Tokyo Metropolitan Police announced the arrest of seven men in their twenties on suspicion of violating the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Concerning the Prevention of Disturbing the Peace. The arrests were announced on June 25. The men are alleged to have been scouts luring women to work at hostess clubs and brothels in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku, central Tokyo. The men are thought to be members of the largest scouting group in Japan called Natural. Two of the men have admitted the charge, while the other five claim they are not scouts and did not recruit women. The arrests are the ...

Earlier in the year, we wrote a short profile about Aya Takanashi, the former porn star who is now a columnist. Her articles in Spa! are always worth a read, usually introducing certain aspects about the adult industry and her insights on them. We spotted her recent piece about street scouts (known in Japanese as "scout man"). Such suited, flashily dressed figures are often seen hanging around certain neighborhoods of a big city. In Tokyo, this often means Kabukicho. They go up to women and try to entice them with offers of well-paid work. Sometimes this is porn work, though the true ...

We recently read a report in the Asahi Shimbun about the adult video scouts who operate on the streets of Tokyo, searching for the next porn talent to come walking by. If you've ever wondered how a lot of the women, especially the anonymous stars of AV with large casts, get into their jobs, it's often because they are aggressively scouted (many are also "persuaded" to move into porn from careers in modeling, gravure and hostessing). The result is an industry with an almost literally countless number of women working in it as performers at various levels. The article was an interview with a ...

Stand around outside any major station or crossing in a Japanese city and you will see them. Young guys picking up girls. Sounds pretty universal. Only these guys are not looking for sex for themselves, nor are they the flamboyant hosts looking for customers to take to their bars. These usually young and slender guys are scouts. Their job is to recruit girls to work as hostesses or prostitutes in Japan's whole other dimension of sex shops. They get finder's fees from the businesses that they recruit for and they can often be seen watching the hordes that pass, only to then slink up to ...