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Industries (Hana Komiyama)
Sexy Cabaret Club – Strategies for communicating
Specific Themes
The signboard of S- GALAXY specifically shows their theme on their signboards. That is, it says “ミニスカ×ニーハイ(mini skirt ×knee-high socks)” , with the image of a girl wearing the mini skirt and the knee-high socks on the back. Also, it has the phrase “密着！ 絶対領域” , which means that stick with the girls with exposed skin between the top of knee-high socks and hemline skirt in English. Because of this way of appealing to the concepts, the customers who probably want to enjoy the time with young student-like girls would be attracted to the club S-GALAXY.
Signboards of “S-GALAXY” in Kabuki-cho
This signboards of CLUB H also literally shows the concept, which says “バスローブ×密着イチャイチャ (bathrobes ×cuddle sticking with girls)” . By having specific concepts, it will enable the customers to easily imagine the service after going into CLUB H.
Signboard of CLUB H in Kabuki-cho
Use of Signs
Signs allow each species to (1) signal its existence, (2) communicate messages within the species, and (3) model incoming information from the external world. (Sebeok, 1994)
The posture of people can be an effective sign to communicate non-verbally. Since it is unable to do verbal communication with signboards, understanding the meaning of signboards through non-verbal communication will be significant. As is explained on the Sexy Cabaret Club main page (💋Sexy Cabaret Club), sexy cabaret club often has some themes so that customers can enjoy the role-playing that matches their sexual preferences. The signboards of sexy cabaret clubs enable the customers to effectively communicate their concepts by only looking at the images on the signboards where the posture of the girls is expressing not only their femininity but also the themes and the concept of the store.
The signboards of G- SCANDAL are using the image of the girl with large breasts, which is one of the characteristics of females.
Women, more than men, are pictured using their fingers and hands to trace the outlines of an object or to cradle it or to caress its surface (the latter sometimes under the guise of guiding it),or to effect a “just barely touching” of the kind that might be significant between two electrically charged bodies. This ritualistic touching is to be distinguished from the utilitarian kind that grasps, manipulates or holds. (Goffman, )
Signboards of “G SCANDAL” in Kabuki-cho
When audiences look at the signboards, most people would probably feel the feminine image of the girl from her “softness.”
Since this girl is touching her chin and hair, the audience will unconsciously reminiscent of the softness of the girl’s skin and hair. In addition, the white raced tops of the girl also give a soft impression to the audience. This image that is associated with softness will unconsciously give a feminine impression to the audience.
These two signboards below can also see how they communicate their concept of the club through posing. These two signboards are from the same sexy cabaret club but from a different period of time. The left signboard is the signboard of “Houseki-bako” in the daytime, and the right is the one at night. The girls in the center of both the daytime and nighttime signages are doing the “cat posing” by making their right hands like a paw and placing their hands next to their face. This posing refers to the “cute” image of the girl that is reminiscent of an actual cat. Although they are in the same posing, it is obvious that the concepts of both girls are different from their clothing. That is, the girl in the left is wearing the fluffy sweatshirt that has the animal ears on. As is related to the “cat posing”, this concept of wearing fluffy animal-like clothing gives the audiences of kawaii (cute) and iyashi( easing) impressions. Yet, the girls in the right signboards are wearing dresses that shows their body lines, they are relatively giving the impression of kawaii (cute) but also beautiful or gorgeous images of girls.
Signboards of “Houseki-bako” in the daytime
Signboards of “Houseki-bako” at night
More pages for semiotic analysis on postures on signboards ⇒ 📸How gender is presented through POSING
Language Use
Two types of language use is used in these signboards.
The first type of language is keigo, which refers to the polite language in Japan. The phrase “コチラからお入りください (Please enter from here)” is in keigo. According to Sakamoto (n.d.), keigo is not only used when people want to express politeness but also when clarifying the uchi (inner) and soto (outer) relationship. For instance, in this case, since it says “Please enter from here” on the signboards, it is clear that the people in uchi (workers) are treating the customers from the outer world (soto). This means that the workers in the club are communicating with the customers as people in higher positions.
Signboards of “S-GALAXY” in Kabuki-cho
Also, as is obvious, there are other kinds of languages, which is English. While the phrase in Japanese that shows the entrance, “コチラからお入りください (Please enter from here)” , are in small texts, the term “ENTRANCE” is in the larger letter with all capital font. From this way of using English larger than Japanese, the club is also targeting customers from abroad.