A new exhibition in Tokyo focuses on the controversial issue of underage enjo kosai, or compensated dating.
The "We Were Bought" exhibition runs from August 11th to August 21st, featuring the photography, text and diaries of junior high or high school students (JK, joshi kousei) who have engaged in enjo kosai, a euphemism for prostitution
The exhibition is organized by 24 students and Colabo, a support group for female high school students. The students and other girls are aged between 14 and 26, and live all over Japan from Hokkaido to Kyushu.
There are around 100 exhibits on ...
A panel of experts advising the National Police Agency in Japan has issued a report on so-called "JK business", which is the name given to the various euphemistic services offering sex with schoolgirls.
Similar to the more general enjo kosai (compensated dated), there has been a lot of media and police attention on the growing JK business industry in recent years. Some of the services include osanpo (walking dates), where you pay to have a walk with a schoolgirl. It may end at a love hotel.
Other services include sleeping side by side in a "soine" cuddle cafes or getting a massage. ...
What are the dark secrets of the entertainment industry in Japan? Here is our subjective list.
1: Sex
Despite the control exerted by talent agencies over idols' private lives (who they can and cannot date, or in the case of some groups, not letting them date or have sex at all), the truth is that there is plenty of sex happening -- it's just not all that pleasant or consensual.
Makura eigyo (sleeping with people to get ahead, like the casting couch) is rampant at many levels of the gravure and idol industry, with female models and entertainers frequently having sex with older male managers ...
When Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the UN’s special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, told the media that Japan should "ban sexually abusive images of children in manga" at the end of her visit in October, you might think the manga industry would be the ones to get all hot under the collar.
Actually, the strongest reaction seems to have come from the Japanese government itself.
It was another comment Maud de Boer-Buquicchio made that has stoked up trouble.
She drew on unknown statistics to claim that "Some 13% of schoolgirls in Japan are ...
Every few weeks an article does the rounds of the world media -- typically a translated news wire piece or something rustled up by a foreign stringer according to overseas editors' demands. The narrative is predictable. Japan is full of sexless youth; Japan is full of sexual fetishes. Japanese anime is child porn; Akihabara is a den of immorality and vice.
Of course, there are elements of truth in all of this but such nuanced, sympathetic approaches are not what gets traffic.
So you see articles like this on Deutsche Welle by Julian Ryall, saying that "Japan's 'maid cafes' [are] a cover ...
The Japan Times has run an interesting story about "JK Industry" sex workers.
It focuses around two teenagers who are schoolgirls working in Akihabara in services ambiguously close to being full-on prostitution but often allowed by the letter of the law.
Seventeen-year-old Momo knows that her customers are keen on doing more with her than the official things she offers.
Momo is among the schoolgirls whom experts warn are prone to gravitate toward the notorious “JK” business — JK being short for “joshi kosei” (high school girls) — rampant in Akihabara and other parts ...
In the latest Olympic "clean-up" operation, now Chiyoda ward -- a large district in central Tokyo -- is following the efforts of police in Akihabara to crack down on "walking dates" passing new local legislation to ban them from April 1st.
In so-called "JK osanpo" men meet with girls they believe are high school students (the "JK" stands for "joshi kousei") and go on a "walk" with them, often culminating at a love hotel. These may be services that are prostitution in disguise or they may be more covertly arranged through individuals over websites. Some people don't just want sex, ...
Could this have something to do with "cleaning up" Japan ahead of the upcoming Olympics in 2020?
We haven't heard much about a crackdown on enjo kosai for a little while now, after the media panicked about it a few years ago. But the police have launched a big internet hunt for schoolgirls prostituting themselves through euphemisms.
This will officially begin on October 21st, aimed at schoolgirls selling used panties or otherwise offering their bodies for willing men.
This year, as part of a trial period of the cyber investigation in ten prefectures, they have nabbed 97 minors. ...
A man has been arrested for pimping out teenaged girls via a deai-kei internet website. So-called deai-kei sites ("encounter" websites) are portals for meeting up with young ladies, often platforms for enjo kosai (dates with cash rewards) or open prostitution.
This time one man was calling the shots and had several underage girls on the site working for him. Atsuo Yoshinari (27) was a former host living in Shinjuku who, along with his two fellow arrested chums, admits the charges of prostituting a 17-year old girl. The fatal incident came in a love hotel in north Tokyo in June where the ...
They say that too much gaming is bad for you and there could be some truth to that.
At least, if you are using a gaming site for rather different purposes to winning the next level on a beat 'em up.
Kanagawa police have arrested Masahiro Odakura, 24, on charges of child prostitution. Odakura worked as a press operator in 'burbs land, Saitama.
Perhaps eager to escape the boredom of arguably Japan's dullest prefecture, he allegedly in June he had sex with a high school girl -- at the time a mere, ripe 16 -- in a love hotel. He paid the lady 10,000 yen, or around $130.
Here's the ...
