, host clubs provide an oppor- tunity for hosts and their clients to project their fantasies onto each other and to see those fantasies reflected through the eyes of someone else. It also creates an occasion for them to critically consider both the socioeconomic realism and ultimate value of their deepest hopes for the future. If to hope is to commit to the future, then to seduce is to commit to others’ desires. Both ultimately promise future self-fulfillment. Achieving an ethnog- raphy of seduction is my hope. I believe ethnography—particularly what I call “affective ethnography”—allows us to understand what it is like to be in such a phenomenal world of seduction. At the same time it shows how that world is staged for actors to direct one another’s feelings, thoughts, and acts for mutual satisfaction—a window into the order and disorder of these exchanges. Affec-  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 17 tive ethnography is thus a tool for me not so much to tell the truth as to enable readers to vicariously empathize with stories about people’s hopes and dreams, which are innately ephemeral. My ultimate goal lies in invoking our own feel- ings to reflexively sense the often-invisible dimensions of human interactions that are capitalized on at the heart of neoliberal dreams. Toward “Affective Ethnography” Staged Seduction takes into account the role of affect and the body in ethno- graphic research of seduction and shows the ways that both emotion and rea- son serve as a vehicle for analytical insight, critical inquiry into an “unknown territory,” and ethical engagement in the field.45 My ethnographic fieldwork took place over thirty-one months between 2003 and 2013 and included visits to thirteen host clubs, mostly in Kabuki-chō, as well as two in Roppongi and one in Osaka; in-depth interviews with more than fifty hosts, fifteen clients, two club owners, and three managers; and ex- tensive participant observation, which included paying entry fees to experi- ence the seduction of the host club firsthand. As I explained in the Prelude, I initially took advantage of first-timer’s special deals for ladies only—usually 5000–10,000 yen ($50–$100) for two hours or so—but for more systematic ac- cess, I received permission from club owners to visit and observe.46 Those I contacted gave their consent willingly to my research. They believed that any sort of media attention, including from overseas anthropologists, served their business interests. I conducted the majority of my work at a Kabuki-chō host club, which I call Fantasy, every night for a total of four months, except for very busy nights when the manager asked me not to come to the club.47 Fantasy is one of the largest, most prestigious, and long-standing host clubs in Japan. It is aggressively advertised in billboard ads and has an outsized presence on the Internet, television, magazines, and popular books. With few exceptions, I was permitted to conduct my research only during the early hours. The club owner explained that the early hours were more lively and spectacular and therefore worth “studying.” Although the owner did not directly state this, the “later hours,” starting at 1:00 a.m., were technically ille- gal. Japan’s Entertainment and Amusement Law bans any business transactions that involve “intimate” services and physical proximity after 1:00 a.m., even in the red-light districts, in order to “maintain a healthy living environment.”48 Despite this law, most host clubs, including Fantasy, have tacit police permis- 18 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE sion to conduct business operations as long as the club completely shuts off its exterior lights and appears closed.49 At Fantasy, I was allowed to interview hosts in the back corner, where they typically rested and waited for their clients to arrive for the night’s entertain- ment. I usually arrived at the club around 6:30 p.m., when the lower-ranking hosts started their shifts and stayed on until 1:00 a.m. I interviewed voluntary interviewees, mostly one-on-one but occasionally in semiformal group conver- sations. The interviews were confidential amid noisy background music and conversational chatter. As hosts became more comfortable with me, they began to invite me to their tables at the club and to restaurants, karaoke bars, and other clubs and bars as part of after-hours activities. At the hosts’ tables, I interviewed their clients and observed their interac- tions. I also interviewed women in and outside the club, at their discretion. Sometimes, I conducted interviews at a restaurant, a coffee shop, or a bar of my interlocutors’ choice. I also talked with them over the phone and exchanged text messages. Some invited me to their “private” events. For example, one host invited his client and me to help him move into a new apartment. A female client invited me for an afternoon of cherry-blossom viewing at Shinjuku Park with her, her daughter, and her host. Through multiple, in-depth, and exten- sive exchanges over time, I gradually came to understand the concerns of both hosts and their female clientele. There are, however, things we can know only through physical experience, interpersonal exchange, and emotional connections, especially so in commod- itized intimate relationships.50 Alternative modes