In the short documentary "Net Cafe Refugees", we meet a construction site security guard and a resigned salesman, who currently call a small cubicle at an Japanese Internet café to be their home.
Due to low wages for Japanese temporary workers and the difficulty to receive unemployment benefits, renting a cubicle seems to be the best financial option. This phenomena began in the late 1990s, with a steady increase of "refugees" in the 2000s.
Having lived in Japan for five years, Adario Strange has seen this kind of environment firsthand:
I'll never forget the first time I used one, in the crowded confines of Shibuya in Tokyo. After receiving my authorization card, I walked to my designated cubicle and encountered a man casually padding past me dressed in a bathrobe and slippers I walked to my designated cubicle and encountered a man casually padding past me dressed in a bathrobe and slippers with toiletries in hand, clearly on his way to wash up for the night.
Over the years, I had other occasions to use Internet cafes in other parts of the country, and I saw and heard it all — marathon sex sessions between young couples, Internet cafe regulars (read: residents) who were genuinely annoyed by the arrival of newcomers and even one man who appeared to be bringing a bag of groceries to his cubicle.
Via @kyokotago.