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Ah, the good 'ol relationship question. In Japan, there are several ways of "starting a relation", so of which Westerners might find a bit unorthidox. Here's a list in no particular order of importance:

1)nanpa (lit. "picking up girls") - This practice is a bit unsavory due to the fact that it is primarily used by male "hosts" to pick up female clients. But many practice it casually as well. There are many spots in Japan that are well known as "hook up sites", so to speak. For example, here in Osaka we have serval bridges well known for their reputation as nanpa sites. Nanpa can, of course, be practiced anywhere from a night club to a cafe and thats pretty much how I met the current gal friend. I'll also add some personal bias in here by saying that foreigners tend to really suck at nanpa due to the unfortunate and untrue rumor that Japanese girls are instantly attracted to gaijin no matter how smelly or overweight they might be.

2) gokon (lit. "blind date party") - This is a particularly common way for couples to hook up in Japan. These get-togethers are usually held at izakaiya (drinking halls) with about 3-5 guys and an equal number of girls. When the two parties meet up (usually the leaders from the guy and the girl group know each other) they all take seats, girls on one side and boys on the other. The rest of the night is just talking with the person in front of you, drinking, and occationally changing up seats. At the end of the night, provided all went well, everyone sekigaisen's (cellphones in Japan used email addresses as well as phone numbers and people often trade via infra phone-to-phone connections to save time) their numbers to each other for future contacts and possible dates

3) omimai (lit. "marrige arrangement") - This is by far the most traditional style of relation building and its become almost non existant for young people because the concept of arranged marriges pretty much dried up after World War II. Also, now that marrying to preserve family names and heritage is not nearly as important as it used to be. There still are a fair amount of omimai companies around, but they are much more like modern dating services and usually cater to devorcees and older people who are out of the dating game.

I can think of more, but those are the 3 most striking examples I can think of for now. I hope that helps mrgreen

TRUE STORY

I went to stay in Osaka with a host family... I knew Hitomi since she came to america the year before, but I got to meet the rest of her family! Kazuya is her brother.. he speaks quite a bit of english since he studied in Australia for a year. (he had a japanese/australian accent-- so cute!) I really got to know him well-- he was such a sweetheart! Always helping me out, showing me things, and when I met new people he helped me with my Japanese.
My host family owns five dogs-- yes, five! And one night the daschund came downstairs to see me and I brought her back upstairs. The other dogs were out-- they hated me-- and one of them bit me three times. That ended up a good thing, sort of, since Kazuya cleaned the wounds for me and bandaged them.. and came to check on them every night!
So we sort of had a fling.. we still mail each other but snail mail takes a long time to get to Australia, since that's where he is now. He was so sweet and kind to me through the entire trip.

Yeah, that's my story of romance in Japan. I remember my friend telling me I'd steal some hearts in Japan, but I sincerely doubted it.. I suppose instead I got my heart stolen. sweatdrop whee