The Great Happiness Space: Tales of an Osaka Love Thief

Documentary filmmaker Jake Clennell provides a disturbing glimpse behind the doors of Osaka's Cafe Rakkyo, a nightclub famed for its elite cadre of glamorous host boys who enact a bizarre reversal of the Geisha tradition. Each night, the boys, under the tutelage of their leader Issei, entertain beautiful young women by making them laugh and feel good about themselves. In return for this flirtatious adulation, the women come back night after night, purchasing bottles of expensive champagne and often spending as much as $1000 an evening.