A Night in an Osaka Love Hotel 🇯🇵

I spent a night alone in a Japanese love hotel in Osaka — not for the reasons you’re probably thinking, but because it came with a very large bed, jacuzzi, and Japanese daytime television.

From gacha toy adverts and McDonald’s jingles to whisky, skincare, and French bulldogs selling Audible, the ads felt strangely familiar. The same global products we get in the West, just delivered with more cheer, more music, and fewer existential questions.

Japan’s reputation for hyper-strange, hyper-local advertising — the so-called Galápagos effect — has mostly faded. The Nicolas Cage era is over. What’s left is something quieter: global brands speaking Japanese, from inside a room designed for secrecy.

This video is less about sex hotels and more about observation — what it feels like to be a foreigner alone, jet-lagged, watching another country sell itself back to you through a TV screen.

No guides. No tips. Just Osaka, adverts, and a moment to sit still.

Chapters
0:00 Room tour
2:47 Japanese TV
4:29 Osaka Castle