of knowing—what might more specifically be called, in my case, empathetic mirroring and imagining—helped me build rapport with my informants. I could identify and trace their desires and experiences through constantly shifting flows of feelings, emotions, (inter) actions, and temporospatial contexts.51 In essence, the mirroring and imagining that I engaged in at the host clubs were themselves a kind of seduction, mutu- ally drawing my informants and me into an exchange that advanced both our goals—my research and their desire to have their own dreams reflected. This reciprocal process enabled new kinds of knowledge to emerge for analysis. Although we recognize that the ethnographer is a situated scholar whose access to information is never entirely objective, a discussion of the ethnog- rapher’s subjectivity and interpersonal experience in the art of seduction hardly ever takes place in print.52 Ethnographers rarely reveal how they are at- tracted to certain objects of study or seduced into building rapport with their  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 19 key informants. The invisibility of researchers in ethnographic accounts— and particularly of their subjective, interpersonal, and erotic experiences—is symptomatic, Don Kulick argues, of the “concomitant disciplinary disdain for personal narratives which... are often deemed self-indulgent, trivial, or heretical.”53 Under the premise that anthropological knowledge production is (and should be) neutral, objective, and ethical, there was traditionally no room for ethnographers to reflexively take into account their feelings, emotions, or fantasies—much less their physical body, its appearance, or sensations—that underlie observable physical and linguistic exchanges.54 “Critical reflection of emotion is not a self-indulgent substitute for political analysis and political ac- tion. It is itself a kind of political theory and political practice, indispensable for an adequate social theory and social transformation,” feminist philosopher Alison Jaggar writes.55 I treat affective ethnography as a feminist-embodied approach to what has been largely dismissed in male-centered enterprise of social sciences and yet has become pervasive and entrenched in today’s market economy and neolib- eral governance. How, after all, could I really have elicited anything meaning- ful about seduction from clinical-style, structured interviews or surveys? The scientific research model, which attempts to eliminate “unreliable” evidence, fails to explore the disordered, the uncertain, and the reversible emotional and bodily registers. But the register makes up a different, illusive, and seduc- tive realm of understanding.56 Experience, affect, and imagination, expressed through rhetorical appeals, poetic performance, and sensory engagement, pro- voke some of our most creative and intuitive interpretations of the phenomenal world of seduction.57 Ultimately, host-client relationships are not necessarily based on knowing the truth. The hosts I met were not concerned about women’s lies as long as they kept returning to the club. They were more concerned with advancing their dreams of becoming a top-ranked host. Similarly, the clients I interviewed told me that they felt good about themselves, even though they knew their hosts’ flattery and romantic gestures were merely a performance. In seduction, as is sometimes also the case in ethnography, it is not so much the truth that matters as the fantasy, the sensual experience, and the dream. Whenever ethnographers turn their attention to intersubjective interac- tions and fantasies, they will be pushed to acknowledge the role that their own senses play in their exchanges and interpretations. In my case, the club owners I met saw profit in my research. Some hosts volunteered to “sell” their names to me, and others expected me to become their client. Female clients I found by 20 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE way of their hosts apparently wanted to fulfill their hosts’ requests and please them through our introduction. I realized that I was sometimes intentionally and other times unintentionally drawn into a game of seduction. An analysis of seduction allows me to reflexively examine the intersub- jective relationship between my informants and myself and to explore affec- tive modes of knowing that emerge at the juncture between neoliberalism, the service sector, and seduction. Seduction in the host club has a discursive component (e.g., flirting, compliments, and caring), but it also has a temporal component (e.g., anticipation, waiting for a response, remembering an eve- ning), an emotional one (e.g., excitement, happiness, and fear of rejection), and an embodied one (e.g., mild intoxication, sensual pleasure, and the sense of indebtedness to others’ kindness). It also has an element of contingency. Sus- ceptibility to the seduction of the host varies; it is not something one has total control over, which is precisely why it is such an interesting insight into neolib- eral uncertainty. Engaging with the overlap between ethnography and seduction, what I call “affective ethnography”—the method and writing derived, in part, from affec- tive modes of knowing—will lift the curtain for the staged seduction I studied. Seduced by the promise of