Japanese hotel offers toys their own beds, but it will cost you
The teddy bear beds are currently being trialled at the Toyoko Inn Osaka Dome Mae for an additional fee of 300 yen (£1.50).
Nuikatsu or 'living with stuffed toys' is a social media trend that sees people travel to events with their nuigurumi plush toys.
#推し活なら東横インぬいとお泊まり pic.twitter.com/VfyIEed3dZ
— 𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕜 (@pinkiro83765) July 15, 2025
A hotel representative for Toyoko Inn told J-Cast News he hoped the service would be popular with Gen Z travellers, reported The Times.
According to the Toyoko Inn website, the sleepover plan includes 'a special overnight set for your Oshi merch — like plushies or acrylic stands — complete with a mini bed and tiny bathrobe'.
Travellers are also encouraged to post a photo or video of their stay on TikTok, X, or Instagram with the hashtag #推し活なら東横イン (Toyoko Inn is the place to go for your favourite idols) to receive a small gift.
The overnight set is available as a rental and has to be returned to the hotel on checkout.
1セット300円でレンタルできるんですよー。#推し活なら東横イン #ロボホンはギリギリ寝れる#ガウンのサイズは2種類#どちらもロボホンは着られなかった#あみホンのZEROクン#ぬいホンのOCEANクン#2人が添い寝できます pic.twitter.com/oGrRhuz3un
— れおクレ＆rb (@RE_RBHN) July 5, 2025
Recently, a Chinese hotel was ordered to end its unusual wake-up call service that involves red pandas climbing onto guests' beds after concerns for safety and animal rights.
Lehe Ledu Liangjiang Holiday Hotel, a popular family resort in Chongqing, has been called on by the local forestry bureau to stop one of its most popular services. Many guests are attracted to the hotel solely for its red panda wake-up experience.
The service involves bringing one of the hotel's red pandas up to a guest's bedroom in the morning, allowing the panda to roam freely around the room and climb onto the bed.
Despite the popularity of the service, the Chongqing Forestry Bureau has reportedly asked the hotel to immediately cease all close contact activities between the pandas and visitors.
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San Francisco Chronicle
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'I was 19. My now husband was 27. My now 13yo child calls him my 'predator,'' one woman wrote on Threads alongside laughing emoji, probably only half-joking. Why Gen Z Seems To Have Such An Aversion To Age Gaps Is Gen Z just more prudish on this subject than prior generations? Not necessarily, said Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and the host of the Sex and Psychology Podcast. He's been studying age-gap relationships for roughly 20 years and said the stigma around age-disparate relationships is long-standing. In 2008 ― when terms like 'cradle robber' and 'cougar' were bandied around a lot more than they are now ― Lehmiller co-authored a study that found age-discrepant couples reported experiencing significantly more social disapproval than people in gay or interracial couples. So the discomfort around these types of relationships isn't anything new. What is new, according to Lehmiller, is how comfortable Gen Z feels about publicly and vocally disapproving of these relationships ― even on people's personal Instagram pages. (Aaron and Sam Taylor-Johnson recently spoke out against the 'bizarre' online judgment they've received. Eilish and Rutherford brushed off the criticism from overly concerned fans by dressing up as a baby and an old man one Halloween.) 'To some in Gen Z, age-gap relationships read as being inherently exploitative because they perceive age discrepancies as necessarily creating a power imbalance that favors the older partner,' Lehmiller told HuffPost. What's also changed is which parties tend to receive the brunt of the judgment. In the past, people were often scornful of both the younger and older partners in these relationships. Historically, the younger partners, especially when they were women, endured labels like 'gold digger' ― with the implication that they were the ones doing the exploiting. That terminology doesn't always fly with Gen Z. 'That perception seems to have largely disappeared when you look at what Gen Z is saying,' Lehmiller noted. 'They seem to cast the younger partners as victims who are being preyed upon or 'groomed.'' Gigi Engle, a certified sex and relationship psychotherapist and resident intimacy expert for dating app 3Fun, worries that the term 'grooming' is being overapplied and losing its meaning. 'The narrative is really toxic here and in many other cases,' she told HuffPost. 'Trans people are groomers, gay people are groomers, older people dating younger people are groomers ― and this just isn't accurate. It's a really fear-mongering time we live in.' Gen Z may be hyperfocused on this because of their age: If you're a 35-year-old woman, you're probably less hung up on the idea of a 50-year-old guy expressing interest in you. 'I think younger people may be more susceptible to manipulation and are therefore more afraid of it,' Engle said. 'The reality is, age-gap relationships have been happening since humans have existed, and it is absolutely not some one-size-fits-all. In the vast majority of relationships like this, nothing untoward is happening.' Here's What Gen Z Has To Say About Age Gaps Talking to actual Gen Zers, you'll find that their opinions on age gaps run the gamut. As with most things, their takes on the subject are much more nuanced than those found on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, would have you believe. That said, many are genuinely bothered by age gaps. While the #MeToo movement gave them the language to talk about power imbalances, some 20-somethings say their opinions are more colored by their own personal experiences. Layla — a 23-year-old who asked to use her first name only for privacy reasons, like others in this story — thinks it's better to date within your own age group, ideally within a two- or three-year range. 'When I was around 21 and 22, I tried talking to guys who were 30 and over, but soon realized it wasn't right,' she told HuffPost. 'They had so much more life experiences than me, and it was awkward being from different generations.' Layla said she'd tried to joke and laugh about certain things ― a meme or a TikTok video ― and got a lot of blank stares. She wasn't a fan of their humor, either: Men recounting the umpteenth Seinfeld episode or that one Step Brothers scene gets a little old after a while. 