The media narratives about Japan typically conform to a handful of familiar tropes: Japan is a sexless, childless hellscape, or Japan is a kinky, weird land of bountiful sexual fetishes.
Of course, neither is true. Japan is just Japan, with all shades and colors.
But it is a fact that the population is declining and people are having fewer children. The number of babies born in Japan dropped below 800,000 last year, the first time this has happened since records began in 1899.
The reasons for this are manifold -- and we think they are primarily economic -- don't rush to assume it's because ...
Easter doesn't have much name recognition in Japan -- certainly compared to other Western holidays like Christmas and Halloween -- but that hasn't stopped our friends at Kanojo Toys from holding a generous sale over the period.
You can get 20% off any adult toy in-store during the sale. Use the promo code EGG at the online checkout.
The campaign started earlier this week and runs through April 11, which should give you plenty of time to find something you like in between munching on those Easter eggs or chasing after Easter bunnies.
Talking of bunnies, we are particularly smitten with ...
One of the most popular members of NMB48, Yuzuha Hongo made the surprise announcement on April 4 that she would be graduating the Osaka group.
Alongside her singing, Hongo pursues a burgeoning career in gravure (as reported before), having released her first photo book from Kodansha in 2022.
A second photo book is set for release at the end of May, shortly before she will graduate from NMB48.
Known as Yuzu to her fans, the idol is still just 20 years old and seems very young to graduate (though she joined way back in 2015, so has devoted eight years of her life to the Namba-based group). ...
Japanese television is a strange place: a world of shoddily acted dramas and asinine variety shows, where the aim seems to be seeing how many minor celebrities can be squeezed into a single broadcast, and where everything seems to come down to food and guests extolling how delicious a dish is.
And then there are the shows about breasts.
Tamori Club, the late-night TV Asahi show whose decades-long run recently ended, aired an episode in March in which the male guests ogled a woman naked from the waist up except for two carefully positioned leaves over her breasts. Of course, they tried to ...
Ayame Misaki is one of those Japanese models and actresses who seem to have been a part of our life forever. We were a little surprised to learn that she is still only 33, but if you make your debut at the young age of 16, you can have a long career before your thirties.
The Kobe native carved out a gravure career in the late 2000s as a "Heisei-born F-cup" beauty.
We first wrote about her on these digital pages back in 2012, when she was our "idol of the week."
In 2013, she did a nude sex scene in the film Judas that showed off her beautiful breasts.
Her acting career was mostly roles in ...
One of the most sensational stories that has gripped the Japanese media over the past few weeks has involved the arrests and deportations in the Philippines of several young Japanese citizens, who were allegedly part of the "Luffy group" responsible robbery and fraud since 2021 (including from behind bars). The name of the gang is a reference to the manga and anime franchise One Piece.
One of the most recently detained citizens was 25-year-old Hitomi Kumai. Japanese police issued a warrant for her arrest last September on fraud charges. She is accused of making phone calls tricking people ...
One of the lesser-known effects of the coronavirus pandemic (or at least, the recent economic situation caused by multiple factors) is that it has led to an influx of Japanese sex workers in Kabukicho going abroad to earn better money.
According to recent articles in the magazine Friday (March 31 and April 7 issues), the United States used to be a popular destination among Japanese prostitutes, but increased checks at immigration control -- including apparently checking smartphone pics to see if they contain lingerie-clad selfies -- have prompted sex workers to seek out alternative ...
We've written before about the problem of scams in the Japanese "dating site" industry, where customers think they are interacting with real women who want to meet them but are actually exchanging messages with someone (perhaps even a man) who is trying to ensure they keep paying the membership fees for as long as possible.
In a recent article on Japan Today, someone apparently interviewed two such scammers.
The first is actually just someone who worked as a cheap hostess bar. We don't think this qualifies, since though it is possible for a customer to take a hostess out on a date, it's not ...
The non-fungible tokens boom seems to have petered out internationally. Prices of NFTs skyrocketed but then plummeted over the course of 2022, and many believe the market is over (not coincidentally, the crypto markets has also experienced a crunch in 2022). The art and photography industries may soon move onto the next fad, if they haven't already.
In Japan, NFTs are still something of a thing, though, even if the haven't reached the heights of fame and fortune that they (briefly) attained in other countries.
In 2021, shibari artist Hajime Kinoko created an NFT rope bondage art ...
We've written before about the wonder that is Japanese gravure idol Sayaka Nitori, who has proven adept at building her own fandom on social media (1.1 million followers on Instagram!) and releasing products independently.
She isn't attached to a talent management agency and so has to go the extra mile to promote her releases and run her own online fan club.
Last year, she released her debut photo book with a major publisher -- and it was semi-nude, giving us stunning glimpses of her naked G-cup breasts.
The book was a bestseller (it recently entered its fifth printing) and now the ...
