LOVE HOTELS: WHERE HAVE ALL THE MIRRORS GONE?
<<Reprinted with permission from the Japanzine>>
    Sure, Zen gardens, sushi and the Sony Walkman are great, but the greatest Japanese invention of all time has to be the love hotel. In the concrete wasteland of the modern Japanese city, the love hotel stands out as a refreshingly off-the-wall  escape from conformity, a monument to hedonism, and a libertine's paradise.  It's also a godsend when you're tired of taking your girlfriend back to your gaijin apartment with its half-inch plywood walls and nosy neighbours. Nearly every foreigner in Japan has a love hotel story to tell and number of Japanese people who were conceived in one must be enormous.
     The love hotel is changing though, and the news isn't all good.  They've gone upscale, lost some of their sleazy associations and the decors have become more tasteful but the bad news is that in an effort to clean up their image, they got rid of a lot of the exciting theme rooms.   Although they still exist, its getting harder and harder to find places with bumper cars and disco lights.
     The image of love hotels has changed so much that, according to Mitsuru Sugaoka, the friendly clerk from Gang Snowman who gave us a tour, a lot of times it’s the woman who invites the man to the hotel.   Fashion hotels are getting written up in magazines like Kansai Weekly, and Date Pia, respectable publications that cater to young office workers, especially women.  Visit a Kinokuniya and you will see a selection of “Fashion Hotel” and “Boutique Hotel” guidebooks obviously designed to appeal to the sensibilities of the Japanese female.  The highly popular “Love Hotel Lovers” website (http://www2g.biglobe.ne.jp/~miyu/lhl/ in Japanese only) is a homepage that “women can access from their office without having to be embarrassed”.  Even in the men’s magazines about love hotels, hotel listings are categorized by whether they will appeal to OL’s, female college students or high school girls. We were repeatedly told that people had stopped pulling their hats down over their head or staring at the ground when they walked into the lobby.
    A lot of the gaudy designs, ceiling mirrors, and cheesy cupid paintings that made a visit to a love hotel so memorable have also disappeared since Japan has introduced a “New Public Morals Act” intended to regulate love hotels and the sex trade. Hotels which have “facilities not required for the basic purposes of guest lodging” are now categorized as “sex-related businesses” and can only operate in specially designated red light districts such as Shinjuku’s Kabuki-cho or the Susukino area of Sapporo.  For hotels in the suburbs, that generally means no more revolving beds, vibrating chairs, or mirrors larger than one square meter.  The hotels have kept up their gaudy facades, but except for the red light districts, the insides are much plainer now.     The “New Public Morals Act” came about in large part because the Japanese government was embarrassed by the amount of foreign media coverage that Japan’s sex trade and child pornography were receiving so they cracked down on both.  Unfortunately, they didn’t realise we liked the love hotels.
     People who visited a love hotel just five years ago will be surprised how different the experience of today is.  Karaoke, DVD libraries that are not just porn (but mostly porn), video game consoles and big screen TV’s are now standard equipment.  The word ‘fukeiki’ (recession) was on the lips of every love hotel manager that we visited while writing this story, and they are all trying to outdo each other in terms of providing services and free gifts to the customers. Gang Snowman in Minami Osaka serves complimentary soft ice cream cones to every guest and if you stay the night at nearby Belles Des Belles, you’ll get a free breakfast the next day.  Many hotels have slot machines and tanning beds, and other hotels give out Hello Kitty bedside clocks or cute pajamas as souvenirs to repeat customers.  Bathrooms are fully stocked with a selection of makeup and toiletries that far surpasses what you’ll find in a regular hotel, and there are even a small number of love hotels that take reservations now.  Most hotels also have member’s cards that let frequent users get a discount
    Love hotels have also become much cleaner.  The obaasan (elderly lady) we saw cleaning the spanking horse in one hotel’s S&M room used enough disinfectant and elbow grease to make a mama-chari (push bike) from the bottom of the Dotonbori River shine.  
     If you’ve never been to a love hotel before, there are three prices.  The first is for a “rest”.  In Osaka, the ‘rest’ price is usually for one hour.  In Tokyo, it’s usually for two or three. (Obviously, the sexual stamina of Osakans is inferior to that of Tokyoites).  The more expensive price is for an overnight “stay”.  Unfortunately, you can’t usually check in until nine or ten pm.  If you want to check in before that, you will have to pay for an extension, usually 1000-2000 yen per half-hour, which can really add up.  The third price is “Service Time” or “Free Time”.  Service time is offered during the day, and the price of a rest is deeply discounted.  Free time is a sort of  “Sex hoo dai” (All you can screw) where you can stay as long as you want for a fixed price.   Your “staying power” will determine whether this is worth the price or not.
    Love hotels always seem to end up costing more than you expect.  There is usually a mysterious 10% ‘service charge’ and also 10% surcharges if you are staying on a Friday or Saturday night or national holiday as well as 5% sales tax.  Count on the final price being about 25% more than what is listed on the room board if you are staying on a weekend and be careful to check whether you're paying by the hour or not.  You can save a lot of money by getting a member’s card (just make sure you have a different one for each of your girlfriends or boyfriends) or by staying on weekdays or in the afternoon.  If you pick up a magazine like Date Pia, it will have a lot of information and pictures of various hotels and they also offer a selection of discount coupons (usually about 10%).
     There are still a few hotels where a grey, liver-spotted hand reaches out through the curtains to take your money when you enter, but most hotels have gone high-tech and have automated the payment system.  After you choose your room at the display board in the lobby (just push the button of the room you want) you’ll be given a paper card with the room number on it.  When you’re ready to leave, you put this card in the slot of the control panel near the door and push the “会計” (total) button.  Your room charges will be automatically added up and you put your money into another slot in the panel.  At hotels using this system, you are often locked into your room until you pay.

