The founder of Japanese video hosting site FC2, Riyo Takahashi, once ran unsuccessfully for election in Japan's upper house.
His campaign platform was to "crush mosaic censorship," referring to the pixellation that covers genitalia in Japanese porn to protect producers and retailers from prosecution under Japan's obscenity law, which is usually interpreted as drawing the line at showing a penis or vagina. (This same logic is applied to nudity in mainstream movies too.)
Now Takahashi has been arrested by police in Japan when he returned to the country. The 51-year-old was arrested on ...
The photographer Beniko has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a follow-up photo book to her 2023 publication about Japan's disappearing old red-light districts (yukaku, akasen).
Beniko is herself a former sex worker at a soapland in Yoshiwara, the famous red-light district in east Tokyo that was a booming licensed pleasure quarter during the Edo period. A single mother in her early fifties, she taught herself to use a camera from the age of 48.
She has given guided tours of Yoshiwara and taken portraits of porn stars, strippers, and Yoshiwara soaplands.
Her photography project has ...
In a recent interview with Spa!, Japanese porn star Marina Shiraishi (白石茉莉奈) discussed some of the background to her highly successful career.
Shiraishi made her debut back in 2013 and is now 38 years old, making her a jukujo mature performer.
But many people are not perhaps aware that she is married and has a child, both from before her entry in the industry.
It's more common for JAV performers to marry after they retire and those who do marry during their careers can end in divorce. "I thought I was an unusual case," she admits.
Her son is now 15 years old -- and we truly ...
We already wrote about this story back in September but now the mainstream foreign media is starting to pick up the survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education, which examines the rate of sex and other forms of intimacy among junior and senior high school students.
Perhaps prompted by the publication of the full version of the survey and new reports about it in the Japanese media, liberal bastion the Guardian recently ran an article bemoaning the falling numbers of male Japanese school students who had never kissed.
As noted in September, the survey results indicate that only one ...
Koki (sometimes weirdly stylized with a comma as Koki,) is a 21-year-old Japanese model who is making her first forays into acting.
Her actual name is Mitsuki Kimura. She is the daughter of famous Japanese singers Takuya Kimura and Shizuka Kudo.
As with a lot of celebrity's children, she attended international school and can speak fluent English.
She has a role in the 2024 international film Touch filmed partly in Britain about an Icelandic man and his past relationship with a Japanese woman.
Koki plays the woman in 1960s flashbacks, which includes a brief sex scene.
As an early ...
Most of us can only dream of dating a Japanese model. Usually, only actors, singers, sports players, or other male celebrities get to live out that fantasy. Recent examples include the boyfriends of hotties Risa Yukihira and Miyu Murashima.
So if you were lucky enough to be dating a Japanese fashion model or gravure idol, you'd be crazy to throw it away, right? Well, it happens. Perhaps after a while, you taken it for granted.
Gravure idol Sena Natsuki recently revealed on a late-night TV show that she was single again, having broken up with her boyfriend of five years.
She met him ...
Here's a case that ticks all the boxes about the current moral panic.
A concafe ("concept cafe") staffed by men in Kabukicho, Tokyo, is accused of exploiting vulnerable female customers.
Concafes can be innocuous themed cafes but are often staffed only by men, making them essentially a kind of host club (similar to how girls' bars are like a cheap hostess club). The customers come for the fantasy created by theme (butlers, doctors, private boys' boarding school students, etc.) and the men who work there.
At this one, 32-year-old Takuma Ono is alleged to have tried to force a 20-year-old ...
This is quite a way to kick off a career.
Sena Himekawa (姫川せな) is a gravure newbie, having released a couple of image videos this year, but this hasn't stopped her from already making the leap right into the next stage of her career with a nude shoot included in the latest issue of Flash.
The shoot is nothing inventive or spectacular, mostly just Himekawa standing or lounging around to show off her naked body in a bedroom or bath. There's no bush, but mainly because she's obviously paipan (fully shaved) down there.
Himekawa has also released a new nude video (imaginatively ...
Former Morning Musume idol Maki Goto's 2021 comeback seemed to go well. After a career break caused by marriage, kids, and a rumored affair, Goto returned with a nude photo book that showed off her slender body with plenty of buttocks and side boob on show.
Sales clearly made the efforts worthwhile for Goto and her publisher, because the mother of two is back.
Her latest photo book is called flos and is out on November 29. It's celebrating her 25th anniversary in the entertainment industry.
Thousands, if not millions, of guys who grew up with a crush on Goto in the 2000s are eager to see ...
On any other day, the only thing notable and newsworthy about Haruna Kojima's meet-and-greet event in Shibuya last night to promote her new photo book would have been the appearance of fellow AKB48 alum Minami Takahashi, who turned up to get a copy of the book and say hello to Kojiharu (and perhaps get away from her smelly husband).
The former music idol and model, who still looks stunning at age 36 and is now a successful fashion entrepreneur, met with fans eager to get their hands on her newly released latest photo book -- her first in nine years.
One fan, though, was eager to get his ...
