Shibuya gravure model bathing bar owner arrested

The special menu they offer you at that bar in Shibuya or Shinjuku may well be too good to be true — and it might well land the proprietor in trouble.

A bar in Shibuya offered a “VIP course” to customers who wanted to eat and drink while watching scantily clad female bar staff take a bath in a jacuzzi.

Shibuya Maison Sweet Dreams is run by a man called Wilbet Kerwin Carrasco Diaz, but the 40-year-old Peruvian has now been arrested by Tokyo Metropolitan Police for operating a business that violated the Entertainment and Amusement Business Law.

The VIP course at the Dogenzaka bar cost ¥13,000 for an hour, during which swimsuit-clad female staff would take a bath and customers could watch. It’s not a new enterprise. Shibuya Maison Sweet Dreams has offered it since 2020 and made, according to media reports on May 1, at least ¥100 million in sales. (Our research on social media, though, indicates that the Shibuya location opened in 2022.)

It is not clear why it was rumbled by the cops now. The allegation relates specifically to the night of April 29, so perhaps undercover officers went to the bar on that date to confirm the service was offered.

Carrasco Diaz is certainly miffed. He is quoted in media reports as saying “I was running my business in the right way and I don’t understand why I was arrested.”

He can’t claim this was completely out of the blue, though. Police had warned Maison Sweet Dreams twice since last year that they were operating an unlicensed business but the management apparently took no action.

Maison Sweet Dreams markets itself as a “gravure art label & neon bar” and has two locations: Shibuya’s Dogenzaka and Shinjuku’s Kabukicho.

The Kabukicho location seemed more like a regular girls’ bar. The Shibuya bar regularly hosts special ticketed gravure events featuring models like Airi Igawa and Misaki Aihara (both pictured below).