THE LOVE HOTEL DIARIES
Love hotel diaries are little books left in each room for the customers to write meassages to each other. To read some English translations of these fascinating documents, click here.

LOVE HOTEL GUIDE
Everyone has heard rumors of hotels with incredible rooms and the staff here at Japanzine played one fierce game of janken when we heard somebody was going to get the opportunity to check them out.  We found rooms with swimming pools, bumper cars, S&M equipment and even pool tables.   

KANSAI (OSAKA, KYOTO, KOBE)
Sorry Tokyo, but Osaka has you beat hands down in the love hotel department.  There are four famous areas: Umeda, Namba, Ikutamateramachi, and Sakuranomiya.  Ikutamateramachi is by far the best though.  It has the kinkiest rooms and the best exteriors.

IKUTAMATERAMACHI AREA
Despite the unpronounceable name and unappealing location near Tennoji, Ikutamateramachi has love hotels that have to be seen to be believed.  Take the Sennichimae line to Tanimachi 9chome station and go out exit number three.  Walk a block south, turn right, and you’ll find yourself in the heart of the district.  There’s an Anne of Green Gables Hotel, Belles Des Belles a 1970’s style over the top kitsch palace, and the too cute for words Hotel Cocoji.

GANG SNOWMAN

Gang Snowman is Kansai’s wildest love hotel.  Part of the wildly successful “St. Angelo” chain, it has some of the most bizarre rooms you can imagine.  Most popular are its three “Soft SM” rooms, but the facility that really caught our imagination was the Rooftop garden.  There’s a big red 70’s Cadillac in the middle of the roof that’s been converted into a bed, and anyone who stays at Gang Snowman can use it free for 40 minutes.  The Cadillac has arm and leg restraints and when it starts rocking, the headlights flash.  There are also high-powered squirt guns, an SM rack, and a place to look out over the city.  In the wintertime, they set up an outdoor bath. 
Gang Snowman, like a lot of Kansai love hotels, has been finding that its S&M rooms are the most popular.  It’s not just the black leather and PVC wearing, candle wax your nipples while hog-tied and hinging from a hook on the ceiling crowd that uses them either.  It’s curious young couples who don’t have the “facilities” at home, or women who want to try it out, but can’t bring themselves to say tell their boyfriends directly.  The SM rooms, sound exciting, but what’s the point of chaining a Japanese girl up?  She’s not going to move anyway. Gang Snowman is located near Namba, about 5 minutes walk south of Shitennoji Station on the Tanimachi subway line. A 'Rest' (90 minutes) costs between 3,500 and 5,600 yen on weekdays and 4,200-6300 yen on weekends and holidays.  Time extensions for 'rests' cost about 300-500 yen for every ten minutes.  You can check in for a 'stay' after 9pm on weekdays and 10pm on weekends.  A 'stay' costs between 7000 and 11000 yen from Sunday to Thursday, or 8000-12000 yen on Friday and Saturdays.
Address: Osaka, Tennoji-ku, Ikutamateramachi 4-4, Tel. (06) 6772-1414.
You can visit Gang Snowman's Homepage (in Japanese only) at: http://www.angelo-jp.com/top.html.

