I grew up around guys who read a check before they read a menu. My uncle could look at a diner receipt and tell you which line the waiter padded. You pick that up. So when I open a soapland's website, I skip the photos and go straight to the price page. That's where a house tells you whether it plans to be straight with you.
EXCELLENT ROOM 麗, which reads Rei, is filed on Cityheaven as ソープ(スタンダード/吉原), a standard-grade Yoshiwara soap. That's the middle of the market, between the cheap houses and the high-class ones with the marble lobbies. The official site is rei-yoshiwara.com. The shop is run by Truth Group (トゥルースグループ), which also owns a high-class Yoshiwara house called Academy and a string of soaps in Kawasaki's Horinouchi district and in Chiba.
It was a Friday, October 2, a little after nine in the morning. Rei's phones had been open since eight.
The notice at the top
Before it shows a single woman, the official homepage shows a price notice. It says the price system changed on September 1, 2026, and lists the new courses:
- 90 minutes, all-in: ¥36,000
- 120 minutes, all-in: ¥50,000
- 150 minutes, all-in: ¥61,000
- The 60-minute course is gone.
The notice doesn't print the old prices, so I can't tell you how much anything went up. What I can tell you is what the change does. The cheapest way in is now 90 minutes. Rei doesn't do the quick in-and-out hour anymore.
Why "all-in" is the whole story
If you've read anything about Yoshiwara, you know about the two-part bill. Most houses advertise a bath fee (入浴料), the money for the room and the clock. Then there's a service fee on top, and a lot of shops don't print it. First-timers see the bath fee, do the math and come out short.
Rei's price page solves that with one word: 総額（消費税込み）, "total amount, consumption tax included." There's one number per course, and that's the bill. Then come the footnotes, which I read the way my uncle read receipts:
- 指名料・入会金等はございません. No nomination fee and no membership fee. Choosing a specific woman costs the same as letting the desk choose.
- Longer sessions are possible by combining courses.
- Receipts are available on request, and they work as qualified invoices under Japan's invoice system. That kind of detail tells you the back office is run properly.
- Credit cards: VISA and MasterCard.
The FAQ backs it up. One question asks whether there are any charges beyond the listed prices, and the answer is いいえ, no. The shop says it never bills anything that isn't on the price list.
Doing the math
Here's the per-minute arithmetic, since nobody else will do it:
| Course | All-in price | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| 90 min | ¥36,000 | ¥400 |
| 120 min | ¥50,000 | about ¥417 |
| 150 min | ¥61,000 | about ¥407 |
Usually the longer course is the bulk discount. Not here. The 90-minute course is the cheapest per minute, and the 120 is the most expensive. If you want more time, skip from 90 straight to 150, which costs only about ¥7 more per minute. The 120 is the middle option they're counting on you to pick because it feels reasonable. I've seen the same trick on every coffee menu in Manhattan.
One more rule: reservations are only taken for courses of 90 minutes or longer. Now that the 60-minute course is gone, every course on the list qualifies.
The two-girl course
Rei takes its 二輪車 (nirinsha) seriously. The word literally means "two-wheeler," and it's the course where two companions see one customer at the same time. It has its own page, a list of companions who do it, a photo spread and even a radio segment. The price is simple: the all-in price times the number of women. Ninety minutes with two women comes to ¥72,000.
The shop's pitch is that nomination is already free, so the two-girl course comes with "two free nominations" and feels like a better deal. That's marketing, but the arithmetic holds. There's a scheduling perk too. Day-before reservations normally open at 14:00, but for nirinsha they open at 13:30, so the two-girl crowd gets a half-hour head start.
Getting there
No station in Yoshiwara carries the neighborhood's name, and Rei is honest about that too. The address is 東京都台東区千束4-18-1 (Senzoku 4-18-1, Taito ward). The access page says the nearest station is Iriya on the Hibiya Line, but that it's still about a 17-minute walk, so it recommends the car. Cityheaven lists the shop as a 10-minute walk from Minowa, so pick whichever station is closer to where you're coming from.
The free pickup runs from two stations, and the shop spells out exactly where to stand:
- Nippori (JR, Keisei, Nippori-Toneri Liner): go out the south ticket gate and turn right toward the east exit. Wait near the sign for a restaurant called わが家の食堂.
