Youth is highly prized in Japanese show business, doubly so in the music sector, and triply so for idol singers. That means many idols retire from performing, or “graduate,” to use the industry term, ...

(Bloomberg) -- In Tokyo’s Ginza, Seoul’s Gangnam and Beijing’s Chaoyang financial district a familiar scene plays out almost every night of the work week. As dusk falls, businessmen flock to karaoke ...

Last week, former Japanese girl group Keyakizaka46 member, Manaka Shida, 23, surprised fans when she announced on Instagram that she has switched careers to become a hostess at a bar in Ginza. The ...

Kanryo Matsui smiles as he remembers the good old days of Japan's bubble era when customers at his hostess bar would spend a thousand dollars in one night on champagne. "Those kind of clients rarely ...

If Tokyo is a temple to bars (and let’s be honest, it is) then Ginza would be its inner sanctum. The city’s most luxurious shopping district is full of quiet, hidden cocktail spots run by ...

Ginza is one of Tokyo’s most iconic neighbourhoods, recognised for its luxury stores, hotels and history, which lives on in monuments like the Wako department store and even the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line ...

Until now, the extent of my knowledge of Japanese whisky began and ended with the 2003 film Lost In Translation, where Bill Murray, as fading movie star Bob Harris, visits Tokyo to film a commercial ...

Nothing symbolized Japan’s economic heyday more than Tokyo’s Ginza, with its luxury department stores, designer boutiques and hostess bars, where a cocktail and some small talk could cost you big ...