What does the staff operations room at a Japanese love hotel look like?

If you have ever used a Japanese love hotel, you might have interacted with staff in the reception area. Usually they are hidden behind a screen and you get a glimpse of a hand and nothing much else.

But what is the staff area like? Where are the employees in the meantime? Perhaps hanging out in the operations/control room, which may well look something like this.

The photo was shared on Twitter user Onitsuchi last week and went viral (as in 8,000 retweets).

We say “control room” because the room evokes a Cold War-era control tower at a tiny airstrip somewhere, or perhaps the bunker of a civil engineering facility in some remote corner of the globe (think a dam in Eastern Europe?).

We have no way of verifying the photo (and Onitsuchi does not seem to provide a source, other than saying in one tweeted reply that the photo was taken eight years ago), since it actually gives no sign of being at a love hotel, but the details are fascinating.

We can spot a couple of sofas, presumably for catching a nap during those long night shifts and a desk that looks very fusty and bureaucratic. Also note the (very outdated) police wanted posters on the wall, perhaps to remind staff who to be on the lookout for among the guests checking in.

The computer looks clunky and old (god knows what software it runs on), while there are a bunch of other furniture that probably hold files and documents. It’s all pretty low-fi, especially if you imagine what a premier hotel’s control room would be like — or if you consider that most love hotel rooms now have excellent amenities.