Forget Toyota and Sony, the real beneficiaries of Abenomics and the boost to the economy Japan is receiving (at least in spirit) is Yoshiwara, the old red light district near the Tokyo Sky Tree and still active centuries after it first became a licensed sex area. Of course, these days prostitution is officially outlawed (thanks to the US occupation for that) but the true Yoshiwara experience can still be enjoyed in the soaplands, where you get a bubbly rub-down followed by other kinds of services. The increase in tourists to the nearby Sky Tree is having a knock-on effect on the ...

Hurray for good customer service. Over on Tokyo Reporter we read a interesting little summary of a tabloid article that claims Abenomics -- the Japanese prime minister's fiscal policies aimed at bringing inflation -- are having no effect on the sex industry. You can still head to a soapland and have a good time with all the foam and frolics for as little as 10,000 yen, and sometimes even lower in certain east Tokyo neighborhoods like Yoshiwara. Abenomics might have raised the Nikkei by sixty percent but actually a price war has emerged between certain establishments in notorious ...