Outside alife

alife recently went through a minor renewal for its 6th year of business. I went to visit the place last Saturday to see what has changed, if anything.

Inside, some of the columns and walls are now covered with a cartoony theme, the lounge above appears more spacious but the rest was frozen in time.

If you’ve never been to alife, it can be an interesting experience. It’s the Japanese meat market par excellence.
The place doesn’t even try to make an excuse for it. The normally shy Japanese guys, there tend to run out of manners when it comes to physical contact.

Being a Japanese club it’s certainly still very safe (though, worryingly, bouncers constantly check the dance floor), but the testosterone meter is off the scale.. above and beyond.

When a man grabs a woman

Word has it, that alife is indeed part kyabakura as some of the prettiest girls are sitting idle waiting for someone, anyone, from the VIP areas to call them in.

The VIP setting is as pretentious as it could possibly be. Sofas pointing to the main dance floor are mostly empty. But they are taken, and you can’t sit on them. So close and yet so far away..

This time around, the VIP area at front of the dance floor was reserved for some curious types, including a man in his 50s dressed along the lines of Napoleon Bonaparte (what was all that about ?).

As usual, by 1 Am it starts getting quite crowded and one hour later it’s packed with people.
Music rotates between hip-hop, J-pop, and J-disco trance remixes. Some common tunes unchanged for years, bring moments of excitement, jumping and chanting. For men it’s an excuse to “attack” from behind.. rise your hands in the air and get closer from behind. No.. the music isn’t really what this is all about 8)

Some guys will go in couples blatantly hunting for girls in the dance floor, some work their way from behind in what I call the “forklift position”, because they extend their upper arms perpendicularly as a forklift and encase the victim from behind.
At the same time, arms become a barrier and, may you have the audacity to dance nearby, the forks can extend laterally to push you away from the “payload”.

By 3 AM the desperation kicks in. Some of the girls will be drunken beyond recognition and also sought out “preys”.

The less fortunate girls may go on the attack themselves, possibly even on some rare foreigner (what’s wrong with me ? Maybe the foreigners will like me more ?).
Then it’s important to remember that social interaction there is especially frivolous. In such a competitive environment, being seen with somebody of the other sex alone is a precious token of achievement.. it’s good to have fun, but beware of the aggressive girls that start demanding drinks, smokes and whatnot… they aren’t really thirsty or craving for a cig, they are there work their leverage.

In conclusion, it’s still the same good old alife. It can be fun as long as one doesn’t take it too seriously.

Enjoy !

The club was rather empty until around 00:30. We really liked the all-mix music, stuff for everyone and not so much “yoyoyo” (hip-hop).

Physical changes to the club were hard to spot, a lot more gaijin thoughts were on the premises. Really quite a bit of them. Possibly a result of the Vanilla, which has displaced the foreigners that dig Japanese disco.

This time around there weren’t really that many girls. We had a few chats, but nothing conclusive.

Clubs change constantly, also depending on the specific day. It’s nice to see things being a bit more mixed, but cuties were hard to to spot, excluding the off-work kyabajo (hostess-bar girls).

It will be interesting to see how alife progresses, if the crowd will get more international.

…until next weekend.. enjoy your job ;)
DGP

Back from a night out in Roppongi. I met MilanoCookie and Mac’n'Roe at Heartland. We aren’t really big fans of that bar so we went straight down Nishi-Azabu crossing aiming to Xross.
As we passed in front of Muse we felt somewhat compelled to get in, but I kept pushing for Xross: not yet another Muse-night, please !

We entered for the full price of ¥3500/2D. We used to get discounts when purchasing a ticket or when leaving, but that policy apparently changed (also possibly because we haven’t been bringing girls with us recently.. gomen ne !).
We got in by 12:30 AM and it was somewhat empty. As time passed by more people came in, but it wasn’t nearly as full as last time.
We suspect that alife‘s recent renewal has been drawing customers away from Xross. The club itself also hasn’t been doing very much to keep its clientèle: no more discounts, no member card thing even though we’ve been filling out forms the last few times we went (waste of my freaking time !).
By 1:30 AM the usual Japanese-disco’s Bon Jovi mix got us excited, though alcohol must have played a role as well ;)
The music wasn’t half bad.. same as usual, popular Japanese-disco stuff. Notably without young punks screaming odore. We haven’t seen those recently, could it be that it went out of fashion ? One can only hope so.

