Notes from a small group of islands

When its doors opened in April 1984, in an area where it was, and indeed still is, surrounded by other soaplands and countless other establishments serving sex-related services, it must have seemed that success for the Queen Chateau was a certainty.

But it wasn’t.

And, according to different sources, it closed those same doors once suggestively thrown open that very same year, or, somewhat slightly less disastrously, several years later in 1987.

But either way, it’s still a mystery why it failed, although at the same time it is fairly safe to say that it wasn’t down to a lack of effort in regards the decor, due to its charmingly restrained chateau-like chic.

However, regardless of such fineries, it’s probable that phone rang more in relation to payment requests rather than reservations.

And the rooms, where the place’s ten working girls once plied their trade, are now arguably more sordid than any of the activities that were once performed in them.

The remaining furnishings hinting at the soapy shenanigans that briefly went on there.

Which, it seems, often involved these uncomfortable looking plastic chairs.

But definitely not their more comfortable and cushion-bearing cousins.

And yet as unquestionably pleasurable as soapland must be for the punter, for those paid to please, it must have been (and be) an especially different experience. One were a couple of drinks or some other concoction can’t have just been nice, but a necessity.

A point that became immediately apparent upon stepping inside the Queen Chateau, as, due to the main doors being boarded up, a rear entry was the only option, instead of a once less difficultly negotiated front one; leading us through a depressingly dark and horribly confined area with packed-in bunk beds and basic cooking and toilet facilities — a part of the building where the staff obviously once slept and spent their free (or possibly not so free) time.

The unlit and warren-like nature of the place meant that taking pictures was impossible, but at the same time, it made the sight of business cards suggesting euphemistic visits to ‘tearooms’ (ティールーム) with the likes of Jean (ジーン) and Claudia (クラウディア) all the more unsettling.