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 ...
In late April, the internet went a bit crazy with this story of a 39-year-old Japanese man who was arrested and charged with defrauding 35 Japanese women in Osaka.
The duped women all thought they were his girlfriend. The man, Takashi Miyagawa, had told them different dates for his birthday so he could get as many gifts of meals, money, and clothing as possible. The fraud, though, seems only to have added up to ¥100,000 (about $1,000).
The handsome Miyagawa apparently met his victims through his work as a salesman for water purifiers and shower heads.
What's most intriguing here -- and ...
The much-younger Japanese wife of a wealthy self-proclaimed "Don Juan," who died under mysterious circumstances in 2018, has finally been arrested.
Saki Sudo (須藤早貴) (25) was detained this week by police over the death of her husband, Kosuke Nozaki, who was famed for his wealth and how he had used it to bed thousands of women.
Nozaki was 77 when he died at his sumptuous property in Wakayama, while Sudo was 22. They had reportedly met by chance at Haneda Airport and quickly married.
It is alleged that she killed him with a meth overdose to get his fortune. She was apparently more ...
It's a crowded market for minor celebrities and idols, especially if you come from the competitive ranks of AKB48 or its sister groups.
While a few former members have gone on to have major careers -- mostly the original generations of idols -- hundreds of others have faded from view or pursued careers like porn that they perhaps did not expect (but for which we are grateful).
That said, we think this is the first time we've heard of a former idol from the AKB-related groups turning to crime to make ends meet.
Juna Yamada (山田樹奈) was arrested on March 16 in Nagoya for fraud, ...
Beauty and the eyes of the beholder. Come on, you know the score by now.
But even so, this has got to be one of the stranger tales of talking in Japan that we've heard about.
Earlier this month, a woman was arrested for walking into a restaurant in the city of Nara. She couldn't legally enter that restaurant because of the Stalker Control Act, which she was violating. Why? Because she had worked there for about a year until February 2020 and had in the process become infatuated with another woman who worked there.
OK, lesbian stalking? Got it. No, not only that. The arrested woman is 21 ...
There is a public park located a short walk from the main part of Nichome, Shinjuku's gay neighborhood. It underwent remodeling and reopened with fences and a gate. Unlike almost all other small parks in the city, it was now closed at night. The proximity of the gay district, whose denizens had presumably used the park to gather, drink, and possibly get intimate, was no coincidence.
Now we read about another case related to this.
The owner of a sento public bathhouse was understandably peeved that patrons were using his establishment to have sex. While Japanese porn might give you other ...
A quite extraordinary scandal appeared in the Japanese media in the last few days. The model and celebrity Loveli (real name, Izumi Shirahama) is facing prosecution over an allegation of sexual assault on another woman in May 2019.
The Shukan Bunshun has published a sensational interview with the victim, named only as Ms. A.
According to the story, the Filipino-Japanese Loveli allegedly assaulted Ms. A while they were staying in Shirahama in Wakayama. After drinking, her accuser says, Loveli threw herself on the woman in the early hours of the morning, taking off her panties and going down ...
The exact nature of the age of consent in Japan is something that crops up conversations about the country, and people often seem unsure of the facts.
As the Asahi clarifies, "anyone having sex with a minor under 13 can be arrested for statutory rape under the Criminal Law, but charging someone with sex crimes for having intercourse with a person over the age of 13 requires proof of violent action or threats."
Japan's law on consent is over a century old, though a revision in 2017, in an effort to protect vulnerable minors, made it a crime for guardians to have sex with a child under 18 ...
We've all seen those pop-ups that sometimes appear on particularly dodgy sites, demanding that you pay a ridiculous amount of money.
Most of the time, you can click away and rest easy that it's a bluff.
But sometimes people do pay.
Spare a thought for this Japanese man in his fifties, living in the frigid northernly city of Sapporo. He kept himself warm by watching some porn online.
But then he got a text to his phone in October from someone claiming to be NTT Finance, which is a genuine company (a subsidiary of the telecommunications giant). He duly rang the number in the message, only ...
The technical intern training program in Japan has rightfully attracted international condemnation for legalizing what often amounts to near-slavery conditions for foreign workers, especially Vietnamese. Employers -- including small manufacturers -- are allowed to pay these workers extremely low wages and it is all sanctioned by the government.
The workers are trapped, unable to change jobs and frequently in debt to middle-men for the fees to get their places on the scheme and come to Japan.
Over the years, many sad stories of abuse and even suicide have emerged from the "internships" ...
