We've written before about the growing speculation on the fate of Japanese convenience store's typically ample selection of adult magazines. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics fast approaching, some have noted the possible demise or at least temporary concealment of this corner of liberty in a straitened society.
Schemes are underway to make this a reality, though with mixed success.
Chiba City attempted to carry out a test with convenience stores, asking them to cover up their porn mags with covers and see what happened to sales. Unfortunately the 12 brands of 7-Eleven that the city had ...
The "hair nude" is a curious Japanese-English phrase. It refers not just to naked flesh; it's naked flesh 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 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 was something to be challenged, legally and artistically.
While the likes of Nobuyoshi Araki had already made erotic photography ...
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 ...
Something that shocks some visitors to Japan is the volume of porn, soft-core porn or other adult magazines lining the shelves of convenience stores. It is placed in a certain section marked as "adult" but not on a top shelf like in other countries. And the covers make it very clear what is inside, awaiting the horny reader.
There has been talk about "cleaning this up" as we get closer to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but no concrete developments.
Until now. In what may be the first salvo against the freedom for pornographers to push their wares in open, a local mayor has taken the ...
The BBC occasionally likes to weigh in on adult Japan matters, not always with success.
It recently profiled Keiko Takemiya, "the godmother of manga sex in Japan". This time they go the extra mile and get some reasonable background and interviews, but some of their assertions are off -- not least the headline.
Takemiya was just 26 when she started Kaze to Kino Uta (The Poem of Wind and Trees).
It opens with two naked teenage boys in a 19th-century French boarding school lying on top of each other, post-coital. The series centres on one of those boys and another new boy. ...
Be warned. Be careful what you have in your drawer or on your phone, hard drive or cloud.
While the government was pressured by mangaka and animators to exclude comic book and drawn images from the new pornography laws passed in 2014, it seems the courts do not agree.
The Tokyo District Court has found an artist "guilty of violating the child pornography law by creating and selling realistic computer graphic images of a naked girl," reports the Asahi Shimbun.
The court on March 15 sentenced Akashi Takahashi, a 55-year-old computer graphic designer from Gifu city, to a one-year ...
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 ...
