There has been much in the news recently about concept cafes in Japan. Concept cafes, also known as concafes, provide an experience based on a specific theme. In the same way that a girls' bar is a "lite" version of a hostess bar, a women's concafe is like a host club without the eye-watering prices or nighttime reputation. Though there are plenty of female-staffed concafes that operate like a maid cafe with another character instead of maids, the establishers that have attracted media and police attention so far have been concafes run by men and aimed at women. Common cosplay themes ...

Here's a case that ticks all the boxes about the current moral panic. A concafe ("concept cafe") staffed by men in Kabukicho, Tokyo, is accused of exploiting vulnerable female customers. Concafes can be innocuous themed cafes but are often staffed only by men, making them essentially a kind of host club (similar to how girls' bars are like a cheap hostess club). The customers come for the fantasy created by theme (butlers, doctors, private boys' boarding school students, etc.) and the men who work there. At this one, 32-year-old Takuma Ono is alleged to have tried to force a 20-year-old ...