“The clients I have served are aged between around 30 and 65. “I think of myself as a kind of hedonist - I’ll do anything if it makes me feel good,” says “Hiroshi,” a strong-jawed 18-year-old “boy” from Chiba who, at 187 centimeters tall, is forced to stoop slightly as he makes his way across the floor of the cramped bar. Urisen to offer: Toshiyuki Matsuura is a manager at First Dash in Shinjuku’s Ni-chome district. They are known as urisen and their job is to “entertain” First Dash’s customers, who are almost entirely men.
On this occasion, however, the stocky customer is the instructor, and the “trainee” has been put through a rigorous day-long test to see if he can perform the job at hand, work in which many of the other staffers - who are referred to in this part of Shinjuku’s Ni-chome district as “boys” - are already well-versed.
“He’s here for an interview … and kenshū,” says bar manager Toshiyuki Matsuura, using a Japanese term for “training” that in everyday parlance would do little to raise any eyebrows.
The customer - a portly, balding middle-aged man in a nondescript suit - shuffles over to a table followed by a slightly built teenage lad, ruffled locks partly shielding a furtive, floor-fixed stare.