BELLES DES BELLES
If you’re feeling natsukashii (nostalgic) about 80’s style love hotels with faux-European decors Belles Des Belles is the place to go.  Two rooms have outdoor jaccuzis and there’s even a room with a very small tennis court.  Overnight guests get a free breakfast.  Belles Des Belles is near Gang Snowman and the Ikutama Temple.  It’s easy to find because it has a giant silver ball on the roof and is lit up with green floodlights at night.  Belles Des Belles’ management asks that at least one of the guests be able to speak Japanese.

Address: Osaka, Tennoji-ku, Ikutamateramachi 5-1, Tel. (06) 6779-1122

ADONIS

Adonis specializes in S&M rooms and cute cartoon characters.  Maybe it was inevitable that the two would be combined to make the ““HELLO KITTY SM ROOM”. There's even a Kitty-chan plush doll wearing a ball gag, blind fold, and barbed wire garter belts that will give you nightmares for years. Adonis also has  a room with glow in the dark jelly fish, a prison cell, a high school classroom and some really scary S&M rooms.

Adonis is set off from the other hotels in the Ikutamatera-machi area and is closer to Uehonmachi station, due North of the station and the Miyako hotel on the other side of Sennichimae Street..
Address: Osaka, Tennoji-ku, 5-5-15, Tel. (06) 6761-0168

PUBLIC JAM This cute, modern hotel is fairly unexceptional except for the merry-go-round in room 402. It costs 3500 for a rest and 7700 for a stay. Click here for a 10% off discount coupon: http://www.public-jam.com/coupon/waribiki.html Address: Osaka, Tennoji-ku, Uehonmachi 5-5-12, Tel (06) 6762-6338

NAMBA AREA
Namba has a good selection of hotels with some very exciting theme rooms.  Most of them are near exit 30 of Namba station by Sennichi-Mae Dori.

HOTEL U’S AND U'S ANNEX

HOTEL PAMPLONA

PROVENCE NO MACHI
Voulez vous couchez avec moi?  This popular love hotel in the Namba love hotel district has a French Theme based on Peter Mayle's best-selling novel, "A Year in Provence". At 9000 yen per night for a stay, we estimate that a year in “Provence” would cost a mere 3,285,000 yen.  It’s near exit 30 of Namba Station on the subway Yotsubashi Line.
Address: Osaka, Naniwa-ku, Motomachi 1-1-4, Tel. (06) 6633-6906,

UMEDA AREA
Umeda’s love hotels are not as exciting as Namba’s but there are a couple good ones like the Little Chapel Christmas and Hotel Africa.  Find the Izumi Hiroba go out any exit and you’ll find the love hotels on the back streets.

LITTLE CHAPEL CHRISTMAS

SAKURANOMIYA
Sakuranomiya, just east of Umeda, is a slightly run down love hotel area.  There are some modern, attractive hotels like Tower's and St. Angelo, but a lot of the establishments here are cheap and old.