Girls didn’t seem gaijin-friendly at all. As usual with Japanese girls, the ones checking us out where those that came with their Japanese boyfriends: “I look at you and my bf gets jealous ! I’m so transgressive !” ..rightt.

In conclusion, our balance for the night is positive, but only because we had fun dancing, drinking and chatting among ourselves.
Xross was definitely not at its best, quite possibly suffering from the surge of popularity of the renewed alife.
We didn’t like the fact that Xross has been stingy with those invitations/discounts. Nor we liked the fact that we never got any sort of feedback from those membership forms we carefully filled up 2-3 times already (I give you my cell’s email and you don’t even care to spam it ?!).

Next week we are definitely off to alife. Getting in before 11 PM for ¥2500 less than Xross. Much cheaper, possibly much more interesting and a lot more crowded.. though that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Highlights for the night:

• Drunken Tequila-girl being dragged upstairs by a security guy. Did she try beat up someone ?! I thrive at the thought.
• A couple of guys wearing wool hats getting on each other’s case. What’s this ? A stupid-wool-hat gangs thing ?

We had fun, but Xross did not provide the best environment for the night.

Time to sleep !

I made 4 prints for me and my friends and, sure enough, I forgot them at home 8)

I arrived to Yellow at about 12:30 AM with two of my friends. Because there wasn’t visible traffic going in, we decided that I would go first to check the situation and eventually call them in or just split the cost of my ticket and leave. It can be risky with those event-based clubs, so it’s better to be safe.

I was in by 12:40, I used my drink ticket and walked around the club to asses on the situation. Frankly there were very few people. The real problem, however, was that nowhere in the club (which is below street level) I could get my Softbank cellphone to connect to communicate with my friends waiting outside.
I went by the exit and asked for help to a girl from the staff that was helping the cashier. She told me to go up a staircase where I’d get signal. I tired but that didn’t work for me, so I asked her if I could go up the stair towards the exit where I’d certainly get signal. She told me to ask to some other guy at the entrance. I asked him and he was pretty strict about me not crossing some sort of stupid virtual line.
At that point my only options were either to scream out loud hoping that my friends waiting by the entrance would hear me, or leave.

I decided for the second option and walked out with a grumpy “Sayonara” to the anal door-guy.
Disappointed with the weak start, I consulted my friends and we decided to head for the nearby Muse.
We talked a bit outside and got in by 1:30 AM or so.
There, women would just pour in… no event, same old Muse.. drink, walk around and talk to your friends, unless you are in the mood to chase girls.
Notice that at Muse, female bartenders tend to get cuter everyday one ever got her teeth whitened as a result of the recent club restructuring. They now all wear miniskirts and are throw in the round bar by the entrance, where men stick around and keep ordering drinks just to see the girls walk left and right with those great legs (trust me, I’m a “legs-man” ;).

Alcohol + hormone = big bucks.. and, in fact, I also noticed that Muse seems to be launching some sort of kyabakura activity during weekdays. I saw a couple of ads scattered inside the men’s restroom, nonetheless. They redirected to the club’s site, but we can’t find anything there. Frankly, most clubs’ web-sites are all Flash and no contents.
Interesting anyway to see how Muse is getting Japanized everyday. It’s getting larger, girls are cuter and younger. More and more popular with the younger salarymen, and now even the hostess-bar spin-off !

To summarize the night:

• We didn’t like Yellow uncertain event, utter lack of keitai signal and staff unwillingness to make us walk 10 meters up some stair to make a phone call.
  When going at Yellow, always bring your ID and make sure it isn’t dead inside. Also don’t rely on your cellphone to work.
• Muse was the same old, actually nicer since last restructuring (more space, and whitened bartenders), but you go there to drink with friends and socialize with the opposite (or same ?!) sex. Don’t go there if you just want to dance away.

Until next weekend…

- DGP out