ethnography even as I am writing the ethnography of seduction, I hope to inspire new ways of exploring social fantasy and social reality, the utopian dreams of the individual, and the interdependency of the world in which we live.58 Chapter Overview Staged Seduction is designed and organized to show different components of dramaturgical seduction through the lens of a Tokyo host club. It starts with the global restructuring embedded in Japan’s politico-economic reforms and manifested in Tokyo’s cityscape. The macro-analysis is followed by micro-­ ethnography both inside and outside a Tokyo host club, as well as the gender politics and class struggle among male and female actors. It focuses on the in- ner workings of seduction, in addition to the ethics of seduction in governance. Finally, the analytical lens zooms out to tie the different components together to show the nesting process of the staged seduction that orients citizens to as- pire to hopes and dreams personally, commercially, and politically. Chapter 1 illuminates how Tokyo has been re-created as a futuristic city since the 1980s. The city embodies an image of itself as a forward-thinking,  PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 21 futuristic place in which individuals perceive their hopes and dreams, as well as despair—what I call an “affective cityscape”—within the structure of the new service economy. I argue that Tokyo provides opportunities for young people to achieve their dreams through flexible labor and lifestyle consumption. By the same token, aspiration itself has been capitalized on and a peculiar kind of class struggle has been shaped in the city’s hypercompetitive environment. Chapter 2 provides a micro-ethnography of the host club Fantasy and dem- onstrates how the club space is constructed as a stage where participants meet and enact their dramas: hosts and patrons transpire romantic encounters on the “front stage,” and hosts themselves unfold sales competitions on the “back stage.” The dramaturgical stage, which consists of the club’s temporospatial management, actors’ fantasies, and melodramas in motion, directs participants toward the quest for a hopeful future—the future that is at stake in Tokyo’s af- fective cityscape, and, by extension, Japan’s service-centered economy. Chapter 3 focuses on hosts and explores their paradoxical—commodified yet entrepreneurial—male subjectivity. Although their ambition for upward social mobility depends on their servitude to cater to women’s erotic fantasies, hosts typically craft themselves as professional entertainers, not as sex work- ers. Expanding the concept of emotional labor involved in seduction, I argue that the laborer—in this case the host—not only manipulates the customer’s feelings to produce satisfaction but also potentially mobilizes those feelings to serve his objectives. The art of seduction thus helps hosts reconcile their para- doxical masculinity. At the same time, they are, ironically, driven to gamble on their future despite high odds of failure. Chapter 4 centers on host club clients, particularly middle-aged women in their mid-thirties and forties. They employ tokimeki (romantic excitement) as a vehicle to resurrect more desirable, vital female selves and to feel empowered in Japan’s youth-oriented consumer society. I argue it is the anticipation of aging rather than actual aging itself that provokes their feelings of vulnerability. As women fear the loss of ideal femininity, their anti-aging efforts are commodi- fied. In the host club, romantic love is offered as a time machine to make a re- turn trip to a youthful and attractive self. I examine the ways in which romantic love empowers women, while it simultaneously stretches out objectification of the female body and feeds consumer capitalism. Chapter 5 unfolds my premise that the art of seduction is at the heart of the host club and, more broadly, Japan’s neoliberal reforms. I show how seduction is played out and nested in the club manager-employee relations, the host-client 22 PROMISE OF THE FUTURE relationships, and the client’s self-dialogue. I argue that seduction allows differ- ent social actors to subtly entice the other(s) into acting out to satisfy both the seducer’s and the seducee’s ends. Due to lack of coercion, the process makes all parties seem autonomous and self-responsible for the consequences, even if their actions are directed by the other actors, theatrical elements, and cultural contexts. In addition, certain forms of deception are made permissible and even required as long as no harm is caused to others’ freedom against their wishes. The Conclusion reiterates my main argument: the host club scene, staged in Tokyo’s dreamlike cityscape, is a critical lens into the service sector of a twenty-first-century neoliberal economy and future-oriented aspirations. The aspirational economy is a constitutive element of a new sense of temporality— particularly an anticipated future. A better future is actively imagined and pro- jected on the present to be performed into being. The future is thus not only present but also imperative. Nonetheless, the increasingly pervasive Western progressive models amid globalization, wherein aspiration is normalized, fe- tishize the future rather than critically scrutinize it. I propose the importance of ethnographic study and critical examination of the seductive lure of the future.  