TOWER'S HOTEL
 
The Tower's Hotel in Sakuranomiya has everything from swimming pools to billiards tables to a room where you can play bumper cars.  The swimming pool room is quite pricey at 7000-11000 yen for a 'rest' and 16,500 yen for a 'stay'
Address: Osaka, Miyakojima-ku, Nakanomachi 1-12-18, Tel. (06) 6353-3760, near Sakuranomiya Station on the Loop Line.

AROUND OSAKA

HOTEL LOIRE


This incredible hotel has rooms more bizarre than you could ever imagine (unless of course you’re the guy who came up with the Kitty S&M room at Adonis).  Here’s a partial list: the underwater room, the UFO room, the Jungle Room, and the Pirate Room.  The Loire is on the outskirts of Osaka, but can be reached by taking the Tanimachi subway line to Kire-Uriwari station and walking 15 minutes.  By car, take the Hanshin Koutsu-Matsuhara-sen and the hotel is five minutes straight ahead after you leave the Kire-Uriwari exit.
Address: Matsubara-shi, Miyakenaka, 7-9-13, Tel. (0723) 36-5001
 
KOBE

ELLE ET LUI URBAIN
      Located in the love hotel area near Shin-Kobe station, Elle et Lui Urbain is just a typical hotel without any special rooms but it is fairly cheap.  A 'rest' costs about 3000 yen and a 'stay' is around 7000.  Check in time for a stay is 10pm.
Address: Kobe, Chuo-ku,  Yamamoto Dori, 2-4-10, Tel. (078) 231-7608, five minutes walk from JR and subway Shin-Kobe stations.

TOKYO

SHIBUYA
 Although Shibuya’s Love Hotel Hill (Dogenzaka) is the most famous love hotel area in Japan, its hotels don’t generally have the unique theme rooms that you find in Osaka.  You’ll be doing well to find a mirrored ceiling or a strobe light here.  That said, it’s got a lot of hotels with Kawaii/pseudo-elegant rooms designed to attract women.  If you want to see Love Hotel Hill, go to Shibuya Station on the JR Yamanote Line and go out the Hachiko exit.  Click here for a MAP. It is difficult to recommend a specific love hotel.  Rather, one should wander around the neighbourhood, until one sees something that strikes one's fancy.  On the signs outside, you will see two prices, the cheaper one for a 'rest' (what an interesting euphemism), which means two or three hours and the other for a 'stay' which means overnight (these are usually the minimum prices for the least interesting rooms).  Overnight stays are often not available until ten PM If you start out having a 'rest', and then decide to 'stay' overnight, you will have to pay both fees or an extension charge.  Inside the hotel, you will find a large panel with pictures of all the rooms.  If the picture is lit up, the room is available.  If it is dark, the room is occupied.  The pictures will have prices on them, and two buttons.  Push the button for the cheaper price if you want to stay for a few hours, and the button for a stay if you want to spend the night.

P&A PLAZA, P&A PLAZA II, HOTEL ART

WHITE BOX
The hotel white box has a unique, urban décor, and its main selling points are its waterbeds, spotlights and tanning machines. It’s located on love hotel hill about 200 meters south of Tokyu Department store.
Address: Tokyo, Shibuya-ku, Maruyama-cho 7-2, Tel. (03) 3464-1858

IKEBUKURO
There are two love hotel areas in Ikebukuro.  One on the Seibu side near Ikebukuro park and the other on the Tobu side on the edge of the red light district.   Like almost everything else in Ikebukuro, a lot of them are seedy and run down (but if you’re from Osaka you’ll probably feel right at home).

HOTEL LONDON

URL: http://www.iijnet.or.jp/hotel-london/room/information.html (In Japanese Only)
On-line reservations: http://www.iijnet.or.jp/hotel-london/room/index.html (In Japanese Only)

SHINJUKU

HOTEL PAL SHINJUKU
Hotels in the red light district of Kabukicho are expensive, with ‘rests’ costing as much as ‘stays’ in hotels in other  areas.  The Hotel Pal costs 7800 for a rest, and a stay is well over 10000 yen, but at least you can try out this kinky black light bubble bath.
Address: Tokyo, Shinjuku-ku, Kabuki-cho 2-30-3, Tel. (03) 3200-4844

