Well, if you don’t know what a “Host club” is, here is s the Wikipedia definition for your information.
A host club (japanese: ホストクラブ) is similar to a hostess club, except that female customers pay for male company. Some host clubs also specialize in female-to-male transsexual hosts. Host clubs are typically found in more populated areas of Japan, and are famed for being numerous in Tokyodistricts such as Kabukichō, and Osaka’s Umeda and Namba. Customers are typically wives of rich men or women working as hostesses in hostess clubs.
Hosts: Male hosts pour drinks and will often flirt with their clients, more so than their female counterparts. The conversations are generally light-hearted; hosts may have a variety of entertainment skills, be it simple magic tricks or charisma with which to tell a story. Some host clubs have a dedicated stage for a performance, usually a dance, comedy sketch, etc.
Hosts are often an age between 18 and their mid-20s. They will take a ‘stage name’ (源氏名), usually taken from a favourite manga, film, or historical figure, that will often describe their character. Men who become hosts either cannot find a white-collar job, or are enticed by the prospect of high earnings through commission.
Okay, so I knew what host clubs were, but I didn’t know that they would be that obvious, I thought they were more of a secret thing. I live near one of the areas in Osaka mentioned in the paragraph above, so seeing one (or a few) was inevitable.
After a couple of days, I discovered that these posters weren’t ads for concerts, and that the block facing my street actually had more than four host clubs.
Of course with that number,at any time after six, you are guaranteed to see a few hosts down the streets, they really look cheaper than the ads make them look, a bit like a washed out cross between a butler an a rock star (Of course I didn’t take any pictures, and my Japanese friend told me not to try to, even though I see them often.)
Here is another ad for a group of host clubs on one of the buildings in Dotonbori walk, which is a very busy area.
Mochi-chan discovers Japan 