The fear behind Japan's flourishing rent-a-friend business

In three and a half years I've never once been caught out," says Ryuichi Ichinokawa, founder of Tokyo-based Office Agents, one of the 'rent a friend' businesses currently flourishing in Japan.

Ichinokawa makes sure his 'agents' - available for hire as 'friends', 'work colleagues' and even 'relatives' - know the answers to every possible question in advance. A slip could ruin the reputation of his client ­ and his business.

The client wants the agent to fill in the gap in his or her lifeBusiness is booming. After four years, Ichinokawa now employs 30 agents and charges £150 for wedding appearances, or more if the agent is asked to speak or sing karaoke. The economic recession has increased demand as requests come in for agents to act as 'bosses' or 'work colleagues' to cover up for the fact that the client has, in fact, lost his or her job.

In short, the need to save face in public is a growing concern amongst the Japanese.

The roles agents are asked to play range from being best man at a wedding, to being a child's 'uncle' at a sports event, to being a parent attending a match-making party. They might be asked to be a husband at a social gathering, or even a rival suitor.

What each situation has in common is that the client wants the agent to fill in the gap in his or her life - a gap they feel unable to broach publicly.

Behind the example of the 'uncle' watching his nephew's sports event is the fact that the child's mother is a divorcee, the father is absent, and the son is being bullied at school by his peers. It is clear that the divorcee is attempting to fill in the gap of her missing husband and her son's missing father in the hope, apart from anything else, that this will solve the problem of her son being bullied.

The uncle is also a stand-in father and, at least in the mother's mind, will quite literally represent the protective authority figure that is missing in their lives.

Another situation described by Ichinokawa is acting to rescue love affairs that are failing. A woman client employs an agent to act as a potential rival in order to re-kindle her lover's interest. When she is in public with her inattentive boyfriend, the agent is programmed to 'accidentally' turn up, show that they've met before and express overt interest in her. Here the agent is asked to collude with the woman in trying to cover up the fact that her boyfriend has lost interest in her, if he was ever interested in the first place.

Whatever role the agent is asked to play points to an underlying emotional gap in the client that is too painful to know about - much less risk exposing.

Japan is a culture which has an extreme fear of vulnerability and defeat

Hiring a 'boss' might be the most obvious attempt at saving face, but there are invariably deeper emotional gaps that agents are being asked to fill.

In a culture that prides itself on the importance of form and structure ­ on putting on a good public appearance - it is perhaps especially shameful when the facts of one's life don't correspond to how they are supposed to be. For many people, these discrepancies convey a terrible sense of failure and inadequacy. Having to hire friends and relatives only highlights the isolation of Ichinokawa's clients and how much intimacy is lacking in their lives.

Japan is a culture, known during World War II for its kamikaze pilots, but which now has an extreme fear of vulnerability and defeat.

It is ironic that Ichinokawa originally wanted to train as a counsellor. Instead of training, he set up his agency and now claims that what he is providing is a kind of counselling.

However, in helping clients cover up their problems, the agents seem to be acting more in the role of social prostitutes, giving short-term relief that must be kept secret at all costs. Creating the façade of a life without problems is immensely seductive but it is the client who is fooled in the end.