Japan is a great nation of customizers, adapters, and modifiers. You can see it in the cuisine, which is often a fusion of different influences and turned into something new.
It's also evident in various subcultures.
Though original content is common too, Doujinshi (privately printed/bound magazines and manga) are sometimes a type of fan fiction, where people make their own versions of popular professional manga and anime.
Cosplay is similarly derivative. Fans dress up as their favorite characters and put a new spin on the franchise.
But when does derivation go too far? When it's ...
Popular, long-running British game show Countdown has attracted an unusual flurry of headlines and online responses by allowing a "pornographic" concept to win a round.
In the long-running TV show, contestants try to find the longest words from a random selection of letters within 30 seconds.
On Monday's episode, Marwan Riach managed to find "hentai" and beat out his opponent's "patty."
The resident judge in the "Dictionary Corner" confirmed the validity of Riach's somewhat sheepishly offered word: "Hentai is brilliant," she said in a widely shared clip.
Well, quite.
With its customary ...
Ero-manga (erotic manga comics) is associated with sex, of course, but not just any old sex. Great sex. Strange sex. Fetishes. And, let's be frank, non-consensual sex.
But is that reputation justified? How much sex in ero-manga is actually non-consensual?
At the recent Niconico Chokaigi event, statistician Midori Makita presented a list of different ero-manga magazines along with the results of a survey examining what percentage of the sex they portray is non-consensual or consensual.
Here is the breakdown (first percentage is non-consensual; second is consensual):
Angel Club: ...
Thank you, Japan. Perhaps no other country in the world would produce a pack of condoms quite like this.
Sure, Japanese condoms are famed for their quality and thinness -- particularly the Okamoto Zero One 0.01mm and Sagami 0.01 condoms. There are also funner condoms, such as the Rilakkuma Love-Love Hot Honey Flavor Condoms or these Gundam parody condoms.
Now along comes the Okamoto Danbo Condoms, which are based on the simple yet wildly popular character Danbo (aka Danboard).
The "cardboard robot" first appeared in Kiyohiko Azuma's manga Yotsuba&! but has now spawned its own ...
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 ...
What's the good of being an illustrator if you can't put your skills to real use?
That seems to be the thinking behind a new illustration reference book, ...
We all know there are various ways to get close to your favorite 2D characters from games, anime, light novels, manga and so on. The hug pillow, decorated with a character's face and body, is surely the most effective: you can hug it and, with the help of a certain toy in the right slot, even have penetrative sex with it.
But for some people that's too much. They want a more romantic experience.
And for that, there is this new tumbler with an anime character's face on the lid. Every time you take a sip, you are kissing the character on the lips. The liquid in the cup also comes out of ...
We don't talk about boys' love or male-on-male themes enough on this blog, so we were pleased to stumble upon this development.
The boys' love illustrator Ebimo has created a new 112-page gay drawing manual, the "BL Poses Stretch Book".
It's a bit like a working version of the "48 Ways" (shijuuhatte), which is the de facto Japanese Kama Sutra, so you really get the most out of your relationship as well as illustration skills.
The poses -- from tender kissing to hugging and all manner of sex positions -- are included as a guide to all the various ...
Remember Ryutaro Nonomura? He was the Hyogo Prefecture politician accused of exploiting his position to enjoy a luxury life, all financed as expenses paid for by local voters. He held a press conference to explain his actions but which descended into an insane scene of him bawling and wailing.
The unique media incident has already inspired at least one parody porn film and even influenced an anime.
Now there is a parody adult manga too. It portrays a Nonomura-lookalike doing his press conference while a woman under the table starts to suck him off. It ends with the lucky (unlucky?) guy ...
The BBC occasionally likes to weigh in on adult Japan matters, not always with success.
It recently profiled Keiko Takemiya, "the godmother of manga sex in Japan". This time they go the extra mile and get some reasonable background and interviews, but some of their assertions are off -- not least the headline.
Takemiya was just 26 when she started Kaze to Kino Uta (The Poem of Wind and Trees).
It opens with two naked teenage boys in a 19th-century French boarding school lying on top of each other, post-coital. The series centres on one of those boys and another new boy. ...
