Renting a girlfriend in Japan is the process of asking a service for a girl-friend experience. The customer has to pay the girl for her drinks, meals and transportation.
Depending on the individual or a company and time period, the price ranges from 10, 000 yen for 2 hours and 3 hours for 15, 000 yen. While this already sounds so bizarre, men who patronize these girlfriend rental companies do so for a number of reasons.
These include being lonely because of not having a girlfriend; being a Hikikomori or young Japanese men who are extremely shy that they just stay inside their bedroom instead of going out and dating girls; or renting just to seek a companionship such as in the case of married men.
These rental services are over time becoming increasingly popular in Japan with most of its users constituting people who can get very busy overworking themselves or struggling to connect with people in the real world offline.
Last year, a YouTube channel Asian Boss recently addressed the topic in a video by trying out one of the services in Tokyo and discussing all the details with rental girlfriend Shihomi over a meal and a coffee.
In the video, Shihomi, or Shiho-chan, goes on a date with her bae Max, meeting on a street in Tokyo before heading to a fugu blowfish restaurant for lunch.
Here she reveals the price of renting a girlfriend, which, at her company, costs 6,000 yen per hour for a two-hour minimum rental.
This means it costs at least 12,000 yen to rent a girlfriend, and while first-timers can select their girlfriend at no extra charge, selections after the first date come at an additional cost of 2,000 yen.
Shiho says the rental girlfriend gets paid roughly half of the rental cost, and people of all ages, from their mid-20s upwards, use the service
According to Shiho, who’s been doing this job for six months, many of the men who seek out a rental girlfriend are those who’ve never had a girlfriend or even been out with a girl before or those who are too busy to have a real partner. The men she’s been on dates with are usually mild, retiring types.
For those wanting to try out the rental service, Shiho’s company has some strict rules to keep things professional and above board.
Clients are not allowed to contact the rental girlfriend directly, and seeing as this line of work is not classed as fuzoku – a term that refers to the adult-oriented service sector, which covers jobs ranging from bar hostess to topless dancer and erotic masseuse – accepting tips and expensive gifts is prohibited.
As for her message to people who are thinking of renting a girlfriend, Shiho says she’s looking forward to dating them. And although she’s not fluent in English, she’s happy to show foreign tourists around Tokyo, which would make for a very unique sightseeing tour.
The practice of renting a girlfriend is just one out of the several categories in the rental business in Japan. People can rent out a little sister or even an entire family for a day in Tokyo.
