Feature: The life and times of Japan's Internet cafe refugees

"It's heated in winter and cooled in summer, I've got all the videos I could hope to watch and all the magazines I could hope to read. I shower twice a day here and have a hot meal once a day. This space is my own. It's cramped and I can hear everything going on either side of me, but it's a roof over my head."

Putting down his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and taking a hefty swig from a bottle of green tea, Tomohide Sakai, 39, summed up his situation to Xinhua stating simply, "things could be worse."

Sakai is one of a growing number of temporary workers and unemployed people who due largely to financial reasons are now calling Japan's urban Internet cafes home. This growing demographic has come to be known as net cafe refugees, a term Sakai feels is pretty accurate.

"I guess in a sense we are refugees, in as much as we have nowhere else to go. The next stop for most of us would either be a homeless shelter, which would mean a very limited chance of being in an area to catch ad hoc temporary work and having to deal with 'difficult' residents, or on the streets," said Sakai, in between mouthfuls of a rice ball, bought from a vending machine just around the corner from his 2.5-meter squared booth.

Sakai said he had everything to look forward to in his younger days. A reasonable education that saw him graduating from a better- than-average university in the city had set him up for a job as a junior accountant at what he believed was a reputable firm.

He was earning a decent wage, could afford to take his then girlfriend out a couple of times a week for a meal or a movie, and even managed to put some money by each month as he was saving for a trip to Bali during which he planned to propose to his girlfriend.

"I had it all figured out. I had the job, the girl and I could see how my life was panning out. We'd get married and have a couple of kids, buy a house in the suburbs and be a family. It's perhaps not the most glamorous of stories, but it's all I ever wanted. This was my dream. But despite what they tell you in the movies, not all dreams come true," Sakai said forlornly.

He explained that the company he was working for, unbeknown to him at the time, was a subsidiary of a construction company with ties to the Japanese mafia and that his company and all its assets were "redistributed" to become more cost effective, and many of the staff "relocated." Sakai explained that he now understand that this was all code for the yakuza using the business as a front to launder money and eventually selling it off altogether to pay off a substantial debt, or as a downpayment for a more lucrative scheme.

Since then, the 39-year-old has been in and out of temporary work, which has included working construction, day laboring, working as a delivery driver to girls working in the sex trade and packing goods in a food warehouse. He said that all of the jobs are either in or around Tokyo and its suburbs, so staying in net cafes in central Tokyo is the best choice as, despite the higher prices, it's easier and faster to get to job sites or pickup places.

"I've made friends along the way, but as you can imagine it's fairly transient in places like these with people constantly coming and going. People are also turfed out by the management or the police if there are any disturbances like disorderly behavior, harassment to girls, or theft. But all-in-all I guess I've been living in net cafes for more than 15 years now," said Sakai.

"Since I lost my job, I couldn't get back on my feet. I managed to get a few part-time jobs, but they never led anywhere. My girlfriend got tired and left as she could see our plans imploding before her and I assume she moved on to the next guy with a regular pay check," he said.

While admitting he only earns a mere fraction of the amount someone his age would be earning if they worked for a regular company, he said he makes "enough to get by," which for Sakai equates to enough to cover his tab at whichever net cafe he's staying at, a hot meal a day from Yoshinoya or something similar and a can or two of Chu-Hi, a carbonated drink made from shochu and flavored with fruit juice and priced well below that of other alcoholic beverages, including beer.

"For the time being, as long as I've got my cigarettes and couple of cans of Chu-Hi and don't have to sleep on the streets, I 'm okay. I don't bother thinking about the future, except for making sure I've got enough work to feed myself, what would be the point?" asked Sakai rhetorically.

The numbers of net cafe refugees like Sakai have been on the rise since the late 1990s and early 2000s and fluctuate according to the employment market. Due to the fact that not all refugees are living in the cafes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, social worker Makoto Kawazoe has said it's hard for the government to fix a precise number on these transients.

"I'm not homeless and use net cafes a couple of times a week or at weekends," Sachi Matsushita, a 22-year-old from Saitama Prefecture, told Xinhua, describing herself as a "furitaa" meaning someone with no regular employment.

"I don't get on with my parents because I dropped out of vocational college, but I still have my room in their house with some of my stuff in it, but my most important possessions are in here," she said, gesturing to a mid-sized fluorescent pink suitcase on wheels, "And I keep some stuff in lockers near the station," she added.

When quizzed on how she earned a living, Matsushita said once or twice a week she would meet with male "customers" and have dinner, refusing to divulge anything more than that, aside from saying they were usually "men of means" who were happy to take care of her financially. She said that in between or after "work" it was too far for her to get home by taxi so she'd usually come to a net cafe and sleep, play games or read, until the trains restarted.

Like Sakai, Matsushita was hardly holding out for a bright future.

"I don't dream of settling down with a husband and having a family, most of my customers are married with kids, why would I want a guy like that? I can take care of myself," she said, as her mobile phone started buzzing and flashing excitedly.

Muttering a volley of expletives under her breath, Matsushita said she had to go and buy a new lipstick and probably wouldn't be back later tonight. At the front desk she paid for a "double 9- hour pack" (package deal) and asked the attendant why they'd stopped the cheaper 24-hour pack.

She entered the lift dragging her life on wheels behind her, while dexterously tapping out yet another text. "I think they're trying to get rid of us by raising the prices," she said, as the elevator doors opened. And with a smile and a wave, teetered away on pin-heels toward another night of neon-lit obscurity in downtown Tokyo. Endi