Host clubs, where young male staff "pamper and flatter" female guests, are "booming" in Japan. Some 21,000 male hosts work at 900 of these lucrative establishments but opaque prices for drinks and ...

"We have to borrow players from other clubs in the school, and it's not always easy to get them to come." Japan's high school population has plunged by about 50 percent over the last 30 years.

Two high-ranking ruling coalition members visited clubs in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district late at night and a sumo stablemaster went to a mah-jongg parlor despite Japan's ongoing state of emergency.