How To Hookup in Tokyo

Looking for ways to meet women in Tokyo?

Japan’s capital is the most densely populated city in the world, so there should really be no excuses for not finding yourself a date. However, Japan has a reputation for being a difficult place for foreigners to pick up girls. 

In this feature we take a closer look at how to hookup in Tokyo.

We’ll show you how to meet girls in Japan’s capital city – including which bars, clubs and daygame hotspots are best to use, plus the best dating apps. We’ll also touch on some of the ways you can improve your technique to pick up women in Tokyo.

Meeting Women in Tokyo

If you are looking to meet women with a view to picking up in Tokyo then it is advisable to ensure that you are hitting up foreigner-friendly locations.

Whilst many Japanese people do speak English, it is estimated that only around three in ten can actually communicate well enough to be understood. So, save yourself a bit of time in advance and make sure you aren’t in a locals only part of the city.

meeting girls in tokyo

Whilst there are some cultural differences to the usual ‘rules of engagement’ that are worth remembering when trying to pickup women in Japan, the best locations to find ladies is pretty similar to any other major international city. During the day, we are talking about shopping malls, cafes and stores as well as on the street.

By night, bars and clubs are the obvious hot spots for Tokyo’s singles as well as in some of the busy streets around restaurants, theaters and late night stores.

There are one of two places we can advise that you don’t try to pick up women and this anywhere around the red light districts of Kabukicho, Gotanda and Dogenzaka.

For obvious reasons, any ladies you might ‘hit it off with’ here could well be working girls and you may end up having to pay for her company. Likewise, avoid any hostess bars and KTV clubs as the women here are on the clock and, no matter how much you might like them, they most often have a policy of not dating customers.

You can improve your chances of getting a date by remembering this advice:

  • Dress to impress and make sure you smell good
  • Pick the right spot to find a date and wait before making your move
  • Be patient but don’t waste time
  • Keep your approach simple and drop the ‘banter’
  • Be assertive and take the lead
  • Respect personal space and don’t expect to get too touchy/feely
  • Don’t give up after the first rejection

So, where can you find women to try your moves on? We’ve covered some suggested locations below which mainly cover the central areas of Shibuya and Roppongi. The latter is well known for its nightlife and is popular with tourists as well as locals making it ideal spot for meeting women in Tokyo.

how to meet girls in tokyo

Bars and Clubs

As we mentioned above, the best way to meet women in Japan is in a bar or club.

Whilst clubs aren’t always the easiest place to talk to a girl they do offer that instant connection of getting up close and personal.

Bars, on the other hand, are usually a bit quieter but you have to work a bit harder with conversation. The choice between the two depends on the kind of women you want to meet and the kind of guy you are. As in any other city, clubs are frequented more by people in the 20s and 30s whilst bars can appeal to all age ranges.

We’ve picked some bars and clubs in Ginza, Roppongi and Shibuya which we think are great places to meet girls in Tokyo.

Ginza is an upmarket and luxurious district with some of the most expensive shops in the world, mainly retail there is a great club here called Genius which is well worth a visit if you fancy trying your hand at meeting sophisticated women in Tokyo. Formal dress is required so be prepared to look your best but the effort will be rewarded with some high-class ladies and a top quality club experience.

Roppongi has always been a tourist haven and is usually full of international visitors but does offer one of the best clubbing scenes in the world with a venue and music scene to suit everyone. There are dozens to choose from but we can recommend these bars and clubs as being very foreigner friendly:

  • Lex
  • Ivy
  • Muse
  • V2
  • Geronimo Shot Bar
  • Jumanji
  • Tusk

One of the busiest parts of Tokyo and home to two of the busiest transport hubs in the worlds Shibuya is a picture perfect postcard of exactly what the city is all about. Full of neon lit streets and abuzz with people, its great place to clubbing.

A young and energetic part of Tokyo, it is known as being a bit of a student area and many of the bars and clubs can be full of 20-somethings. Some of the best places to meet women include the two well-renowned dance music speciality clubs, Womb and Vision.

Also recommended as great places to pick up are:

  • Harlem
  • Sound Museum Vision
  • Camelot
  • Circus

The city is busy almost all of the time (see below) but one of the best windows of opportunity to pick up women outside of clubs is between 11pm and 1am when some of the bars are winding down and the clubs are getting into full swing.