1 THE CONSUMABLE CITY [It] blows fire, breaking the darkness The super city flies up into the sky... TOKIO TOKIO flies in the night... You can obtain whatever you want from A to Z The super city works miracles for the dreaming lovers — Sawada Kenji “TOKIO,” a song about two lovers in a futuristic city, was released on Janu- ary 1, 1980, at a time when Japan’s “economic miracle” was in full force. Sung by the androgynous male vocalist Sawada Kenji, it became an instant hit, selling more than three hundred thousand copies. Kenji envisioned “TOKIO,” spelled as English speakers pronounce it, as a “super city”—a place where everything is obtainable and anything is possible. The song’s fantasy was not so far-fetched. Having fully recovered from the devastation of World War II, Japan’s export- based economy was flooding global markets with high-quality, low-cost indus- trial goods, while its competitors were still shaking off the previous decade’s oil shocks.1 In the 1980s, Tokyo underwent massive restructuring and achieved great prosperity. Reflecting the lyrics of the song, the city soared into the night sky and turned “into a star”—a global city. Of course, the miracle was not just a gift of economic globalization. Tokyo has been one of the most populated cities in the world since the premodern pe- riod when it was called Edo and served as the political capital of the Tokugawa shogunate. Since then, Tokyo has reached prominence for hosting the 1964 Olympics and showcasing Japan’s economic miracle for Western audiences. Dur- ing the 1980s, Tokyo was reimagined as a global city that would attract greater foreign investment. The results have had far-reaching ramifications. Tokyo today is a “hyper” urban stage, where actors ranging from political leaders to pop stars to consumers project politico-economic interests and sociocultural fantasies. In- deed, the city itself has been rendered into an object of consumption. 24 THE CONSUMABLE CITY This chapter traces the historical development and transformation of To- kyo’s futuristic cityscape since the 1980s, as the city became a target of state- led neoliberal restructuring. Commerce-centered planning further shaped the production of the city, while consumers were given the keys to the new and exciting wonderland. A flexible labor force rapidly assembled to produce and respond to the resulting demands and desires. I show how Tokyo has shaped such a phenomenal world, an affective cityscape, in which young people visu- alize and experience their hopes and dreams, as well as despair, as they seek upward social mobility in Japan’s service economy. I trace the unprecedented changes in the city’s topography and its symbolic meanings before and after Japan’s bubble economy in the late 1980s and then during the prolonged post- bubble era. In the face of these socioeconomic shifts, I argue that political and cultural visions of a city as a site where individuals can fulfill their hopes and dreams have not only remained consistent; they have ideologically intensified as a pressing national project. This imagined space, in turn, evokes an array of emotional and interpre- tational responses, which shape and fuel what I call “affect economies.” These marketplaces—where feelings, emotions, and lifestyles are bought and sold in the form of labor and/or consumption—construct the affective cityscape of Tokyo. Among the most visible sites are Japan’s host clubs, located in Tokyo’s red-light districts. Promise of Tokyo By itself, Tokyo is an economic juggernaut. The metropolis generates more than $1.616 trillion annually, more than a third of Japan’s total GDP.2 Its GDP is equivalent to that of Canada and Australia, the world’s eleventh- and twelfth- largest economies, respectively. The annual budget of Tokyo’s metropolitan government alone is equal to the size of South Korea’s national budget.3 It is the world’s largest metropolitan economy. Tokyo’s global economic strength is the result of multiple state-led negotia- tions and private-sector projects initiated in the early and mid-1980s. Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro (1982–1987) introduced many of these initiatives. Responding to and manipulating business demand for office space and residen- tial demands for affordable housing, Nakasone ardently promoted deregulation of the city’s zoning laws and the privatization of government land to build of- fice towers.4 A year following his election, Japan’s Ministry of Construction  THE CONSUMABLE CITY 25 relaxed building codes, as well as restrictions on commercial zoning and urban fringe land development.5 The result was an enormous increase in high-rise buildings and city subcenters. That same year, Nakasone’s cabinet also promoted private investment in urban development.6 This eventually led to the breakup and privatization of Japan Railways, which sold off a number of its underperforming assets in Tokyo.7 The “Urban Renaissance,” driven by the mutual interests of state lead- ers and corporate investors, was becoming a well-orchestrated national project. The burst of urban development that followed fueled an unprecedented boom in the real estate market. In tandem with the strengthening of the Japa- nese yen and low interest