Shiatsu, acupuncture and moxibustion are for older men -- at least, that's what was believed.
As recently as five years ago, young women kept their distance from massage parlors, which tradition had set in small, gloomy residential quarters tended by a single masseur who kept the price list in his head and not his window.
Then things started changing. Clean, bright massage parlors began to sprout up in Tokyo's commercial districts like Ginza and Shibuya, offering what is known as a "quick massage" or "time massage" for about 100 yen a minute.