Open a Japanese shop's website and machine translation gets you most of the way there — until it hits a handful of words that do not translate cleanly, or translate into something vaguer than the original. Those are usually the words that decide what you are actually booking: whether staff come to you or you go to them, whether a walk-in is welcome, and what is included in the price versus billed on top.
We went through the pages of all 40 shops in our directory — across Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo — and pulled out the Japanese terms that show up again and again. This is not a language lesson. It is a reference you can keep open in another tab and match against whatever you are reading on a shop's site.
What kind of shop is this?
These terms tell you the format before you read anything else — whether you are looking at a companion bar, a massage studio, or an outcall service, and where the session actually happens.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning | Where you'll see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 売り専 | urisen | Companion house — you meet staff in person, often at an attached bar, before choosing who to spend time with | The shop's own description of itself, usually in the site title or an About section. See our guide to urisen, gay massage and escort for how this differs from the other two formats |
| 出張 | shutchō | Outcall / dispatch — staff travel to your hotel rather than you visiting a shop | Booking pages and course menus, often shown as a choice against 個室 |
| 個室 | koshitsu | Private room, at the shop's own location — the opposite of 出張 | Venue descriptions and course listings |
| コース | kōsu | Course — a bundled block of time, e.g. "60分コース" (60-minute course) | The main pricing tab, usually one of the first links after the top page |
| セラピスト | serapisuto | Therapist — the term gay massage studios use for staff, in place of the "cast" language urisen and outcall sites tend to use | Massage studio staff pages, often with a separate booking slot per therapist |
Staff, choices and add-ons
This is the group that determines what your quoted price actually covers. None of these terms are red flags on their own — they are simply how the pricing is structured — but recognising them tells you what to ask about before you commit. (For the actual numbers behind these terms across all 40 shops, see what gay escort and massage really costs in Japan; this table sticks to what the words mean.)
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning | Where you'll see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 指名 | shimei | Nomination — choosing a specific staff member by name rather than leaving it to the shop | Staff roster pages and course menus, usually listed with a separate fee attached |
| 本指名 | honshimei | Repeat nomination — naming someone you have booked before, as distinct from a first-time 指名 | Pricing tables at shops with a larger, named staff roster |
| 延長 | enchō | Extension — adding time to a session already underway, usually sold in fixed blocks rather than by the minute | Course menus, often in smaller print near the main price list |
| オプション | opushon | Option — an add-on service priced separately from the base course | Pricing pages, usually listed below the core course table |
| 深夜料金 | shinya ryōkin | Late-night surcharge — an extra charge that applies after a set hour | Course menus or a note near the shop's hours |
| 料金 / システム | ryōkin / shisutemu | "Price" / "system" — the page that lays out how pricing works. "System" here means the pricing structure, not a technical system | Main navigation, usually one of the first tabs on any shop's site |
Booking and availability
These are the words that tell you how to actually act — whether you need to plan ahead, whether today works, and which button gets you a reply.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning | Where you'll see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 本日出勤 | honjitsu shukkin | "Working today" — the staff roster for the current day | Homepage or a dedicated schedule tab |
| 入会 / 会員 | nyūkai / kaiin | Membership / member — some shops ask first-time customers to register before they can book | First-visit or FAQ pages. Whether this carries any cost varies by shop, so it is worth asking rather than assuming either way |
| 要予約 | yoyaku hitsuyō | Reservation required — walk-ins are not accepted | Hours or access pages, usually next to the contact details |
| 当日OK | tōjitsu OK | Same-day booking accepted | Booking pages, placed near the reservation button to reassure you that short notice is fine |
| 受付 | uketsuke | Reception — either the front desk itself, or the hours during which enquiries are answered ("受付時間" = reception hours) | Hours pages and shop entrances |
| 予約 | yoyaku | Reservation / booking — the word on the button you are looking for | Every shop's site, usually as a prominent button ("ご予約はこちら" = "reserve here") |
| お問い合わせ | otoiawase | Inquiry / contact | The page or button you use when there is no booking form and you need to ask directly |
| アクセス | akusesu | Access — directions to the shop, or the area a staff member can travel to for outcall | A dedicated page, common on Japanese business sites generally |
The channel that's never missing
It is tempting to go looking for a shop's LINE or social account first, since LINE is familiar and a chat thread feels easier than a Japanese web form. But that is not where most of these 40 shops actually are.
| Booking channel | Shops that publish it |
|---|---|
| Official website (with 予約 or お問い合わせ) | 40 of 40 |
| LINE ID published openly | 2 of 40 |
| X (formerly Twitter) account | 3 of 40 |
| Google Maps listing as main contact | 1 of 40 |
Every one of the 40 shops has a working site with a reservation or contact page. A public LINE ID is the exception rather than the norm here — College no Ousama in Ni-chome is one of the few that lists LINE, WhatsApp and WeChat side by side on the same ID, which is unusual enough to be worth noting.
What this means practically: the glossary above is organised around a shop's own page for a reason. 出張 and 個室 tell you the format, コース and 料金/システム tell you the pricing structure, 予約 and お問い合わせ tell you how to act on it, and 受付 and 要予約 tell you when you can. If you can recognise those words on a shop's site, you can navigate most listings in this directory without needing a second app at all.
How to actually use this list
A few habits make this more useful than skimming a translated page:
- Search the page for the characters, not the translation. Use Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on a Mac) for terms like 指名 or 延長 directly. Machine translation often smooths these into vaguer English, and the original characters are more reliable than the sentence built around them.
- Check 料金 or システム in the main navigation first. That tab is usually where a shop lays out its courses, even at shops that do not publish a starting price outright — which, in our directory, is most of them. For where the actual figures land, our pricing guide covers all 40 shops.
- A page with 本日出勤 but no visible 予約 button often signals a walk-in-oriented urisen bar rather than a booking-first studio or outcall service — worth cross-checking against our guide to how these formats differ.
- 要予約 and 当日OK are not opposites you can guess at. One means you need to plan ahead; the other means you do not. Confirm which applies before you build an evening around a shop, whether it is in Tokyo or Osaka.
- 深夜料金 and オプション are the two terms worth double-checking before you commit, since they are the parts of the price most likely to sit outside the headline course fee.
The short version
None of these 19 terms are complicated once you have seen them once. The pattern that matters most is where they cluster: format words (出張, 個室, コース) near the top of a page, pricing words (指名, 延長, オプション, 深夜料金) in the middle, and action words (予約, お問い合わせ, 要予約) near the bottom or on a button. Once you can spot that shape, a Japanese-only shop page stops being a wall and starts being a form you already know how to read.
For the steps that come after you have found the right words — what to actually send, and in what order — see our guide to booking without Japanese.
How we checked this. Every term above was pulled from a full review of all 40 shops listed in our directory, completed 27 August 2026, along with the booking-channel counts in the table above. Individual shop listings on this site show each one's booking channels and language support so you can see which of these words to expect before you click through.