Sexual Fantasy Venues, Random English

I could be mistaken, but I believe the signs pictured below are advertisments for sexual fantasy venues. I've read that there are places in Japan where men pay to grope women on fake trains and in fake office settings, but this is the first evidence I've seen for myself. My husband and I happened by these signs on a side street in a section of Tokyo known as Ikebukuro.

There's nothing better than a little sexual harassment after a hard day at the office. Har har har!

Tell the sexy nurse where it hurts.


Did you notice that the signs are in English? One thing that puzzles me about Japan is the random English signs. I'm willing to bet that most customers of the above mentioned businesses are Japanese and that most of them don't know the words sexual harassment or version. So why are the signs in English and not Japanese? Similarly, there is a holiday week called Golden Week and though the holidays are solely Japanese, they call it by the English name rather than whatever the Japanese words are for golden and week. I asked a Japanese co-worker why this is and she said they use English because they think it's hip. While this is mostly convenient to a native English speaker like me, there are instances when it's frustrating. See Exhibit A:





Oh look, it's a drink menu. It clearly says so in English. In fact, English is the only language I see on the menu. There are no Japanese characters in sight, so surely there must be English inside. Right?




Wrong! There's not a lick of English in the entire menu except for the subheadings. The food menu was the same way.

Now I don't expect to see an English menu in every restaurant, but why tease me with English titles and labels if all of the important stuff is going to be in Japanese?

I guess I'll have to quit being so lazy and learn Katakana.