Following up on the previous question: Is patolo aiming to become a hybrid of Universe Club and a dating app? I sometimes wonder if it’s meant to help women who receive few offers, but as a male member, I’m concerned it could lower the overall quality.

It’s unusual to see Aso, the overall head of the PATOLO division, answering here. Since he’s the person in charge, what Aso wrote is the official position. But speaking as an outsider—although I was with the PATOLO division for a while, so technically I’m still involved in everything except the lounge, haha—I’d like to look at this from a slightly more skeptical angle. I think the quality will decline. There are too many factors involved to explain exactly how, and I’ve already pointed out the risks and problems I see. But apparently, if you focus too much on the risks, you’ll miss opportunities, so it looks like they’re going ahead with it anyway… It reminds me of these words: “There are no miracles or coincidences at the tactical level. That’s why strategy is truly worth thinking about. We are in an extremely disadvantageous strategic position, and it is a military truism that tactical victories cannot make up for strategic defeat. If you could win through conviction alone, things would be incredibly easy. Everyone wants to win, after all.” Going back to the decline in quality, the first thing that will happen is that the quality of the men will decline. That’s because membership costs only ¥10,000, just like an app. Given the price, there’s a high chance that men from dating apps will join. Actually, that seems to be the whole point. As for offers, there is supposed to be a fee, but there’s actually a loophole. Somehow, men can communicate directly with women without paying the offer fee. They claim it’s fine because the rules prohibit making direct date arrangements, but in reality, people can do whatever they want. So, effectively, men can make unlimited offers for just ¥10,000. Which means the men who were on dating apps can behave however they like. That’s a huge decline in quality. Before long, it will be full of men from dating apps, and women won’t be able to tell which men were originally enjoying the services of a traditional dating club. As a result, women will start receiving messages just as frequently as on dating apps from men suggesting they hook up for ¥10,000. These women went all the way to a dating club, answered all kinds of questions, had their photos taken, and went through the trouble of registering—only to receive messages mainly from men from dating apps. And the allowances will be the same low amounts found on apps. Eventually, women will get fed up. Once the rumors spread, new women will stop registering altogether. Men who think, “PATOLO has nothing to do with me. Universe is still there,” are being naïve. Right now, women who come to Universe are also being asked to register with PATOLO. It’s supposedly their own free choice, but if they go to an interview and are told, “Please register with PATOLO as well,” they may feel they have no choice but to agree, worrying that refusing will cause them to fail the interview. In other words, going to an interview at Universe effectively means being made to register with PATOLO as well. (They can refuse, of course, but I don’t think many women are confident enough to push back that strongly.) Then people may start saying that women should stop going to Universe. Universe Club itself could end up in serious trouble because women stop coming. There’s also the possibility that if a PATOLO man harms a woman, the member store may refuse to provide his information. They seem to think there’s no problem because the relevant data is registered in the system, but it’s unclear what happens with copies of identification documents. It also seems possible for a member store to register someone using false information without anyone finding out. (There was talk of requiring ID uploads, but that function wasn’t available initially. And even if someone uploads a fake ID, there’s no system in place to detect it, so the result is the same.) In that situation, even if a man does something wrong, PATOLO may not be able to identify him. The number of women who suffer harm could increase. There are plenty of other possibilities as well. For example, member stores could register fictitious men and use them to approach women. Even if those accounts are forcibly removed, they could continue registering new men. They could meet women directly, or talk them into moving exclusively certain types of women—such as women in the Black class or flight attendants. Considering the cost of advertising, they could even pay women to transfer. If doing it directly would be too risky, member stores could work with scouts to move women over. And if they paid the proper setup fees, it would be even harder to detect. Another issue is that although PATOLO has the same structure as a dating app, it doesn’t have the 24-hour monitoring system that apps have. Between 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 a.m. the next day, people can essentially do whatever they want. There are many other things I can think of, but I can’t list them all. The quality of men declines → Bad rumors spread among women, so women stop coming → If there are fewer women, men go to other dating clubs → Women stop registering with a dating club that has few men That’s the danger. If PATOLO were completely separate, Universe wouldn’t be affected. But if 99% of Universe’s women end up registered with PATOLO, Universe could also fall into the same vicious cycle. > This somehow reminded me of the story of Otsuka Kagu’s downfall. I was thinking the same thing. There’s plenty written about Otsuka Kagu’s failure, but the idea that “customers aren’t necessarily happy just because something is cheap” is obvious. One article described its aim as occupying the extremely awkward position of being “more expensive than Nitori, but cheaper than Otsuka Kagu used to be.” That perfectly matches PATOLO’s intended position: “more expensive than dating apps, but cheaper than Universe used to be.” The article also said that very few businesses succeed by positioning themselves as “the middle option.” In principle, there are only two types: “the cheapest, but reasonably good,” or “reasonably priced, but the best.” That said, PATOLO may be aiming for something different. There’s even talk that what Generation Z wants is to cut out the middleman. Maybe that’s what they’re trying to do. Still, I can’t help thinking that if they were going to do this, they could simply have created a system that allowed member stores to participate while keeping the usual pricing of traditional dating clubs. In a few years, we’ll know what the right answer was, so I suppose all we can do is wait and see. After all, Universe itself started from nothing, overtook the established dating clubs, and reached its current position. I doubt anyone back then thought Universe would surpass the long-established clubs. And since the person who made that happen is now pulling the strings behind the overall head, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Thank you for your question! It would take a while to explain the full background behind patolo’s development, but it began as a project to rebuild the outdated Universe Club system using new technology. Since we were going to create a new system anyway, we decided to apply everything we had learned from operating the club and develop something beneficial for both our members and the industry. That became patolo. To address your concern, you’re worried that turning it into an app might lower the quality of female members. - Although it is a hybrid system combining a dating club and an app, every applicant must still pass a dating club screening process. - Multiple dating clubs will participate, and members can choose which club they want to use. We also believe that clubs offering poor-quality service will naturally disappear because users will not support them. - Feedback after dates will be made fully public, giving members more information to base their decisions on than they currently have with Universe. - Photos and videos will be posted at the same standard as those used by Universe. - Members will be able to chat freely before meeting for a date. What do you think? Because screening standards may vary between participating clubs, some women who would not meet Universe’s standards may be accepted. However, unlike a typical app, women cannot register themselves, so a certain level of quality in both profiles and character will still be maintained. patolo is currently undergoing its final system updates. Once those are complete, we plan to conduct test operations and make the service available to everyone. We will provide more details about the system separately, so please wait just a little longer.

