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 ...
Tokyo police arrested the female president and four others for operating an online chat room on FC2 Live.
The operator, OK, had a pay-to-view chat room where women would masturbate or perform other sexual acts on camera for the pleasure of viewers. The charges are, perhaps not surprisingly, public indecency or obscenity.
Based out of a condo in Roppongi, OK was led by Kaori Okada (30), who is alleged to have appeared in the online videos herself. We have made some screen grabs of such a video, though we cannot confirm if this is Okada masturbating in front of a webcam. She has amazing ...
The "hair nude" is a curious Japanese-English term. It refers not just to naked flesh; it's naked flesh specifically with genital hair.
What is "shocking" here is the display of pubic hair, the line by which art and entertainment is usually fettered in Japan. It is fine to have plenty of nudity in films and print publications, but to avoid the century-old ambiguous obscenity laws, people censored or did not show actual pubic hair.
The hair nude set out to deliberately show this bush taboo was something to be challenged, both legally and artistically.
While the likes of Nobuyoshi Araki ...
So-called "vagina artist" Rokudenashiko has been found guilty and convicted of a charge of obscenity, and ordered to pay a fee of ¥400,000 (around $3,700).
Rokudenashiko ("good-for-nothing girl"), whose real name is Megumi Igarashi and whose first manga book has just been released in English, was first arrested in July 2014 for distributing data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina.
She was arrested again in December of that year for making a plaster mold of a kayak based on her genitals, which was displayed at an adult shop.
Her defence argues that her work ...
"Vagina artist" Megumi Igarashi (aka Rokudenashiko) has announced she will marry British rock musician Mike Scott of the Waterboys.
Igarashi (44) will marry Scott (57), who is popular in Japan and also composed a song, "ROK ROK ROKUDENASHIKO," for Igarashi in 2015.
We actually saw Igarashi once at an event and she was attending it with a foreigner (not Scott). We wondered then if he was a lover and whether her tastes were of the interracial variety. I guess we were at least half right!
Igarashi is still fighting her latest court case for obscenity and joked on Twitter that she would ...
We blogged last autumn about the Rokudenashiko's upcoming first English-language book, What Is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and her Pussy.
Now the Canada-based Koyama Press has released more details and images ahead of its release in May.
The book is written by "vagina artist" Rokudenashiko (the artist name of Megumi Igarashi), translated by Anne Ishii, and edited by Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins. The cover is by the famous designer Chip Kidd.
Rokudenashiko has been arrested twice for "obscenity" for making and distributing artworks based on her ...
The start of the shunga exhibition in Tokyo, the first major public event of historical erotic prints, has, not surprisingly, tested the boundaries of what is legally permitted and what is "morally" acceptable.
While the September issue of venerable art magazine Bijutsu Techo featured shunga, as well as a dialogue between two women who really know about sex and censorship ("vagina artist" Rokudenashiko/Megumi Igarashi and former porn star turned manga-ka Nayuka Mine), not to mention some mildly sexy Edo-era-inspired photos of Mitsu Dan by Mika Ninagawa, it stopped short of printing the ...
Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi), the Japanese "vagina artist" accused of obscenity, has always been very business-savvy.
She has released plenty of artworks as cheap and accessible merchandise, not to mention manga, books, and even a "rental service" and sex toy. (She needs the money not least to pay for her legal fees!)
Now we are delighted that one of her books has been translated and will be published in English by Koyama Press in 2016.
What Is Obscenity? The Story Of A Good For Nothing Artist And Her Pussy is written by Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi), translated by Anne Ishii, ...
Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi) continues her usual knowing, tongue-in-cheek antics.
You can now rent Japan's most controversial erotic personality, nicknamed the "vagina artist".
Following her first manga book, she is now offering a "rental" service where you can hire her for certain periods of time. This is obviously a playful take on the boyfriend and girlfriend and other "companion" rental services in Japan (not escort services -- there are plenty of those too).
Arrested for making artworks based on her own genitalia, Igarashi is currently fighting the Japanese state's ...
"Gender, Genitor, Genitalia - Rokudenashiko Tribute" is an exhibition planned for Hong Kong as a tribute to the struggle of "vagina artist" Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi).
Megumi Igarashi, who goes by the artist name of Rokudenashiko, calls her art "deko-man" (vagina decoration). She has been arrested for obscenity. Her crime was such projects as making a boat based on a mold of her genitalia. (Remember, this is all happening in Japan, where mythology says the gods created the islands through sex and fertility festivals continue to happen.)
The exhibitors are currently running ...
