It is a story about a lonely man, Old Eguchi, who continuously visits the House of the Sleeping Beauties in hope of something more.

The old men are expected to take sleeping pills and share the bed for a whole night with a girl without attempting anything of "bad taste" like "putting a finger inside their mouths".

The 2006 adaptation by Vadim Glowna, Das Haus der schlafenden Schönen [de] (House of the Sleeping Beauties), was not received well.

These sources included Kawabata, Gabriel García Márquez, Charles Perrault, and the Holy Bible.

The plot of Gabriel García Márquez's novella Memories of My Melancholy Whores is ostensibly inspired by the House of the Sleeping Beauties.