rates that followed the 1985 Plaza Accord, Tokyo’s real estate prices increased to the point that the total value of the city’s land was purportedly worth as much as all the land in the United States.8 With neo- liberal reforms enabling extensive deregulation in construction and advanced architectural engineering, skyscrapers in business and commercial areas em- bodied these lofty visions. The fantastic fevered imaginations of “TOKIO,” the metonym of the Japanese nation-state, seemed to have come true. Nakasone’s initiatives also pressured the metropolitan administration and the central government to accelerate politico-economic reforms and transition Japan from an export-oriented model to one based on domestic consumption. Tokyo metropolitan governor Suzuki Shunichi announced Tokyo’s future as his main goal in the 1986 Long Term Plan of the Tokyo Metropolis: “Ongoing internation- alization has opened the possibility of creating a glorious future for Tokyo with the approach of the 21st century. We must make the most of this golden opportu- nity to build Tokyo into an attractive international city of which our descendants, let alone ourselves, can be proud.”9 The announcement was made shortly after the relocation of the metropolitan government to Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s gleaming new subcenters. Tokyo residents were attracted to Suzuki’s promise of furthering economic possibilities and prosperity. They elected him to a second term in 1987. While public support for Suzuki’s futuristic vision heralded the flourishing of urban redevelopment projects for the rest of the decade, the significance of Tokyo’s ascent in the global order was not fully understood at that time. Invest- ments in these development projects were still considered highly speculative and risky throughout the 1980s. Despite these national and metropolitan lead- ers’ popularity, their political vision for the city’s future was vaguely described, at best. Consequently, the city’s future became an open canvas for investors, busi- nesspeople, and citizens to fill with their own desires and fantasies. Individuals 26 THE CONSUMABLE CITY were asked to buy into the value of Tokyo’s “promise.” These resources might be defined in terms of a better quality of life, new employment opportunities, or real estate. Though labeled as perfect, no-risk investments, there were no guar- antees that this promise would actually be fulfilled.10 The 1980s portrait of Tokyo as a futuristic city was an attempt by the gov- ernment to break free from the past and align with a newly imagined global future.11 During the 1970s, the city grappled with social and environmental ills, called Tokyo problems, caused by rapid industrial development: extreme population density, housing shortages, traffic congestion, and pollution.12 The city’s image became contaminated—literally and figuratively—with the nega- tive consequences of the postwar high-growth period. Due to the foreclosed possibilities in history, globalization functioned, as Anna Tsing eloquently claimed, “like a crystal ball that promise[d] to tell us of an almost-but-not- quite-there globality” and urged us “to rush anxiously into the future, afraid to be left behind.”13 In this future-oriented and outward vision, Tokyo was assigned a new role as a “command point” in the global economy.14 The Tokyo Stock Exchange began to launch Japanese government bond futures contracts in 1985. These newly introduced stock index futures and options markets, Hirokazu Miyazaki states, “ostensibly afforded investors in the Japanese financial markets tools for hedging the risks of the Tokyo Stock Exchange-traded stocks’ downward turns as well as new tools for speculation.”15 As strategically utilized in Japanese pub- lic discourses, the anticipated success of the city’s financial sector promised a multitude of possibilities and mobilized a host of citizens with different inter- ests to participate in the national project of “making a better future.” Tokyo was thus not merely a physical location but also a cultural icon of the new Japan.16 By distinguishing futuristic Tokyo from the rest of traditional and rural Japan, the key symbols of global modernity and cultural tradition were reproduced and made meaningful as fundamental to the nation’s identity. These regional relations also spawned a set of social affects: anticipation about the national future and nostalgia for the past. As Tokyo became a metonym for the contemporary nation-state, the city’s affluence was equated with na- tional prosperity.17 Framed this way, the city rationalized its massive concentra- tion of the nation’s wealth, human capital, and administration. The fact that a disproportionate distribution of national resources to Tokyo had caused greater regional inequality was conveniently concealed.18 Tokyo functioned as an index of the nation’s future; it could not fail.  