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Located in Gotemba town, Shizuoka prefecture, the Ajito Hotel is a unique type of "love hotel" in Japan. It's a newly emerging option for young Japanese people seeking novel experiences, offering overnight or hourly stays.
Hotel Ajito is located in Shizuoka.
The hotel entrance looks like the entrance to a prison.
Outside the police interrogation room.
The hotel's key area.
Some love hotel rooms look like regular hotel rooms (albeit with unusually large beds and bathtubs), but many are themed, catering to couples who like novelty. So when you hear that Ajito has added a suite of themed rooms in ninkyo, which translates to "knightly spirit," you might imagine rooms decorated like a medieval knight's castle or a samurai lord's residence.
Ninkyo, however, is also used to describe the genre of films and storytelling associated with the yakuza, and the Ninkyo Hotel, as Ajito is calling it, is a recently renovated suite of rooms that all revolve around you, imbued with the atmosphere of Japan's organized crime network.
A room belonging to a yakuza gang.
The room was decorated like a yakuza boss's meeting room.
The room is fully equipped.
The Ninkyo suite is inspired by real life.
There are a total of eight ninkyo rooms, all located on the second floor of the Ajito Hotel. The most striking is the prison-style room. The hotel describes it as having "a real iron-barred wall so you can experience what it's like to be a prisoner."
On the other hand, if visitors want to experience the feeling of being a ruthless gangster boss, the Ajito Hotel also boasts many rooms designed like the offices of notorious yakuza clans. In addition, the Ninkyo offers various room types such as interrogation rooms, police rooms, detention rooms, etc.
The detention room was decorated in a dignified manner.
Type of police investigation room.
The concept for the Ninkyo rooms belongs to Choeki Taro, a YouTuber with a past connected to the Japanese yakuza. He sketched out the layouts for Ajito based on his experiences of being convicted and released from prison. Besides providing private spaces for couples, the Ajito hotel also caters to group activities. Its unique architecture, spacious layout, and affordable prices make it suitable for intimate parties, tense private meetings, or video viewing parties for fans of the same idol singer or anime character.
Yakuza is a general term referring to organized crime groups in Japan. They are a traditional alliance of gamblers and street traders. The Yakuza have a history spanning hundreds of years, and perhaps the earliest formed mafia group was the Aizukotetsu-kai in Kyoto, founded in the 1870s. Many yakuza gangs began by running gambling operations and truly operated on a large scale in a chaotic post-World War II society.
The Yakuza is Japan's oldest organized crime group.
Later, they moved into construction, real estate, and criminal activities such as extortion and fraud. Of course, politics was an area the yakuza couldn't ignore. According to the Japan National Police Agency, the 21 largest organized crime groups in the country have a combined total of over 53,000 members. The three largest groups are Yamaguchi-gumi (23,400 members), Inagawa-kai (6,600 members), and Sumiyoshi-kai (8,500 members).
Many Yakuza activities are illegal, but there are also organizations that run businesses that comply with the law. Kazuo Taoka, a third-generation leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi gang, said, "Our members have a real job." The Yamaguchi-gumi portrays itself as a humanitarian group that maintains social order in Japan. That's why they have offices, business cards, and numerous magazines and comics about the gang.
