Local council election candidate is former nurse, sex worker, and porn star
March 27, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
Last week, we wrote about the Politician Girls 48 Party (aka Political Party Girls 48), the latest incarnation of an anti-NHK fringe right-wing populist party. The candidates are all female and feature many former idols, models, and minor celebrities.
Now, as the party fields candidates in various upcoming local elections, more details have emerged about its prospective lawmakers.
In April, Hasumin Yoshikawa is standing for a seat in the Setagaya City Assembly election. Setagaya, incidentally, is where the Tokyo Kinky offices are located. It's a large, mostly residential part of Tokyo known ...
City assembly speaker in Kyoto resigns for hiding child porn offense
January 11, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
The head of the city assembly of Maizuru, a city in the north of Kyoto Prefecture, was fined for possession of child pornography. The fine was issued in 2019 but has only just come to light.
On January 6, Keiichi Tai announced his intention to resign as council speaker and assemblymember at a press conference held at Maizuru City Hall.
The 53-year-old, a member of Liberal Democratic Party and speaker for the municipal assembly in Maizuru, was fined ¥300,000 for violating the child pornography law. He had possessed four DVDs with content designated as child porn.
They were found at his ...
New adult video parodies Japanese porn law restrictions
January 10, 2023
/ Tadashi Anahori
We have written before about the massive impact the new porn law is having on the Japanese adult video industry.
But here's a positive impact -- well, kind of. It's a good example of how the adult video industry is always quick to respond to recent events and exploit it as material for its output. And as is often the case, it does this in a parodic way.
In a new release (scheduled to come out January 20), the controversial AV law serves as the whole basis for the plot!
In the AV from Faleno Tube (1MFO00003), the premise is that the female performer has canceled at the last moment "due to ...
First arrest made under controversial new Japanese porn law
December 7, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
The controversial new porn law has been used for the first time in Japan to arrest someone.
A 50-year-old executive at a video production firm, Takashi Sumiya, was arrested on suspicion of not giving contract documents to three performers (aged twenties to fifties) between August and October, according to multiple media reports on December 6.
The Shinagawa resident had been initially arrested and charged with filming "indecent acts" and uploading them uncensored to a video sharing website, the US-based FC2 Content Market. Sumiya has apparently earned around ¥82 million doing this in six ...
Mandarake ordered to cease selling adult products for six months
November 16, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
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 ...
Top Japanese adult video stars launch petition against new porn laws
October 12, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
As frequently reported on this blog, the new porn law in Japan has proven very controversial.
Though touted as a way of protecting performers, especially younger and debuting performers, by giving them far greater freedom to get out of contracts and by making production and distribution companies delay release, the legislation introduced in June was opposed by many in the industry.
While many major production companies have maintained a careful silence, perhaps concerned about stoking calls for a total ban on unsimulated sex in porn and encouraging further regulations to target the coercion ...
Spotlight on private and amateur porn as new adult video law loophole
September 26, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
Earlier this year, a new law was passed with major implications for how adult video productions are made and released in Japan. The legislation gives performers a lot more say over their contract, allowing them to withdraw even after signing a contract and to cancel a contract after a production is completed and released. Producers must also allow a cooling-off period after a contact is signed and after a video is shot, to give performers the chance to change their minds, and provide very detailed instructions on the nature of the shots and activities expected.
One type of AV not covered by ...
Man found guilty of decensoring Japanese porn, given two-year sentence
July 6, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
Though there is a tiny inkling of a chance that this might change if FC2 founder Riyo Takahashi wins a seat in the Japanese Upper House this month, it remains illegal in Japan to sell or distribute uncensored porn.
The "mosaic" look has become an iconic part of Japanese adult video: those grainy pixels where the penis and vagina should be.
Personally, we don't mind it. But some are put off by the constant blur and there is clearly a market for uncensored Japanese porn. Just don't try selling it if you are in Japan.
Masayuki Nakamoto was arrested last October for selling uncensored adult ...
Elections bring out the eccentrics, with plenty of novelty candidates reliably popping up to keep us amused. Past examples include the wannabe politician who wore government-supplied face masks as a bra or the regular appearances of Teruki Goto -- including once nude on his campaign poster.
With the recent passing of the controversial new law regulating the porn industry, how are candidates responding to the current situation?
We found two intriguing examples among candidates for the upcoming Upper House election.
Riyo Takahashi, the 48-year-old founder of the Japanese video hosting site ...
Controversial new Japanese porn law enacted, opposition party calls for outright ban on adult video
June 16, 2022
/ Tadashi Anahori
As already reported several times on this blog, Japan's groundbreaking new porn law that aims to protest performers' rights has now passed the Diet after approval in the Upper House on June 15.
The legislation, which was initially proposed by opposition lawmakers and taken up by a cross-party group, was sparked by the realization that lowering the age of adulthood to 18 would have implications for previous safeguards for young people working in porn or the gravure industry, and fears that teenagers would be exploited and coerced into contracts they either did not understand or did not really ...