AROUND TOKYO

HANA IPPAI |

Black light, a waterbed and imitation Christian Reese Lassen paintings on the wall: any OL would think she’d died and gone to Heaven.  A ‘rest’ costs 6500 yen and a ‘stay’ costs 8800 on weekdays, 12000 on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s located South of Tachikawa station on Tachikawa Dori. Address: Tokyo, Tachikawa city, Nishikimachi 1-9-4

Sink your submarine in this replica of HMS Queen Elizabeth II, probably the most famous love hotel in Japan.  Baton down the hatches, give your insubordinate shipmate twenty lashes or make her walk the plank, and remember, it’s not the size of this vessel but the motion of the ocean.  Specializing in S&M rooms and nautical themes.  Access is by car only. Address: Kanagawa-ken, Tsukui-gun, Fujinomachi, Hizure 1680-1, Tel. (0426) 87-4001 or Chiba-ken, Ichikawa-shi, Futamata 2-6-23, Tel. (0473) 27-9011

HOTEL THE ROCK

Hotel the Rock is a love hotel with an Alcatraz theme.  Prison sex.  How romantic.  The exterior and hallways fit the theme completely, with a robotic warden to greet you when you come in and lots of sound and visual effects, but the rooms are just like you’d find in a regular hotel without any particular themes.  No dusty old Sean Connery in this one.  It’s on national route 17 near Takasaki station.  Address: Gunma prefecture, Takasaki-Shi, Kamisanomachi 1095-3, Tel (027) 325-6969

LOVE HOTELS BY THE NUMBERS:
Estimated Number of Love Hotels in 1984:  35,000
Estimated Number of love hotels in 2002: 20,000
Average number of couples who visit a typical love hotel in Osaka on a weeknight: 120
Average number of couples who visit a typical love hotel in Osaka on a Friday or Saturday night: 180
Average number of visitors to love hotels per day:  2,000,000
Estimated earnings of the love hotel industry per year: 4 trillion yen
Minimum cost to build a new love hotel: 500,000,000 yen

LOVE HOTEL PHOTOS

Are you a writer or magazine editor looking for love hotel photos? I have a large collection of high-resolution photos available. Send an email to edjacob@quirkyjapan.or.jp

LOVE HOTEL LINKS

        Until recently, there was very little in the way of detailed guides to Love Hotels on the Internet, but recently, two excellent ones have appeared.  A Tokyo Journal article with a guide to the top ten Love Hotels in Tokyo is available at: http://www.tokyo.to/backissues/apr00/tj0400p6-10/index.html.    Justin Hall's excellent web site has detailed and very funny descriptions of four or five love hotels that he has personally visited.  It has photos of the rooms and is really funny and well-written.  The URL is: http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/lodging/lovehotel/.

Satellite of Love is a great book and article by the brilliant writer and photographer Kyoichi Suzuki.  Read a great article about love hotels at: http://www.arch.columbia.edu/gsap/4991 

This is called a Shunga, or "Picture of Spring".  It's eighteenth century pornography(?) or art(?).  To see more Shunga, visit http://members.tripod.com/princesstiara/ Home/index1.htm

OTHERS: Kansainow.com has an interesting page of information about love hotels in Osaka at http://www.kansainow.com/love.shtml Love Hotels at soccerphile.com is an essay about the history and sociology of love hotels.  http://www.soccerphile.com/html/kj/jc/lh.html  Date Pia--online version of a popular magazine with hundreds of hotels (Japanese only) in Kansai and Kanto: http://www.pia-kansai.ne.jp/hotel/index.html  Hotel Navi--Huge, nationwide love hotel database: http://www.hotelnavi.net/kt/sitemap.html  Osaka Love Hotel Map: How to get to hotels in Namba and Ikutamateramachi: http://www.e-loveho.com/seach-map/osaka-minami.htm

If you have any good information about love hotels, why not email me your recommendations and I'll put them up on this page (anonymity guaranteed).  My address is  edjacob@quirkyjapan.or.tv.
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