'Trying to relate to one another just didn't work out, and it felt awkward and wrong,' she said. 'I believe a relationship between an 18- and 25-year-old is problematic,' Layla said, noting that this applies regardless of gender. 'I actually wish women got called out for their predatory behavior, too,' she said. 'It almost seems like no one wants to hold women accountable.' Mona, a 21-year-old college student in Georgia, even finds her own parents' 11-year age gap a little 'predatory': Her dad was in his late 30s and a divorced father of one when he met her mom, who was in her late 20s and didn't have children. Mona would date someone three years older. She wouldn't consider going younger, though. 'I do think that an 18- and 25-year-old together is unacceptable,' she said. She is particularly weirded out when she hears people talk about how their partner basically raised them or taught them 'how to be a woman,' as Beyoncé said to Jay-Z in a 2006 birthday toast that went viral recently. Mona is also wary of anyone who almost exclusively dates young people ― the Leonardo DiCaprios of the world. Every time the 49-year-old actor gets a new girlfriend, a graph highlighting the fact that each of his ex-girlfriends has been 25 or under starts circulating again. 'Any respectable adult would have the common sense that pursuing a teenager is extremely weird, and I also believe it says a lot about the headspace of the older person,' the 21-year-old said. Mona also thinks the COVID-19 pandemic might've been a factor in Gen Zers' apprehension over age gaps. They might technically be 21, but given that weird few-year pause, they don't feel it. 'You hear about how we're mentally the same age that we were when the pandemic first started,' she said. 'That might play a role in why some people are not settling on older people pursuing them ― you feel you're still too young.' Not everyone agrees. Rei, a 22-year-old who is queer, said they don't find age-disparate relationships inherently problematic. They said there's a lot more than age that gives people power over each other, and if you consider five years an 'age-gap relationship,' then Rei is currently in one. 'Though my partner is older than me, I have a college degree and she doesn't,' they said. 'So arguably I have a better financial and career outlook that would make me the 'abusive one,' if you're using that language.' Age gaps may be more common in the queer community, Rei said. 'I don't know a gay guy who hasn't been with someone much older than him,' they said. 'It's just normal to us.' Problematic dynamics can exist no matter the age. 'People now don't know what grooming is and just use the term as synonymous with age gaps,' Rei said. To some extent, Rei sees the hubbub over age gaps as an overcorrection of the mores ushered in by the #MeToo movement. 'People overadjust and assume that any relationship out of the norm is abusive,' they said. 'In my experience, people who feel age gaps are problematic are also the same people who argue the internet is harmful and should be censored because they had a bad experience as a kid. Your experience isn't universal.' For Amelia, 24, actual age matters less than the stage of life you're in. She figures if you're a relatively accomplished 28-year-old dating an accomplished 40-year-old, what's the big deal? The word 'grooming' really only applies when an adult is introduced to a future partner when they're underage, Amelia said. She cited the relationship between Dane Cook and his wife as an 'egregious' example of a questionable age gap. (The now-52-year-old comedian met Kelsi Taylor at a game night he hosted when she was in her late teens.) 'Do I think it's possible for people like that to have a healthy and happy relationship? Sure,' Amelia said. 'But the older I get, my desire to talk to high schoolers grows slimmer and slimmer. I really can't put myself in the shoes of someone who would want to befriend a high schooler.' That said, Amelia thinks that some Gen Zers take their judgment too far. To her, the concern over age gaps seems like a weirdly 'paternalistic' brand of feminism, where women feel the need to protect women from men. 'It's similar to how Swifties treat Taylor Swift,' she said, referring to the now-34-year-old pop star. 'You have young women 'looking out for' a billionaire woman in her 30s. I'm a fan of Taylor Swift, but I don't think she needs protecting from Travis Kelce because Travis Kelce got in the face of his NFL coach during the Super Bowl.' The anti-age-gap sentiment held by many plays into the 'puriteen' narrative that's been inescapable lately. Online, there's a lot of hand-wringing over Gen Zers' seeming aversion to sex: Studies show that they're having less of it than earlier generations and that they don't want sex scenes in their movies. Though Amelia overall disagrees with age-gap critics ― she feels like their arguments rob women of their agency, she said ― she gets where those in her peer group are coming from. 'The majority of us had unsupervised internet access from a young age. We were in chatrooms, on Tumblr, and other various corners of the internet that we probably should not have been on at that age,' she said. 'It was easy for grown men on the internet to reach us if they wanted to.' If you've been oversexualized at a young age ― or seen others in your age bracket be oversexualized ― that experience is understandably going to shape how you perceive these kinds of things, Amelia said. But the reality is, there are likely just as many happy May-December unions as there are disappointing ones. 'Believe it or not, we often see more ― not less ― equity in these relationships,' Lehmiller noted. All of the Gen Zers we spoke to said that ultimately, two consenting adults can do whatever they want in their private lives, even if others find it off-putting. 'Men can like women that are younger and not be a creep,' Amelia said. 'He also can be a creep, but some random person with a Twitter cartoon avatar shouldn't necessarily be the judge of that!' This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Solve the daily Crossword