THE CONSUMABLE CITY 27 While Tokyo’s role as a showcase for the nation’s possibilities secured mas- sive investment, it also burdened the city with high expectations. In order to maintain its attractiveness to corporations and investors, Tokyo had to remain forever on the cutting edge of technology, perpetually future-oriented in its outlook. In other words, the “ideal city” must be continuously imagined in order for it to successfully come into being and evolve into something new and exciting.19 Cities, human geographer Nigel Thrift points out, must “exhibit intense expressivity.”20 In the case of Tokyo, it is this expression of futurity that is performatively displayed. The future is a collective and synergetic enterprise for various social ac- tors—city planners, dwellers, and spectators—to undertake. This enterprise, combined with the hopeful and prosperous dreams for which Tokyo stood, were mutually constitutive of the cityscape. Fetishizing the City Tokyo’s cityscape plays an important role in Japan’s consumer culture, particu- larly visible in its lifestyle advertising. The mass media circulate highly stylized fantasy images through television dramas, fashion magazines, online media, and city information guides, among other means.21 As a result, Tokyo is no longer merely an object of media representation; it has become a medium in which individuals are presented as culturally sophisticated citizens through consumption and leisure. Cityscapes encourage consumers to express their idealized selves, however illusory they might be. Gabriella Lukács describes how Japan’s “trendy dramas” of the late 1980s and 1990s were the result of a partnership between television broadcasters and the leisure industry.22 The dramas were often filmed in easily recognizable, popular locations in Tokyo, such as Shibuya, Odaiba, and the Tokyo Tower. These se- rialized programs of ten or so episodes were designed to introduce viewers to chic bars, cafés, amusement parks, and sites for romance. Lukács writes, “These shows have turned the whole of downtown Tokyo into a theme park not only for young Japanese living in suburbs and the countryside, but also for youth in Southeast Asia generally where Japanese trendy dramas have great currency.”23 For example, since the 1990s, the Tokyo Tower is no longer a famous landmark of the city but a symbol of love, as it has become Japan’s most popular dating spot. Much like the way New York City is portrayed in the HBO series Sex and the City, the demarcation between regular programming and commercial breaks is 28 THE CONSUMABLE CITY blurred. As advertisers present the Tokyo cityscape as a locale to be consumed, the endlessly stylish shops, luxurious lifestyles, and flexible work featured in Japanese dramas reinforce these persuasive marketing messages. Viewers enjoy these destinations vicariously through the lens, as actors move through dis- tant but recognizable space. Television dramas are thus not merely passively constructed modes of visual entertainment but portals into the affective ex- periences of fictitious urbanites in actual locations. Just like Disney films are transformed into theme parks, Tokyo, too, is undergoing “Disneyfication” on a larger scale, according to Lukács and others. In this sense, the city has become a fetishized site of playful consumer activities. Such a metamorphosis was particularly clear in the district of Shibuya. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the Seibu Saison Group, a business con- glomerate of retail stores, railway companies, and marketing units, endeavored to combine city development and marketing to transform this characterless district into a mecca of youth fashion and culture. To accomplish this goal, the company built an enormous theater-like shopping center targeting mainly fe- male consumers. According to sociologist and cultural studies scholar ­Yoshimi Shunya, key to the success of the pioneering project lay in Seibu’s skillful ad- justment of reality to fit this image rather than the adjustment of the image to fit reality.24 Put another way, this neighborhood was spatially “staged” to encourage consumers to envision themselves as part of this fabricated cosmo- politan world. For instance, the company concocted European-sounding names for streets such as Supeinzaka (Spanish Slope) and Sentāgai (Center Street) and named its new department store Parco (Italian for “park”). The company consolidated nearby stores into a mall-like configuration and laid them out them so that visitors could wander the streets and see individual stores, restaurants, cafés, street signs, and advertisements. These facades inspire consumers to create their own stories about the experience of being in such a global space. More important, Yoshimi argued, the intentional design stimulated a “mutual gaze” among consumers. Shibuya became “a huge theater where people watch and also display who they are.”25 The success of Parco became the prototype for the later development of megacomplexes in other central Tokyo wards, such as Yebisu Garden Place, Roppongi Hills, and Tokyo Midtown, which added office spaces, hotels, concert halls, museums, movie theaters, private housing, and other facilities in the new millennium. In these staged marketplaces, consumer goods are not the only things being  THE CONSUMABLE CITY 29 bought and sold. Signs, images, and symbolic meanings are information to be consumed by passersby. This information is then imaginatively incorporated into the self-presentations of young, fashion-conscious, and curious visitors. These individuals, in turn, contribute to the collaborative image of a youth- ful, vital, and innovative cityscape. This dynamic “feedback loop” further mo- tivates consumers