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…

On May 31, Kyoto police arrested a 37-year-old man who runs a hair salon in the city on suspicion of “quasi-forced indecency.” Teppai Kozaki is accused of forced use of a massager on a woman. The charge relates to an act allegedly done quite some time ago — February last year — in which Kozaki…

The actress Ryoko Hirosue has been accused of adultery with a famous chef. In a scoop published by Bunshun this week, photos show the 42-year-old going to a luxury hotel where the 45-year-old chef Shusaku Toba, who runs a restaurant called sio that has a Michelin star, was also staying. The two are already known…

This story has been percolating since early June and has now become a very interesting incident generating national headlines, and with potential implications for future gravure events. Swimwear photo shoot events in public pools in Saitama have ignited an intense debate. During the events, idols and models gather at the pool for fans to take…

It sparked both hype and controversy, and then just as quickly vanished. When publisher Shueisha released a digital photo book featuring a fully AI-generated gravure model on May 29, it felt like the tipping point of something. But then netizens were quick to point out that the “model” Ai Satsuki was uncannily similar to a…

It has long been common to see claims that Japan’s age of consent was just 13, which would lead to lazy generalizations that this was why there was so much loli porn. Of course, in practice, this was never true: local ordinances against lewd actors with minors meant the actual age of consent was typically…

We recently wrote about the Ryoko Hirosue adultery scandal, which has effectively meant her immediate disappearance from public life (no more TV ads, no more fashion magazine covers, no more acting roles). When the scandal broke about her affair with a chef, many noted the irony that she had received a “best mother” award in…

Everything changes, except the avant-garde, or so the saying goes. Now in Japan, perhaps it’s rather nothing changes, except for sexual mores. For years, Japan seemed to lag behind other major nations in the Global North in terms of access to emergency birth control or even use of contraception. Basically, people just don’t use condoms,…

Japan’s obscenity laws about not showing genitalia apply to you, even if you are supposedly an amateur and not a professional porn production company churning out DVDs and streaming releases. On June 30, Japanese media showed police giving 21-year-old Yukino Kimura the perp walk. Her crime? She had sold unedited videos on Twitter to people…

Over four years ago, the media in Japan and globally went bananas about a Japanese man who “married” a virtual character. These stories are catnip to editors who love “sexless Japan” and “wacky Japan” content. The tale of Akihiko Kondo and his love for popular Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku was too much to resist, and…