Big in Japan: Rent-A-Friend

Posted by Alex in Everything Else on June 9, 2009 at 5:26 pm


Psst! Do you need friends, relatives, or even your boss to come to your wedding but don’t have any? If you’re in Japan, then you’re in luck: no need to make friends, just hire ‘em!

Office Agents, a Tokyo-based company, rents out friends, work colleagues and even relatives to pad out the guest list.

For £127, one of the company’s agents will attend the wedding as a guest, while a heart-tugging speech will cost an extra £64 and a song or dance will set clients back a mere £32.

Brides or grooms who want to impress their prospective partners with their sheer volume of friends are among those secretly padding the guest list with fakes.

The recession has also boosted the popularity of the service. With unemployment rising and a growing number of Japanese in part time jobs, people rent fake bosses or colleagues.

Others turning to the company for fake work-related guests are those who have recently lost their jobs but want to maintain an air of respectability, according to Hiroshi Mizutani, who heads Office Agents.

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12 comments to "Big in Japan: Rent-A-Friend"

  1. Tempscire
    June 9th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    "Brides or grooms who want to impress their prospective partners with their sheer volume of friends are among those secretly padding the guest list with fakes."

    I predict divorce within 5 years. If you've gotten to the engagement phase of your relationship and you feel the need to lie about your number of friends (and your partner doesn't know your friends well enough to notice)...well.

    This would totally work for a funeral, however.

  2. SenorMysterioso
    June 9th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

    I'll go to someones wedding for free

  3. vonskippy
    June 9th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    @Nicolekid: Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam ugly spam spam spam terrible spam spam spam...

  4. free games for kids
    June 9th, 2009 at 10:52 pm

    i'd like to rent more for myself

  5. rika
    June 10th, 2009 at 12:00 am

    the sad thing is that i find it a great idea....

  6. Mytake
    June 10th, 2009 at 12:23 am

    Well,Japan's the place where hostesses will entertain drunken salarymen for hours, pretend they're their girlfriends etc.

  7. Foreigner1
    June 10th, 2009 at 5:59 am

    How totally cheap and Fake can a culture be if you even have to Pretend at your own wedding...!

    I feel shocked and appalled...

  8. Robin
    June 10th, 2009 at 7:04 am

    IMHO, that's what therapists do.

  9. Video Game Dork
    June 10th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

    Hey! I could get a job as a fake friend. I could be the 'goofy american' choice from the menu! :D

  10. Incoherent Rambling
    June 11th, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    I once saw a Japanese movie where there was a firm that rented itself out to pretend to be family members to lonely people. But then the people went insane and developed some weird loyalty to the firm and forgot all about their real families. Then violent bloody murder ensued.

  11. iEvony
    July 6th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    I just started playing this new game called evony. It's pretty sweet I think you guys would like it. Just a simple little flash game, but damn its addicting. You can sign up for an account at evony.com.

  12. Evony MMO
    July 6th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    I just found this cool new game called evony. Check it out at evony.com.


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