In New York, when somebody says "meet me by the batting cages," you're either twelve years old or about to buy a used car. In Kabukicho, it's one of six official meeting spots for a married-women delivery service. I had to see that.
完熟ばなな新宿 (Kanjuku Banana Shinjuku) is filed on Cityheaven as a デリヘル (人妻 / 新宿・歌舞伎町), a married-women deriheru in Shinjuku and Kabukicho. The name means "fully ripe banana." Subtle, it isn't. It's one branch of a chain that the official site, shinjyuku-banana.com, lists across Ueno, Nishi-Kawaguchi, Omiya, Tachikawa, Chiba, Kawasaki, Hachioji, Yokohama, Kinshicho, Kobe, Osaka and Susukino. The phone is 03-3204-0877. The official site says it's open 9:30 to 24:00, Cityheaven says 10:00 to 24:00, and both agree on the line that matters: last reception at 22:00, no day off.
So this isn't a mom-and-pop place on a side street. It's a chain, and that shows in the paperwork. More on that below.
The machiawase system, explained like a subway map
Most delivery shops send a woman to your hotel room. Banana does that too, but the official site leads with something else: 路上待ち合わせ (rojō machiawase), the street meet-up. Here's how the official site lays it out:
- You call, give your name, your station or meeting spot, the course, the start time, and a woman's name if you're nominating one.
- When she arrives at the spot, she calls you from a withheld number.
- You walk into a hotel together, and the clock starts when you enter the room. The walk doesn't count. If you come by car and the drive runs over 10 minutes, they start the clock anyway.
That third point is the one I'd frame and hang on the wall. A lot of shops in this town start the timer when she knocks. Here, the walk from the corner to the love-hotel door is on the house.
Walking the map
The shop publishes a meeting-spot page with pins, so on a gray Tuesday morning, October 6, I walked it. Kabukicho has six spots, plus two around Shin-Okubo and two near Okubo:
- Seibu-Shinjuku Station, north exit. The obvious one, and the closest to the trains.
- The FamilyMart behind the Kabukicho police box. Yes, behind the police box. The shop's own words: 歌舞伎町交番裏のファミリーマート. If you've got a nervous friend, this is the spot for him.
- The Don Quijote on Shokuan-dori. The big one. If you can't find a Don Quijote in Shinjuku, Tokyo isn't for you.
- The Oslo Batting Center, which the shop calls "the old-school batting center on Kuyakusho-dori."
- Higashi-Shinjuku Station, exit A1, on the Oedo line.
- A Korean shabu-shabu place, Dunchon, on the Shin-Okubo side.
Over toward Okubo the list turns into a postcard: a flower shop by Shin-Okubo Station (Flora), Kaichu Inari Shrine, and Okubo Station's north exit. A shrine as a meeting point is either very Japanese or very funny, depending on your upbringing. Kaichu Inari is known as a good-luck shrine. I'll leave that there.
What the map tells you is practical: every pin is inside the free-transport zone. The system page says transport is free from Shinjuku, Shin-Okubo, Okubo, Higashi-Shinjuku (A1) and Seibu-Shinjuku (north exit). Anywhere else, you pay her train fare only. For your home, it's taxi or train fare, and if the walk from the station is too far, the round-trip taxi is on you. The same page lists spots outside Shinjuku too: Ikebukuro, Otsuka, Sugamo, Nippori, Uguisudani, Shibuya, Gotanda and Kinshicho.
The fee change nobody's shouting about
Here's the part I came for. At the top of the official price page there's a small table addressed to お客様各位, "to all customers." It's dated by effect, not by fanfare:
| Item | Before | From October 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Nomination fee (net nomination) | ¥0 | ¥1,000 |
| Repeat nomination (honshimei) | ¥1,000 | ¥2,000 |
So nominating a woman by name off the website used to be free, and as of five days ago it isn't. Repeat customers who ask for the same woman again now pay double. The base course prices didn't move. Cityheaven already shows the new numbers, which is good. But if you saved a screenshot in September, it's wrong now.
