Tokyo Hostess

Title:
Tokyo Hostess: The Shocking True Story
Author:
Clare Campbell
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Length:
300 pages


Tokyo Hostess is the story of four women, their travel to Tokyo and their bodies …

Tokyo Hostess touches on a number of themes uncomfortable for middle-class Western audiences. Infidelity (of sorts), sex (or not quite), paid companionship (or maybe more) and pornography (in cartoon, or manga, form – a taste for which is acquired at a young age) all feature in this disturbing tale of women travelling to Tokyo to provide middle-aged Japanese men with recompensed companionship and conversation for short periods of time, except one who was an English teacher.

Lucie Blackman (UK), Carita Ridgway (Australia), Tiffany Rain Fordham (Canada), Lindsay Ann Hawker are all real women, they all went to Tokyo voluntarily and they all died gruesomely. Three of these women went to Japan to become hostesses – basically expensive escorts – one went as part of the Nova English language programme.

Ms Campbell follows the legal process of bringing a man, Joji Obara, to justice for crimes against three of these foreign women; the manipulation of global and Japanese media to keep the case going; the sensationalised media focus; and, the conclusion of a trial.

The most shocking aspect of this tale is that it could so easily be a crime novel rather than a report tying together the fates of four young women. The scenes are fluid and well written, for the most part. However, there is a naivety about the sex industry and human trafficking which seems to sit within the work.

The deaths of the four young women were untimely and horrific and it is easy to hope that these are the worst experiences faced by women. Unfortunately reality suggests they are not.


Additional information:

Campbell mentions Nemureru Bijo (House of the Sleeping Beauties) by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata as a novella which provides some insight into aspects of the Japanese sexual psyche.

Kate Ratings
Content:
8 out of 10
Depth:
5 out of 10
Writing:
6 out of 10
Enjoyment/Entertainment/Education:
Education
Challenge of material:
8 out of 10

Ultimate rating:
6 out of 10