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 ...
Police in Tokyo have arrested a 40-year-old man for employing a 17-year-old high school student.
Takeshi Shikano runs a sex industry business in Ikebukuro. He has been arrested on suspicion of violating the child welfare law for employing the high schooler and either making her or allowing her to engage in sex work.
Media reports about the arrest do not specify what kind of sex work, which took place in a rented room in the neighborhood in November last year. The police, though, termed it JK rifure -- or high female high school student reflexology -- service, where cuddles and so on are ...
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 ...
One of the biggest news stories last week, at least in our adult-flavored orbit, was the arrest of several people on allegations of organizing orgies in Tokyo.
Five men and women are accused of holding swinger parties where members of the public would pay to have sex with each other. The charges related to breaches of the prostitution law: organizers are accused of prostituting the female attendees by recruiting them for the parties.
It is reported that they made ¥650 million (the equivalent at current exchange rates of $4.6 million) in 10 years by holding over a dozen such events in a ...
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 ...
A few years ago, various shops began to appear in places like Akihabara offering services like hugs, ear-cleaning, "snuggling," massages, and "reflexology." However, like how massage parlors may provide more than just a massage, some of the "cuddle cafe" (soine-ten) establishments merely used these services as fronts for forms of prostitution. A police crackdown ensued and we actually thought there were very few, if any, left.
It seems that such places are still around and up to their old tricks, operating under the guise of rifure-ten (reflexology shops).
A rifure-ten chain, Rapunzel ...
We fondly remember the days when it was relatively easy to visit happening bars. Sadly, those times when such establishments were widely known and could be frequented in central areas like Shinjuku or Shibuya now feel distant, largely due to a police crackdown that closed many down or scared others off.
Further proof that the police won't tolerate businesses that allow members of the public to have sex with each other appeared this month.
Media reported on May 9 that police had busted a Shibuya happening bar called Sleeping Beauty.
An incredible eleven separate police districts as well ...
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 ...
The famed Tobita Shinchi red light district in Osaka will close down during the upcoming Group of 20 summit in late June, according to media reports
Tobita Shinchi is a rare example of an old-style red light district (yukaku) in Japan, similar to how Yoshiwara used to be in Tokyo, featuring rows of licensed establishments in which young ladies sit in open doorways waiting for patrons.
This time it's not the authorities actually doing the closing; it's kind of a case of self-censorship. Apparently the Tobita Shinchi association itself has agreed to "restrain" its activities during the ...
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 ...
