More bad news about compensated dating now as the moral panic over papakatsu continues. Papakatsu is a kind of newish buzzword to describe compensated dating that involves an older man and younger woman (though in practice, compensated dating often meant such sugar daddy relationships regardless of terminology). Following media stories about female fraudsters and even…

In today’s social media–driven world, it can feel like a new meme and “enjo” scandal appear every day to rage-bait us into clicks and views. One of the more recent examples in Japan was a video in January of a hostess and a client at an expensive sushi restaurant, arguing with the owner about their…

A candidate for the upcoming Tokyo governor election is using a naked female model on his campaign posters. Yusuke Kawai’s schtick is cosplaying as the Joker and doing provocative stuff, though this might be the most extreme of all his stunts to date. The model is Miu Sakurai, a gyaru model, music idol (with the…

A Japanese pianist has been arrested for stealing the aprons of flight attendants to satisfy a fetish for their smell. Thirty-four-year-old Kazuya Saito lives in Tokyo but travels widely for his work as a professional concert pianist. In May, airline ANA reported the theft of several flight attendant aprons. Saito is accused of stealing an…

Election broadcasts are a bit of a circus in Japan. Legally, the public broadcaster NHK is obliged to show them and this is why so many fringe and wacky candidates ultimately pay to stand for election, because it means they’re guaranteed several minutes of fame. This year is particularly strange with the July election for…

This story has been bubbling away for a few days and it’s finally time to write it up here. The former figure skater Miki Ando has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with her 16-year-old male protégé after a tabloid snapped them out together on a date. The 36-year-old Ando, a two-time former world…

It sounds like the plot of a modern-day Edogawa Rampo story. Police have arrested a 39-year-old elementary school teacher for trespassing. Masashi Mizuno teaches at a school in Edogawa, Tokyo, and snuck into the home of a high school student who used to be in his class at another school. According to police, Mizuno secretly…

In what seems to like the plot of a dodgy AV uploaded to FC2, an Osaka court has ordered a man to pay compensation to a woman he had unprotected sex with. The sex was fully consensual but she wanted him to wear a condom. He refused and the woman sued him for ¥1.73 million….

According to a viral post by the prolific Gareso Takizawa on Twitter/X (with 8.4 million views and counting), a Japanese pro esports player has apologized for cheating because he was hoping to get his end away. The unnamed male competitor played with a friend using a cheat program. He did this because two female acquaintances…

We reported earlier this summer on the silly circus that was the Tokyo gubernatorial election, with a female candidate stripping off during her TV broadcast and another using pornographic posters that police ordered to be taken down. One of the slightly more serious candidates, at least in terms of mainstream fame, was Toshio Tamogami, who…