The founder of Japanese video hosting site FC2, Riyo Takahashi, once ran unsuccessfully for election in Japan's upper house.
His campaign platform was to "crush mosaic censorship," referring to the pixellation that covers genitalia in Japanese porn to protect producers and retailers from prosecution under Japan's obscenity law, which is usually interpreted as drawing the line at showing a penis or vagina. (This same logic is applied to nudity in mainstream movies too.)
Now Takahashi has been arrested by police in Japan when he returned to the country. The 51-year-old was arrested on ...
We've said it before and we'll say it again: we think shunga, erotic woodblock prints, are one of the most impressive and significant parts of Japanese historical culture, and that the government should be singing its praises from the rooftops, instead of trying to hide them and keep people from seeing them under threat of prosecution.
Fortunately, we are no longer alone. Shunga has achieved global success, not least in the form of a very successful art exhibition in Britain in 2013, which belatedly came to Japan in 2015 and attracted huge crowds.
Money talks. Organizers now can point to ...
Back in May, we reported on the arrests of the head of Japanese secondhand book store chain Mandarake and four of its employees over the sale of sexually explicit old photo books, which the chain apparently sold online and at two of its stores.
Though "hair nude" photo books with full-frontal nudity have been produced and sold by mainstream publishers for decades, the books in question here were so-called "vinyl books," which are older and more obscure -- and less regulated. They constitute a kind of gray zone in terms of adult publications in Japan: hair nude books are "celebrity books" or ...
Convenience stores are, well, convenient for a number of reasons: the food and drink available, paying your bills, using the copy machine, or popping to the bathroom.
Some conbini have a rule that you are meant to inform the staff on duty that you wish to use the toilet. Many people don't bother to ask permission but it seems one customer in Fukuoka took this rule a bit far.
The 28-year-old Atsushi Iwao was such a stickler for the rules, in fact, that he even specified exactly what he planned to do inside the public convenience. And it wasn't a number one or number two.
Indeed, as he ...
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 ...
When does an orgy become a crime? If it's group sex among consenting adults, there should be no issue, right?
That's today's legal conundrum.
One man in Japan found himself arrested for hosting an orgy (in Japanese, ranko party). So what was his crime? Strangely enough, it was fraud.
He had booked a hotel room in Fukuoka for two people, but then ended up with eleven guests (eight men, three women) in the room in January.
He should have paid for eleven guests to stay, but only paid for two, hence his arrest. The man recruited participants in the orgy online.
There was the possibility ...
The ostensibly retired adult video star Yui Akane (朱音ゆい) has been arrested on an obscenity charge.
The 30-year-old hottie was arrested with the scout Komei Hisada, 34, on suspicion of broadcasting nude videos in breach of obscenity laws.
This looks like a case of the police cracking down on an independent operator. People trying to make a quick buck by streaming or distributing porn online, bypassing the mainstream commercial platforms and probably infringing on censorship laws, always run the risk of attracting too much attention from rivals and authorities.
According to Tokyo ...
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 ...
