decade after the appearance of yamesaseya, professional "splitters" who specialized in ending relationships at the behest of an unhappy, but timid, partner, Japan is in the midst of a boom in services that promise the opposite: Reuniting couples months, and sometimes years, after they have gone their separate ways.
Ladies Secret Service, a private detective agency in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district, has successfully rekindled romances on behalf of hundreds of men and women who are prepared to spend huge sums on their quest to win back former lovers.
The agency's president, Yoshiko Okawa, employs about 300 men and women who are selected for their ability to befriend their targets and convince them that breaking up with a former lover or divorcing their spouse was the biggest mistake of their lives.
Her team of fukuenya -- "those who restore bonds" -- use high-tech surveillance, counseling and outright deception to achieve the most unlikely of reconciliations.
"After they have won the target's trust, they might mention our client in passing and feign amazement when they realize they have a mutual acquaintance," Okawa said, as she sat in her office surrounded by an array of high-tech surveillance gadgets.
"All the while our agents are learning as much about their new friend as possible and devising a plan to reunite him or her with our client," she said.
The trigger for reconciliation could be a chance meeting in the street or a location that evokes happy memories of their time together, Okawa said.
In 2005, Ladies Secret Service received 110 requests for help, rising to 430 by the end of 2006. Last year it handled more than 800 cases.
About 70 percent of its clients are women, aged between 20 and 40, who are prepared to spend up to ?700,000 (US$6,600) a month to win back their men.
"We relay any complaints the target has to our client, so they can decide whether to make the necessary changes to repair their relationship," Okawa said. "It could be a divorcee who wants to get back with her ex-husband, but who needs to change her appearance or keep the house tidier before there is any chance of that happening."
When the obstacle to a possible reconciliation is a third person, the agents face the task of engineering the end of one relationship before they can repair the other.
"We do an incredible amount of research into the new man or woman in our target's life and then drop hints that he or she is unsuitable," said Okawa, a 40-year-old former office worker whose divorce -- and infatuation with James Bond films -- prompted her career change.
"Before long the target knows all about his new lover's debt problems, her sordid past, or the fact that she has a young child she failed to mention," she said.
The tactic is reminiscent of the yamesaseya, whose expertise in breaking up relationships was in greatest demand a few years ago.
Typically, fukuenya agents are presentable and sociable, but insiders say the most successful have a quick mind as well as good looks.
"They've got to be able to think on their feet and stand out in some way," said Satoyo Nakamura, who reunites couples for another company, the Japan Research Information Center.
"Looks alone aren't usually enough to bring in the results you get paid to produce," Nakamura told a weekly magazine. "It's a job that requires being able to assume the role of a counsellor who can bring about radical changes in thinking, not just in the target, but also in the client. It's an extremely difficult job.
Fukuenya carry out their operations in utmost secrecy. Even when attempts at reconciliation are successful, the targets must never learn how they came about, said Okawa, who routinely refuses media requests to interview clients or agents.
In one typical case an agent tried to convince a bar hostess to go back to her former husband.
Over five months he frequented the woman's club pretending to be a wealthy businessman, accompanied by a friend posing as a fortune teller.
He spoke about how his friend's psychic insights had helped him become rich, and before long the hostess agreed to have her fortune read.
The soothsayer's advice was, of course, to return to her former husband. They reunited and eventually remarried.
Okawa puts her success rate at about 50 percent believes that as long as Japan can stave off recession, more lovelorn people will seek her help.
"When the economy was in real trouble, people were defeatist and tended to give up on relationships too easily, even if money wasn't the actual cause of the break-up," she said. "Now that they have more money in their pockets they are naturally more optimistic, even about winning back old flames."
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