What do you think? In today’s world, where things change so quickly, only those who adapt survive. Since they’re not abandoning the dating club business to focus solely on patolo, I see this as a positive move. Dating clubs alone may already be a little outdated and gradually losing ground. I had been thinking that they would eventually need to move online anyway, so I think Universe has given this a lot of thought. Women considering papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) now have their options spread across papa-katsu websites and apps, dating apps, social media, and other online platforms, after all. The internet is easy and convenient. Eventually, traditional in-person dating clubs may be weeded out. It feels like we’re entering an era where becoming a game changer means establishing the system—or format—as quickly as possible and securing market share, while latecomers will struggle. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for a latecomer to beat Amazon in online retail. Amazon keeps investing and getting new systems in place ahead of everyone else, while Rakuten seems to be gradually losing ground. As for electronic payments, it’s hard to say who will capture the market, but PayPay’s determination really comes through. It’s a market where whoever secures the market share wins. Once the system and format are established, the more market share you capture, the more profitable it becomes. As a pioneer in the papa-katsu industry, I hope Universe Group can also secure the online papa-katsu market through patolo. Here’s to supporting them all together for the enjoyable future of our male members.

Maybe Universe Club will become the central organization, like IBJ is for marriage matchmaking. Since there’s a mix of the good and the bad, it’s up to you to sharpen your eye for picking out the gems.