Daygame Spots

So, where are the best sports before the evening kicks in to meet women?

Streets

First up, and we can’t stress this enough, the streets of Tokyo are some of the busiest in the world and it is here that you can find some great opportunities to pick up women. There is even a precedent set for this with a culture (known as nanpa) in which smartly dressed guys stand sentry around the crossings of Shibuya, close to the Ikebukuro main exits and just wait for pretty girls to come along. Whilst this happens at night as well, it can be a pretty good way to meet girls during the day; the Japanese are a very polite society so playing to the strength in your role of ‘tourist’ might be useful.

The nanpa boys have this down to a fine art and they aren’t wrong with their locations, busy intersections, exits/entrances to train stations and shopping malls are all good places to be during the day, especially in the early evening.

nanpa culture tokyo
Image via Pikist.

If you are a smoker then you can also avail yourself of the designated smoking areas in order to meet women. Just as in many parts of North America and Europe smoking is banned indoors, employees must grab a cigarette break. You’ll have a limited window to make your move and get that phone number but at least you’ll know where to pick them up when they finish work.

The commercial, and entertainment center of Shinjuku is a busy district during the day with plenty of trendy cafes and shops plus the whole place sits above the world’s busiest railway station complex. Any of the streets around this area should serve you well as a good place to meet girls in Tokyo.

Malls

As in every developed city, malls attract women en-masse and offer a great way opportunity to meet plenty of them without having to travel far. What’s more, when shopping women are often more relaxed and if they are in the mall then they are usually not in a rush to be anywhere else so far more likely to grab that coffee with you.

There are quite a few good malls to try your luck in Tokyo, including:

  • Futako-Tamagawa Rise – One of the newer malls in the city, it was only opened in 2015 and has earned itself a reputation of being one of the best places to shop in Tokyo. As a result, it is very popular with tourists and locals alike.
  • Omotesando Hills – A trendy development in Shibuya the girls here are often of a university age but it does attract a nice mix. It’s one of those malls where people go to hangout as well as to shop.
  • Skytree Tower – Developed to be a new entertainment and retail district, the area of Solamachi brings together a lot of locals as well as tourists so you can find international and Japanese women here in huge numbers.
meet girls in tokyo

Trains and Stations

Whilst you can hang out on the streets near the exits and entrances, if you are trying to meet women the rail system itself offers some good opportunities. A core method of transportation in Tokyo, pretty much everyone in the city uses them and therefore are always full of people.

Inside those stations you can also find malls, cafes and restaurants and other places to hang out.

You can hit up stations around the universities if you are interested in meeting women in their early twenties and doing so often means that they speak English. The University of Tokyo and Keio University both attract international students as well and are served by good rail links. They are also surrounded by popular cafes to head for a drink when you’ve had some success.

how to meet girls in tokyo on trains

How to Hookup in Tokyo Using Dating Apps

If you aren’t having much success meeting women – first of all, don’t take it personally!

Young Japanese are notoriously reluctant to date or hookup, to the extent that the government is pursuing AI dating as a means to jumpstart its well-known population problem!

It might help if you turn to a trusty dating app to meet some women in the local area.

Tinder is just as popular here as it is internationally and being an English app, there are no language problems with the women you meet. It is far more common to find international visitors using the app but there are still quite a few locals who also use it.

Other common dating apps which will be familiar to the Western visitor which have a good coverage in Tokyo include Bumble, POF and OKCupid Japan.

dating apps tokyo

However there are also some distinctly Japanese websites with apps which may also be worth downloading to your smartphone to use whilst out and about:

  • Japan Cupid
  • DateinAsia Japan
  • Badoo
  • MeetUp Japan
  • Hatch

And finally, MatchAlarm is a platform which uses your location, social media profile and behaviour to find you a suitable match every day. It alerts you at 8am each morning so you have all day to make contact but if you fail to do so by midnight, the match (like Cinderella) will disappear.

It’s a Japanese only tool and is more for serious daters but has quite a following in Tokyo. Worthwhile looking at if you speak the language, as are these Japanese only apps:

  • Omiai
  • Zexy Koimusubi
  • Pairs
  • YYC
  • Tapple

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.