The fertility/harvest festival held annually at Tagata Shrine in Komaki, Aichi, isn't as famous as the Kanamara festival, held near Tokyo, but is another example of an ancient Shinto event in which phallic objects abound.
Like with Kanamara, the Tagata Shrine honen festival makes for some very photogenic moments where a giant phallus newly carved from cypress is paraded around on March 15. This is led by the Shinto shrine's priests in all their finery. Women in robes also walk around holding smaller phallus objects.
Festivals are also about making money for the shrine, and Tagata Shrine, ...
A 54-year-old Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering an ex-music idol.
Police in Fuchu arrested Akira Ishikawa on February 3 for killing a 24-year-old former idol called Sana Hirabayashi at a hotel in the city in the west of Tokyo by stabbing her neck.
Security camera footage captured the two entering the hotel at 2 a.m. on the morning of February 2. Ishikawa then left alone about four hours later. The hotel became concerned when Hirabayashi had still not emerged from the room by 1:30 a.m. on February 3 and couldn't be contacted. They called police, who found her in the ...
There are peeping Toms and then there are peeping Toms. And these guys didn't do things by half measures.
Shizuoka police have arrested a gang of peeping Toms who have been active for 30 years -- yes, three whole decades! The 13 voyeurs, including the 50-year-old leader, were apprehended in recent months, while a further three others connecting to the filming (including a doctor) have now been referred to the prosecutors.
Active since he was 20, the leader alone claims to have filmed over 10,000 people without consent at locations all around Japan (with the exception, for some reason, of ...
The actor Issei Ishida has claimed to dated a total of a thousand woman. He made the extraordinary, surely grossly exaggerated statement on a NTV show on January 29. Of that massive number, our middle-aged Japanese Casanova said that 60 were "celebrities."
Pressed further as to which of those are women that anyone on the street would have heard of, he claimed seven.
His Instagram is full of pictures with women.
In December 2021, Ishida announced he had got divorced for the third time (from a woman over 20 years his junior).
In November last year, he claimed that he then had six ...
We've trawled the Japanese interwebs for some of the best leaked pics of amateurs having sex in the doggy position.
Doing it bakku, as doggy style is called here, is a popular past-time, as these photos attest.
Doing it on a bed or the floor. Doing it up against a table. Doing it while she's still wearing panties. Doing it on a couch.
OK, these are obvious enough. But how about doing it doggy while eating noodles? You've gotta admire the skill and balance involved in that choice, which is perhaps further proof (if any were needed) that this is a nation of people truly ...
The Korean movie 10-Day Lover (2023) has attracted a fair amount of attention online because it features a nude sex scene with Song Min-kyung, a former member of 2000s K-pop group SeeYa (though not part of the original lineup, from what we can tell).
Song, who plays the main role in the film, is shown lying down as a man removes her bra and panties, and sets about kissing her body. They then have sex, which includes nice shots of her riding him, and sitting in his lap and bouncing hard. There's a fair bit of kissing and heavy breathing.
Song Min-kyung is now 36 years old and has ...
Japanese capsule toys are a cornucopia of choice and variety. There seems to be no end to the objects that pop out from the thousands of vending machines found at stores, train stations, and tourist destinations.
What's still often surprising, though, are the eyebrow-raising subject matters of certain toys.
Last year, for instance, we reported on the miniature vibrator capsule toys.
Slightly less risqué but just as awesome are these love hotel-inspired capsule toys. For a mere ¥300, you can get your own love hotel room key.
We have yet to spot these in the wild -- might we find the ...
In mid-January, Japan is gripped by a short, sharp season: it's the time of the college entrance exam.
Up and down the country, high school students sat down last weekend for the exam that will determine which university they will go to from the spring.
But there's another factor involved in the exam: chikan. This, as regular readers will know, is the Japanese word for groping or molesting, especially if done on public transport like trains.
What's the connection between the exam season and train groping? Apparently, in the darker corners of social media and the internet where chikan folk ...
The head of the city assembly of Maizuru, a city in the north of Kyoto Prefecture, was fined for possession of child pornography. The fine was issued in 2019 but has only just come to light.
On January 6, Keiichi Tai announced his intention to resign as council speaker and assemblymember at a press conference held at Maizuru City Hall.
The 53-year-old, a member of Liberal Democratic Party and speaker for the municipal assembly in Maizuru, was fined ¥300,000 for violating the child pornography law. He had possessed four DVDs with content designated as child porn.
They were found at his ...
Following our recent interview with kinbaku rope master Steve Osada, we were interested to read this interview with a very different kind of rope artist, Hajime Kinoko, in Tokyo Weekender last month.
Kinoko notes that he prefers shibari to kinbaku to describe his style of rope bondage, regarding the latter as about emotional exchange with a model during a session, and the former as more general.
Kinoko is known for his high-profile collaborations and more artistic style, which may involve tying a model to an object like a motorcycle.
"I am actually closer to an artisan, like a chef," ...
