Top Tokyo BDSM club KUNKUN raided by police, shibari rope bondage master Hajime Kinoko arrested
May 17, 2014
/ Tadashi Anahori
Wow, this is big. We have been worried about police crackdowns for a while, especially with the upcoming Olympics likely to become an excuse for exerting state power.
Could this be the tip of the iceberg?
Police have raided one of Tokyo's top BDSM clubs, KUNKUN. The Ueno club is pretty big (we've been there) and also fairly new (it opened in mid-2012). It is the base of one of Japan's best-known shibari (kinbaku) rope bondage art masters, Hajime Kinoko (Hideto Hiramatsu).
Of course, there is a thin line between being bondage club where a show may take place and being a "happening" ...
Goodbye to All That: Police crack down on Akihabara “walking dates” with schoolgirls
December 20, 2013
/ Tadashi Anahori
As widely reported in the media, the police have begun a new campaign cracking down on so-called "walking dates" in Akihabara in Tokyo.
On Monday night, a dragnet of 100 police officers raided the famed electronics shopping and otaku subculture district in search of girls of schoolgirl age standing on the streets.
Apparently ten girls under 18 were taken into "protective custody". Their crime? Wearing a school uniform on the streets of Akihabara.
Recent concerns about walking dates recall the media frenzy on enjo kosai in the 1990's, though this is supposed to be the first major ...
Street scouts — are their days numbered?
September 20, 2013
/ Tadashi Anahori
Stand around outside any major station or crossing in a Japanese city and you will see them. Young guys picking up girls. Sounds pretty universal. Only these guys are not looking for sex for themselves, nor are they the flamboyant hosts looking for customers to take to their bars.
These usually young and slender guys are scouts. Their job is to recruit girls to work as hostesses or prostitutes in Japan's whole other dimension of sex shops. They get finder's fees from the businesses that they recruit for and they can often be seen watching the hordes that pass, only to then slink up to ...
Tokyo 2020: Will the Olympics try to “clean up” the city’s pornography?
September 8, 2013
/ Tadashi Anahori
It has just been announced that Tokyo will host the Summer Olympic Games in 2020. Will the city try to expunge all its unsavory elements ahead of the event?
The last time the city hosted the Games there was a similar campaign to "clean up" the streets, and when the Winter Games were held in Nagano they forced Pachinko parlors to close.
So can we look forward to the municipal government going full-out to hide unsightly shacks that serve as residences for the homeless or the slum-like drinking dens like Piss Alley in Shinjuku? Perhaps.
But we are most worried about what it may try to do to ...
Kabukicho strip club raided by police for bringing “shame on Japan”
January 31, 2013
/ Tadashi Anahori
A long-established strip club in Shinjuku's Kabukicho has been raided by police for letting Japanese porn stars perform and expose their vaginas.
Police have arrested ten for public indecency, including the manager of the Kabukicho T S Music club and several strippers aged 24-39 years old.
The club had been allowing patrons to see the JAV girls' private parts after a show had ended, even lending them cameras so they could take photographs.
Kabukicho T S Music Club opened in 1985, making it a veteran by Tokyo standards. It makes much of its 250 million yen ($2.8 million) turnover from ...