Back in 2015 we reported about M.S.M. -- Men Who Have Sex With Men, an upcoming documentary by Ian Thomas Ash and Adrian Storey/Uchujin.
Despite the announcement, nothing seemed to happen with it and the official website went dead. We assumed the project had somehow fizzled out.
So we were very pleased to see that it is still alive, though in a slightly different form.
Ian Thomas Ash and Adrian Storey/Uchujin are still involved, but as producers and DOP. The title has changed, too, and presumably the content. It's now called Boys for Sale.
Boys are selling sex in Japan. Who ...
It's a crowded music industry, so what can you do to stand out from the rest?
Well, the answer in Japan would seem to be: use female pubic hair to produce new sounds. No, this not appear to be a spoof and it's far too late for April Fools' Day.
Taku Takahashi is a musician and DJ with the unit hip hop m-flo, which has experimented with finding new sounds. Takahashi's latest electronic triumph is In Motion.
Here's how he describes it:
An unprecedented musical project, Public Hair Grooving broadcasts a new wave of groove into the world with groomed pubic hair. Taku Takahashi from ...
Ayumi Hamasaki is the gift that keeps on giving. From her bizarre marriages and divorces to foreigners, to her ex-boyfriend's porn debut, and her ever-more desperate attempts to revive her career, there's always something new to say about her.
But she hasn't been on our radar for a while. Where has she been? Courting more foreign men? Getting more plastic surgery?
Eating well, it seems, judging by these pictures.
This is Ayu at an arena concert in Yokohama, wearing a costume that showed off her newly voluptuous figure.
Many have remarked online about how ...
We wonder how many articles we are going to see like this as we get closer towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The Washington Post is the latest media outlet to step into the controversy over osanpo (walking dates) and JK business (high school girl dating) with an article somewhat provocatively headlined "For vulnerable high school girls in Japan, a culture of 'dates' with older men".
It sets the tone early on: "Here, 'high school dating' matches girls in uniforms with men in their 40s and 50s and beyond. And it means money changing hands."
It goes on to explain that the dates may be a ...
Overseas there has recently been a lot of talk about making things like public toilets "genderless" so as not to show bias towards people who do not identity by binary genders.
Japan has not embraced this kind of debate in the same way, not least because the LGBT community is largely reduced to being a subculture without real legal rights. On the other hand, fluid gender identity has been part of Japanese culture for a long time in Kabuki and so on. In many ways people just don't need all the labels and legal discussions that have obsessed other countries for the past generation.
Things ...
Here's a nice tip from a very cute girl, which could well come in handy when you are with your next prize.
G-cup idol Erina Kamiya from the group Kamen Joshi (Masked Girls) has unveiled a stunning technique: how to strip off a t-shirt in a flash. This is quite impressive, given that her massive chest could be reasonably expected to provide quite on obstruction to slipping off clothes.
She shows off two different ways to take off a t-shirt in a second, notably faster than the conventional method.
This is certainly appreciated, given that we all want more time to view Kamiya's ...
The visitor to Japan quickly notes the large number of vending machines everywhere.
They are typically just for drinks but there are more unusual ones around. And this now includes gachapon capsule-style vending machines that offer sealed love letters from schoolgirls.
Shocked? You shouldn't be. After all, in Japan you can get refrigerated used panties from vending machines as well as Tenga and even prostitutes.
We can't speak for the veracity of the love letters, which cost ¥200 a pop, but they are written by hand and ostensibly from a young girl called Kiki.
One ...
As we know, the popular meet-and-greet events that idols organize is one of the main reasons they attract such strong fan bases: you can actually meet and shake your idol's hand!
But they can go wrong, badly wrong. Fans say horrible things. They are, quite literally, dirty. And they may even attack the idols, as AKB48 found out in 2014 when two idols were attacked with a saw. As such, these days there is often increased security at the events.
CY8ER seems to be taking a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards this physical aspect of the idol industry. At a two-hour meet-and-greet event held at ...
In desperate need for a place to stay in Japan? All the hotels are full and you don't fancy your chances with an Airbnb? Another option is a love hotel, which is often not much more expensive than a regular hotel and sometimes even cheaper.
However, many hotels cannot always be booked in advance and even ones that can are typically lacking in any services for non-Japanese-speaking guests.
Enter Rakuten, the Japanese online retail giant that counts a travel site within its bevy. Due to the ongoing tourism boom in Japan, there is a shortage of hotel rooms and Rakuten Travel hopes to make ...
A survey by Japan Pres Research Institute asked 1,000 people across various countries for their views on Japan. Part of this included naming living or dead Japanese people that they knew. The results were, to say the least, intriguing...
By default the survey became a resource for seeing which Japanese people are famous abroad. In France, America, South Korea and other places, the results were familiar: the prime minister, emperor, popular sports figures, an anime character, and so on.
But in Thailand, things were rather different:
1. Shinzo Abe (178)
2. Doraemon (111)
3. The ...
