One of the most-profile experiments in genderless toilets in Japan has ended quickly rather ignominiously.
When Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, the latest example of the gentrification of Shinjuku's red-light district, opened in the spring, its decision to have genderless restrooms on the second floor immediately attracted attention -- largely in terms of concerns over female safety. The toilets are all in stalls but the hand-washing station was shared by all users.
Soon social media was flooded with footage of men loitering around the entrance and wash basins for seemingly no reason than perhaps to ...
Last month, we wrote about the controversy that threatened to wreck one of the conventions of the Japanese summer: swimwear gravure photo events where fans go to see and take pictures of models and idols.
These are often held in public lidos (outdoor pools), and are popular events that attract large numbers of fans.
After local Japanese Communist Party politicians complained about the commercial use of prefectural parks and the "lewd" nature of the poses, though, authorities stepped in to ask organizers to call off some events in June.
This was then criticized as censorship and ...
Sex sells, a truth of which this blog is an undeniable beneficiary.
But when it suggestive and risqué too much? This thorny issue has been reopened by, of all things, an ice cream ad.
Manufacturer Morinaga surely didn't expect to find themselves in the middle of a social media storm when it conceived a series of illustrations to promote its Ice Box product this summer.
It released these online and offered a small number of postcards to Twitter followers.
But the tenth illustration the company announced on July 6 quickly raised eyebrows and drew criticism for its sexual nature.
Created ...
Over four years ago, the media in Japan and globally went bananas about a Japanese man who "married" a virtual character.
These stories are catnip to editors who love "sexless Japan" and "wacky Japan" content. The tale of Akihiko Kondo and his love for popular Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku was too much to resist, and the world lapped it up.
For little discernible reason, Kondo (who is now 40) is back in the news.
The Mainichi Shimbun sat down for a fresh interview with him and find out how his "marriage" is going. (The newspaper also published a follow-up story in January 2022.) Apparently, ...
Japan's obscenity laws about not showing genitalia apply to you, even if you are supposedly an amateur and not a professional porn production company churning out DVDs and streaming releases.
On June 30, Japanese media showed police giving 21-year-old Yukino Kimura the perp walk.
Her crime? She had sold unedited videos on Twitter to people who sent her a message on the platform. Her account was apparently reinya3_, which is still active at the time of writing but has not been updated since early June.
The cutie worked by day as a company employee in Kyoto but had a Twitter account ...
Everything changes, except the avant-garde, or so the saying goes. Now in Japan, perhaps it's rather nothing changes, except for sexual mores.
For years, Japan seemed to lag behind other major nations in the Global North in terms of access to emergency birth control or even use of contraception.
Basically, people just don't use condoms, inspired by the Fuji-sized mountains of porn they consume in which condoms are never seen (but generally are used), leading to lots of shotgun weddings (it seems like most celebrities seem to marry this way) and a STDs/STIs crisis, especially syphilis -- in ...
We recently wrote about the Ryoko Hirosue adultery scandal, which has effectively meant her immediate disappearance from public life (no more TV ads, no more fashion magazine covers, no more acting roles).
When the scandal broke about her affair with a chef, many noted the irony that she had received a "best mother" award in 2022.
The annual awards are given to female celebrities each year to celebrate them as a maternal role model.
The awards are announced each May near Mother's Day, awarded to several celebrities in categories such as acting, business, singing, and sports. The winners ...
It has long been common to see claims that Japan's age of consent was just 13, which would lead to lazy generalizations that this was why there was so much loli porn.
Of course, in practice, this was never true: local ordinances against lewd actors with minors meant the actual age of consent was typically 18 and on par with (if not higher than) most other countries in the Global North.
It was true, though, that the national age of consent was 13, unchanged since 1907. (For context, age of consent is 14 in Germany, Italy, and China, and 15 in France.)
This has now changed after lawmakers ...
It sparked both hype and controversy, and then just as quickly vanished.
When publisher Shueisha released a digital photo book featuring a fully AI-generated gravure model on May 29, it felt like the tipping point of something.
But then netizens were quick to point out that the "model" Ai Satsuki was uncannily similar to a real-life gravure idol, Hikari Kabashima (previously known as Yui Asakura), suggesting the AI was simply recycling images of Kabashima/Asakura from the Weekly Playboy shoot she did (Shueisha publishes the magazine).
Shueisha responded to the controversy by withdrawing ...
This story has been percolating since early June and has now become a very interesting incident generating national headlines, and with potential implications for future gravure events.
Swimwear photo shoot events in public pools in Saitama have ignited an intense debate. During the events, idols and models gather at the pool for fans to take photographs of them in their swimsuits. Admission to such events is expensive, costing from ¥10,000 to ¥36,000.
Various locals voiced concern to the public parks association in late May about the sexy nature of the gravure-style poses. Local ...
