Popular writer Usagi Nakamura is known to many Japanese as "Shoppingu no Joo (The Queen of Shopping)," which is also the title of her popular column in the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun. Nakamura, 44, who describes herself as "shop dependent," writes frankly about how she impulsively purchases luxury brand items and how foolish she then feels to have wasted so much money "chasing illusions." What she calls her "serial follies" do not stop, though, and she usually ends up asking publishers for her royalties in advance to pay her credit-card bills.

While slowly managing to put the brakes on her buying, Nakamura found a new target for her spendthrift ways -- host clubs. For 14 months from mid-2001, she was totally absorbed in one of the host clubs in the Tokyo entertainment district of Kabukicho, the industry's "holy ground." Surprisingly (or maybe not), Nakamura spent a total of 15 million yen on her favorite host over that period.

Once divorced and now married to a gay husband who is her soul mate, Nakamura has recently written four books on host clubs, including "Ai to Shihonshugi (Love and Capitalism)," published by Shinchosha. However, she says that her enthusiasm for host clubs has died down because she had major arguments with her host. She has also run out of available advance royalties.