Though there is a tiny inkling of a chance that this might change if FC2 founder Riyo Takahashi wins a seat in the Japanese Upper House this month, it remains illegal in Japan to sell or distribute uncensored porn.
The "mosaic" look has become an iconic part of Japanese adult video: those grainy pixels where the penis and vagina should be.
Personally, we don't mind it. But some are put off by the constant blur and there is clearly a market for uncensored Japanese porn. Just don't try selling it if you are in Japan.
Masayuki Nakamoto was arrested last October for selling uncensored adult ...
Elections bring out the eccentrics, with plenty of novelty candidates reliably popping up to keep us amused. Past examples include the wannabe politician who wore government-supplied face masks as a bra or the regular appearances of Teruki Goto -- including once nude on his campaign poster.
With the recent passing of the controversial new law regulating the porn industry, how are candidates responding to the current situation?
We found two intriguing examples among candidates for the upcoming Upper House election.
Riyo Takahashi, the 48-year-old founder of the Japanese video hosting site ...
People have arrested the CEO of famous Japanese secondhand book store chain Mandarake as well as four employees in connection with the sale of obscene material.
Best known for manga but also offering collectibles, doujinshi, and anime toys, Mandarake was selling so-called "vinyl books," a term referring to pornographic photo books from the 1970s and 1980s that showed genitalia. (The "vinyl" part means the plastic that was used to cover the books.)
As regular readers will know, Japan's strange obscenity laws mean it is nominally illegal to show actual genitalia, hence adult video is ...
We have by now learned to accept the innate contradiction that exists at the heart of Japanese porn: that the country has one of the largest, most varied industries in the world, and yet it also adheres to an interpretation of a century-plus-old obscenity law that says you cannot show genitalia. Hence JAV always has "mosaic" -- pixellation of the penis and vagina.
We have gotten used to this and no longer find it distracting, nor do we think it actually obscures the really important stuff (i.e., the beautiful face and body of the porn star).
Others, though, disagree and there exist ...
Horny otaku in Akihabara will have to go somewhere else for their kicks -- because they can no longer stand on the street and admire buxom anime ladies.
Perhaps in another sign that Tokyo is becoming less tolerant, not least as the behemoth of 2020 looms large, a billboard in the gaming and anime subculture district has been removed following complaints that it was too sexy.
Installed on November 1st, the billboard was an ad for the video game Motto! Haramase! Honoo no Oppai Chou Ero *Heart Mark* App Gakuen! (もっと！孕ませ！炎のおっぱい超エロ♡アプリ学園！) -- ...
The famed Tobita Shinchi red light district in Osaka will close down during the upcoming Group of 20 summit in late June, according to media reports
Tobita Shinchi is a rare example of an old-style red light district (yukaku) in Japan, similar to how Yoshiwara used to be in Tokyo, featuring rows of licensed establishments in which young ladies sit in open doorways waiting for patrons.
This time it's not the authorities actually doing the closing; it's kind of a case of self-censorship. Apparently the Tobita Shinchi association itself has agreed to "restrain" its activities during the ...
We stumbled upon this great Twitter feed detailing a report by Shinbunka, the publishing industry trade journal in Japan, about the decline of the much-loved porn magazine vending machine. It also cites from an interview with the photographer Tetsuya Kurosawa, who has documented the vending machines (visiting some 500 locations along the way!).
It's true, we haven't seen one for many a moon. Here's why.
At the peak of the adult vending machine boom, there were some 50,000 machines nationwide in the 1970s. That lofty number has been reduced to a mere fraction now.
What are left are often ...
And so the pre-Olympic crackdown continues.
After earlier initiatives outside Tokyo, we reported in November 2017 on the decision by the convenience store chain Ministop to stop selling pornographic magazines.
Well, the sentiment is spreading and one of the largest chains in the country, Lawson, announced on January 21st that its 14,574 branches nationwide would in principle cease sales of adult magazines by the end of August.
Until now, it was up to affiliates in the franchise whether or not they sold porn magazines, which typically are available in most conbinis among the rack of ...
Just when you think the bureaucrats couldn't get any sillier, along come some to prove you wrong.
Activists and ero-manga (adult manga) fans in Japan have been shocked by the recent designation by Hokkaido and Shiga prefectures of two reference books as "harmful" to youngsters.
Zenkoku-ban Anohino Erohon Jihanki Tanbouki (Nationwide Study of Pornography Vending Machine of Yesterdays) and Ero Manga Hyogenshi (The Expression History of Ero-manga) by Yusuke Kato are about adult manga but are not adult manga themselves. But this distinction means nothing to Shiga and Hokkaido: the former ...
If you like Japanese schoolgirl porn -- that is Japanese adult video with a schoolgirl theme, though performers will be above legal age -- then you may well know that Japanese porn titles often use euphemisms to describe this subgenre.
The Japanese word "joshi kosei" means "high school girl" but by writing the third with a different kanji (女子校生, rather than 女子高生), it was possible to hide the "high" part and just make it look like female students without a specific age -- even more useful if you also wanted to hint that the students are younger than high school age.
The ...
