By contrast, the last place one would think of looking would be in a suburban residential area. But thanks to magazines like Jitsuwa Taiho (April), we have learned to expect the unexpected. The magazine’s reporter was able to get wet and go wild, not in a bar or massage parlor, but in a bathing establishment where low-income earners go to get clean.

Although as we shall soon see, in his case it was more like getting cleaned out — and in more ways than one. The incident in question occurred at a “coin shower” in Tokyo’s Bunkyo-ku, an area with a high population of students who reside in cheap apartments and boarding houses. These coin showers, which are often set up adjacent to coin-operated laundromats, are like self-service car washes for human bodies.

Catering to people whose tiny, low-budget residences lack bathing facilities, they consist of a compact cubicle for disrobing and a shower stall — with timer-equipped hot water heater — that is activated by insertion of several hundred yen, permitting a 10- or 15-minute hot-water scrubdown.