SOD Land porn theme park bar closes after arrest of Soft on Demand president

You would think that a company as large and successful as Soft on Demand would have an army of lawyers and legal advisors on retainer, and that they would consult them carefully when launching a major and costly new project. Or perhaps they did and their team simply wasn’t doing their job right.

Either way, our proverbial jaw hit the floor when we read this news.

On March 16, it was announced by Tokyo Metropolitan Police that the 40-year-old CEO of SOD — the biggest porn producer in Japan — has been arrested for violation of the fuzoku law. You might presume this is related to prostitution, but it’s actually more mundane.

In 2020, we reported on the opening of SOD Land, a kind of porn theme park bar complex in Kabukicho that pluckily opened in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Customers can meet and interact with actual porn performers, including some of the top names in the industry, across five floors in the heart of Shinjuku. Facilities include a basement standing bar with “female employees,” a “semi-standing” bar with sex workers and hostesses, the SyainBar on the third floor for talking with famous adult video stars, and the Silent Bar on the fourth floor for watching swimwear-clad performers through a see-through screen.

Because of the nature of the establishment and its operating hours beyond midnight (though it was officially open only until 11 pm), SOD Land qualifies as a kind of hostess club and so requires a special permit under the fuzoku law (which, despite the name, covers all kinds of businesses like bars and clubs, not just brothels).

SOD is not new to this kind of venture. In 2018, it opened the Tachi Syain standing bar with “female employees” in Akihabara and then SyainBar on the ground floor of its own HQ in Nakano, west Tokyo, until 2022. These were projects to offer fan service and also provide second careers for AV stars.

What’s new this time, and which had led to the trouble with police, is that SOD Land offers what is legally classified as “entertainment/hospitality for customers,” not just serving food and drink.

When SOD Land opened, there was a lot of publicity about hygiene and ventilation and the immense efforts organizers were taking to keep people safe during the pandemic, but it seems they did not take this legal dimension of the venture into consideration.

The police apparently told SOD in December last year that they needed to comply with the law, so this really does seem like a massive oversight on the part of such a major corporation. (To be fair, given the massive logistical repercussions of the controversial new porn law that was introduced last year, perhaps the company was simply too preoccupied with adjusting its production schedules and contracts.)

Along with the company president, the 27-year-old SOD Land manager was also arrested. (Incidentally, we are pleased that relatively young people are in such senior positions in a major company, which perhaps shows how the adult industry offers opportunities that more conventional industries don’t. On the other hand, SOD’s current woes are not the best advertisement for young management.)

Yesterday, following the arrests, SOD Land announced it was temporarily closing, along with the Tachi Syain standing bar in Akihabara.

The potential loss of income for SOD due to these closures, even if temporary, is considerable. Police estimate that SOD Land made ¥600 million in sales over 2.5 years.