A company president of a Japanese AV talent agency has been arrested for allegedly forcing a woman to appear in pornography. It was learnt on June 11th that Marks Japan was raided by cops and three of its employees arrested. Police also raided other related businesses, including two production companies. The allegations stem from a woman who signed up to Marks Japan's roster of talent as a gravure idol in 2009, but was then sent to a porn shoot in September 2013 despite knowing she did not want to appear. Marks Japan's talent includes everyone from relatively innocuous things like ...

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Porn workers of the world, unite! Do Japan’s porn actresses and actors have labor rights? This was the question asked in a recent feature in the Japan Times. Ostensibly a report on a May 4th talk at a Koenji cafe, it was about the AV industry's response to Human Rights Now (HRN), which had issued a damning report about the local AV industry. The international NGO, which is based in Tokyo and has U.N. special consultative status, reported the results of an in-depth investigation into the pornography business in Japan. The report concluded that the industry had violated the human ...

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This is a growing trend: Japanese women's past dabbling in porn unexpectedly exposed, jeopardizing their new-found careers. Already this year we have seen voice actress Emi Niita's previous AV moonlighting come to light, while we recently blogged about a TV presenter who lost her job due to a porn appearance. It's certainly much easier today to search and find images of obscure and even anonymous porn stars, though the sheer volume of porn produced in Japan annually also makes this no mean feat. If you appeared in something, the chances are someone has put the DVD online and your past ...

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The stalker who stabbed music idol Mayu Tomita may have appeared anonymously in Japanese porn as an uncredited, amateur performer. The 27-year-old Tomohiro Iwazaki stabbed the underground idol in around 20 places with a 8.2cm knife after taking the bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo to wait at a station near where she was holding a concert. Tomita reminds in critical condition while Iwazaki is in police custody. The case has generated a storm of negative press about the police response and Japan's problem with stalking. After the horrific murder in 2013 of high-school student Saaya ...

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In 2015, Nippon Television landed in hot water when it rescinded a job offer for a college graduate after it found out she had experience as a Ginza hostess. Rina Sasazaki took the broadcaster to court and won a settlement as well as her original job offer back again. Here's a similar cautionary tale. Kayo Matsumoto is a freelance TV presenter (called "announcers" in Japan). She was forced to leave TV Aichi in September 2014 after her dabbling in porn was exposed. As we know, the AV industry is absolutely huge and every year an army of women debut in porn. Most have short careers and an ...

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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 ...

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Known for her perfect body and gorgeous G-cup bust, Shoko Takasaki was until late last year one of the top rising gravure idols in Japan and a potential star in the general entertainment industry. But the gravure world is a fickle one and idols are sometimes more desperate for money than you might think, plus quickly learn that their looks and bodies are their top advantage in a ruthless industry where management expects to sleep with new talent. In September, images surfaced that seemed to show her engaging in enjo kosai (compensated dating, a euphemism for prostitution), causing her to ...

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Did voice actress and singer Emi Niita appear in a Japanese porn film in 2008? The 30-year-old cutie is best known for voicing Honoka Kosaka in Love Live! She also appeared in last year's Kohaku Uta Gassen. But before she was famous she may have appeared in an AV from the series "Amateur Illustrated Encyclopedia". At least, that's what's being alleged by a tabloid and is currently causing explosions online. We can't confirm the story. Her agency has denied it and threatened to sue. Fans are parsing the women in the film (which has jumped up the DMM adult rankings because of the scandal) ...

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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. ...

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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 ...

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