When Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the UN’s special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, told the media that Japan should "ban sexually abusive images of children in manga" at the end of her visit in October, you might think the manga industry would be the ones to get all hot under the collar. Actually, the strongest reaction seems to have come from the Japanese government itself. It was another comment Maud de Boer-Buquicchio made that has stoked up trouble. She drew on unknown statistics to claim that "Some 13% of schoolgirls in Japan are ...

Hardly is the ink dry on one article about Akihabara schoolgirl osanpo walking dates, than along comes another western report about "human trafficking" in Japan. Vice News has made Schoolgirls for Sale in Japan, a 17-minute "exposé" about JK schoolgirl prostitution at cafes and other venues in Tokyo. The presenter travels to Japan to interview schoolgirl prostitutes and investigate "JK culture". Much of this is innocent enough, from fortune-telling to music idol groups. But as a near scuffle with a minor gangster on the streets of Akihabara shows, with some of these services ...

Every few weeks an article does the rounds of the world media -- typically a translated news wire piece or something rustled up by a foreign stringer according to overseas editors' demands. The narrative is predictable. Japan is full of sexless youth; Japan is full of sexual fetishes. Japanese anime is child porn; Akihabara is a den of immorality and vice. Of course, there are elements of truth in all of this but such nuanced, sympathetic approaches are not what gets traffic. So you see articles like this on Deutsche Welle by Julian Ryall, saying that "Japan's 'maid cafes' [are] a cover ...

The Japan Times has run an interesting story about "JK Industry" sex workers. It focuses around two teenagers who are schoolgirls working in Akihabara in services ambiguously close to being full-on prostitution but often allowed by the letter of the law. Seventeen-year-old Momo knows that her customers are keen on doing more with her than the official things she offers. Momo is among the schoolgirls whom experts warn are prone to gravitate toward the notorious “JK” business — JK being short for “joshi kosei” (high school girls) — rampant in Akihabara and other parts ...

We saw an interesting story first shared on Tokyo Reporter, which appeals to our sense of the fetishistic. Tokyo cops have busted a special parlor in Takadonobaba, near Shinjuku, where male customers could go to smell Japanese schoolgirls in private rooms. The manager, one Takanori Izuchi, was a mere 33 years old but he was boldly running the aptly-named Pure Doll JK Community near the JR Station on the Yamanote Line. It's not the smell fetish per se that's the issue here. Izuchi and another employee were arrested for hiring actual teenagers to let male patrons sniff them in their ...

We've been reading some interesting reports about goings-on in Osaka, which despite its inferior size compared to Tokyo, is often the first to try certain trends. And we suspect this might be the case here. Following a recent series of arrests and police raids on "suspicious" maid cafes and schoolgirl "massage" parlors in Akihabara and elsewhere, the JK girl services are rebranding to get around the child labor laws. Now the high school girl parlors as so-called taiiki-suwari cafes. A new addition to the Japanese erotic lexicon! These cafes of course have a no-touching policy. ...

As widely reported in the media, the police have begun a new campaign cracking down on so-called "walking dates" in Akihabara in Tokyo. On Monday night, a dragnet of 100 police officers raided the famed electronics shopping and otaku subculture district in search of girls of schoolgirl age standing on the streets. Apparently ten girls under 18 were taken into "protective custody". Their crime? Wearing a school uniform on the streets of Akihabara. Recent concerns about walking dates recall the media frenzy on enjo kosai in the 1990's, though this is supposed to be the first major ...