- Iriya (Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line): take Exit 1, cross at the crosswalk straight ahead and wait near the Lawson Store 100 sign.
Drivers get three parking spots, first come, first served, and there are no coin-parking discounts. If it's your first time in the lot, you pull up in front of the shop and a staff member tells you where to go. If you park in the wrong spot, you move the car yourself. I respect a house that writes that down.
The phones and the clock
There are two numbers, and you need to know which is which:
- Same-day bookings and questions: 03-3874-0909, answered from 8:00 to 24:00
- Day-before bookings: 03-5808-2522, from 14:00 to 24:00 (13:30 for nirinsha)
The closing time depends on which page you read. The official price page says 8:30 to 24:00, and the Cityheaven listing says 8:30 to 23:00. On the morning I looked, the latest shift on the schedule ended at 22:30. If you're going late, call first.
The Friday board
The official site had 15 women scheduled for Friday, October 2. The first shifts started at 9:00, and the last one ran until 22:30. The roster gives heights from about 150 to 168 cm, plus measurements, but no ages at all. Every profile shows the age as "?". Cityheaven's shop blurb promises everything "from cute girls to the elegant type." That's the standard pitch, but fifteen women is a deep board for a weekday morning, and the same names keep turning up across the weekly schedule.
The homepage also prints a couple of customer reviews. In both, the reviewer says the woman was easy to talk to, and one mentions climbing the stairs and being greeted at the top. It's a small detail, but it tells you Rei is a classic walk-up Yoshiwara house, not a lobby with an elevator.
On health, the FAQ says every companion is required to get tested once a month, and anyone who skips a test isn't allowed to work. On the touts who work the Yoshiwara streets, the FAQ is blunt. Rei doesn't do street solicitation because the local ordinance bans it. If someone approaches you claiming to be from the shop, the advice is to talk to the police.
Bullet point six
At the bottom of the price page there's a section titled ご利用の際の注意点, "points to note when using the shop." It lists the people the shop won't admit. The terms are clear: anyone who fits the list is removed immediately, even after entering the room, and gets no refund.
Most of the list is what you'd expect: drug use, illness, stalking, rough behavior, heavy drunkenness, refusing hygiene products, recruiting the women, filming or recording, pressuring a companion for services or abusing her verbally, asking her out or for her contact details, and talking about other shops or companions in the room. There's even a rule about hats and sunglasses. If staff can't see your face, you don't get in.
Sixth on that list, right after rough behavior, is one word: 外国人, foreigners.
It doesn't say "overseas customers" or "tourists." It says foreigners, with no explanation and no exception. The penalty is the same as for everything else on the list: out the door, and the shop keeps your money.
What it means if you're reading this in English
- Take it at face value. If you're not Japanese, Rei's written policy is that you don't get in. Don't test it at the front desk. The rules say staff will show you out even after you've reached the room, and you won't get your ¥36,000 back.
- Read every shop's fine print, not just the homepage. Some Yoshiwara houses post this kind of policy in a banner on the homepage. At Rei it's sixth on a 13-item list at the bottom of the price page. The policy is just as real in either spot.
- The pricing is still worth learning from. Rei's all-in, no-nomination-fee format is the clearest bill I've seen in Yoshiwara. When you call a shop that does accept you, ask for the 総額, the all-in total, and don't hang up until you get one number.
- Look for the same transparency elsewhere. A house that prints one honest number usually runs the rest of its operation the same way. That's a good filter whichever door you end up at.
The verdict
On paper, Excellent Room Rei is one of the most honest-looking standard soaps in Yoshiwara. It offers all-in, tax-included pricing from ¥36,000 for 90 minutes, no nomination fee, invoice-ready receipts and card payment. It also has a deep weekday board, a two-girl course it takes seriously and the most precise pickup instructions I've read. If you're a Japanese customer, the 90-minute course is the value play, and the 150 is a better buy than the 120.
If you're not, the shop has already decided, and it wrote that down too. I'd rather read it on a Friday morning over coffee than hear it from a driver at the Nippori east exit. My uncle would've said the bill was clean and the door was closed, and that both are worth knowing.