The price card, and where the value is
The list is long and orderly:
- 70 min ¥13,000
- 90 min ¥17,000
- 110 min ¥21,000
- 140 min ¥26,000
- 180 min ¥33,000
- 240 min ¥43,000
- 300 min ¥53,000
- 360 min ¥63,000
- Extension: ¥7,000 per 30 min
- Hotel room is extra.
Run it per minute and it's a flat road that tilts a little downhill: about ¥186 a minute at 70, ¥189 at 90, ¥191 at 110, then down to ¥183 at 180 and ¥175 at 360. No trap in the middle of the ladder, which is more than I can say for some shops. The trap is the extension: ¥7,000 for 30 minutes is about ¥233 a minute. Book 70 and extend once and you pay ¥20,000 for 100 minutes. Book 110 up front and you pay ¥21,000 for 110. Decide before you call.
Real-world numbers for a first-timer: 70 minutes with a web nomination is ¥14,000 plus the room. Take whoever's free, no nomination, and it's ¥13,000. Come back for the same woman and it's ¥15,000. Cards are accepted, and there's a LINE account for booking if you hate phones.
The points program, read with a pencil
Banana runs a points scheme called ばなポ (banapo). The event page says it now returns 3% of what you spend, with 1 point = ¥1. New members who register on the site get 1,000 points to use from the next visit. The fine print:
- Points are used in 500-point units, 3,000 points max per visit.
- They expire one year after they're given.
- They don't apply to transport, and they're for regular courses only, not discount or special courses.
A 90-minute booking at ¥17,000 earns about 510 points. It's a loyalty card, not a discount. And it lands in the same month that repeat nomination went up ¥1,000. The shop giveth, the shop taketh.
The board on a Tuesday
The official top page's today's board had 21 women listed, starting at 10:00 and running as late as 23:00. The stated ages ran from 40 to 74. Mostly late forties to early fifties, a couple in their mid-fifties and sixties, and one woman listed at 74. A couple of names carry a branch tag, like "ゆう～上野" and "まな～錦糸町." That fits a line on the system page: you can call in women from other branches of the chain, paying her transport from her home branch.
The shop's "ready now" strip on Cityheaven had six women standing by between 12:39 and 12:59. The new-arrivals list shows women joining on October 5 and October 3, plus a run of September hires, two of them flagged as new to the industry. For a 10-a.m.-to-22:00 shop, that's a busy floor.
The date course, and the rules
There's a date course: 180 min ¥23,000, 240 min ¥33,000, 300 min ¥43,000. Shopping, a meal, the girlfriend routine. The shop is clear: no regular play in a hotel on this course, repeat customers only, and you pay her train fare. If you want the hotel part too, it's the normal price list. Think of it as a dinner reservation that the shop won't sell to strangers.
The house rules on the official site are standard, and worth reading anyway: no customers under 18 or in high school; no honban (actual intercourse) or pressuring for it; no gang members, or anyone with tattoos (刺青等); no one drunk or on drugs; no photos or recordings; no scouting. Break one and play ends with no refund, and serious cases go to the police. That tattoo line isn't aimed at tourists, but it applies to them. If you've got ink, ask before you book.
I didn't find any rule refusing foreign customers on the official site or the system page. Even so, the booking runs in Japanese, by phone or LINE. Bring a Japanese-speaking friend or a script.
The verdict
Kanjuku Banana Shinjuku is a well-oiled chain branch with a street-corner twist: a flat price ladder from ¥13,000 for 70 minutes, a clock that starts at the room door, not the meeting spot, a free zone that covers all of Kabukicho to Okubo, and a meeting map with a batting cage and a shrine on it. The weak spots: a ¥7,000 extension that's the worst deal on the card, and nomination fees that doubled on October 1.
My advice: pick your course before you dial, ask for the all-in total with the new nomination fee, and choose the FamilyMart behind the police box. Nobody's going to bother you there.