Intimate no more? Japan clamps down on 'host clubs'

"Some hosts are bad enough to brainwash you, but I would say women should also know better than to drink far more than they can afford," the woman, a freelancer in the media industry who declined to be named, told AFP. "For example, if a client tells me, 'I'm about to fall in love with you,' does that mean I'll have to forbid her from coming to see me again?" For women, too, the rankings were a way to reassure themselves that the money they spent on their "oshi (favorite)" hosts was not in vain -- proof they were helping them ascend in the cutthroat hosts industry.