It's that time of year: December and January are packed with hot women releasing photo books. One such lady is Mariya Nagao (永尾まりや), the former AKB48 idol who is now a model and actor, and a long-time favorite of this blog. She's releasing her fourth photo book, "Yabai! Mariya." (very roughly, "OMG Mariya" or "Risky Mariya"), on January 20, 2022, and she was apparently the main person behind the concept and planning. The photo book recreates a Showa-Japan look, from the 1960s cars and buildings to the clothes and hairstyles. It was shot in the hot spring resort of Togura ...

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Old love hotels in Japan have long enjoyed a special brand of fandom, either for their garish visuals or their increasingly haikyo-style "abandoned" status. But a new sort of love hotel otaku is emerging. And they are young women who visit the establishments by themselves. We previously mentioned the 20-year-old student whose YouTube channel was obsessed with introducing love hotels (along with net cafes and other such places). A few weeks ago, she showcased the cheapest love hotel in Tokyo. An even more prolific profiler of love hotels is Yunana, who shares her fascinating trips to ...

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It's probably Tokyo's most famous and futuristic pieces of architecture: the Nakagin Capsule Tower. Despite its repute, it's an endangered species: demolition of the Metabolist landmark has been scheduled for a long time. People have continued to reside in the pod-like pied-à-terre living units or use them as office spaces. Or for other uses, it seems. We had never heard of this before but it seems that certain capsule rooms in Nakagin were used by prostitutes to service customers. In Tokyo, a brothel-style fuzoku service typically has its own little place with basic facilities. ...

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Japan is often praised for its minimalist design aesthetic. This is then thrown to the wind (or rather, the dogs!) when you go to a love hotel and encounter garishness that makes Gaudí architecture look positively tame in comparison. Similarly for web design, where Rakuten rules supreme despite its utter UX clusterfuck. If Amazon is like shopping in a modern supermarket, Rakuten is like walking unprepared into a medieval souk! But this chaotic, garish design has its own kind of aesthetic, a craftsmanship that deserves respect and generates a certain culture. Now Rakuten and love hotels are ...

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Old strip clubs were already on a downward, possibly terminal spiral even before corona hit. The pandemic then wiped out the intimacy-based business model for all kinds of strip shows, not to mention hostess and host clubs and even fuzoku sex services. But perhaps especially the vintage burlesque and strip clubs were more precarious than others, being frequented by older clientele and located often in small premises (and in regional areas). We already reported in one long-running strip club in Ehime's struggle to stay afloat during the crisis. There are relatively few such old clubs left in ...

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Regular readers will know that, in between all the news and updates about gravure idols and Japanese porn, or trying out new Japanese adult toys, we love to explore aspects of Japanese adult culture like the history of sex and old love hotels. Showa-era love hotels are truly the best if you want garish colors, kitsch, and cheap gimmicks (revolving beds and so on) instead of the more practical amenities and chic interiors that have become the mainstream today (as nice as those are). We spotted this selection of fantastic love hotel images on Twitter. Unfortunately, they are not captioned ...

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Long-running rural strip club in Japan turns to crowdfunding to stay in business during coronavirus crisis We have been chronicling how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the adult industry in Japan, from shutting down hostess clubs to inspiring sex workers. Like hostess clubs and the like, strip clubs were also quick to shut their doors after the state of emergency was announced. Having first started in the postwar years, the striptease industry in Japan is dying anyway, so this may well be one of the final nails in its coffin. We spotted an interesting article about one example of a ...

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It's rainy season here in Tokyo, which means heavy showers almost every day. What better excuse to stay indoors watching AV, testing out adult toys, and searching for Tokyo Kinky stories? Doing just that, we came across this great vintage image of a late 1960s model showing off not only some great wear for the rainy season but also her cute nipples. Fashionable tits indeed. Underneath her white shirt she is clearly sans bra and her great breasts are poking through the fabric. Now if only there were ladies actually like this on the streets of Tokyo, we would certainly venture out not ...

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It's May 1st, the inaugural day of the new Reiwa era. And what better time to take a gander at some old porn from this cache of images recently shared online? Strictly speaking, we reckon these adult magazines come from the Showa period, which ended in 1989, rather than the past three decades of Heisei, but there might be some overlap. Online searches seem to reveal nothing, so they are probably quite obscure. We just love the titles: from "Visual Communication Magazine for Young Adalt" (sic) and "Fucky-up" (sic) to "Rape me" and "Sexual Les Girls." The shoots themselves range from the ...

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We stumbled upon this great Twitter feed detailing a report by Shinbunka, the publishing industry trade journal in Japan, about the decline of the much-loved porn magazine vending machine. It also cites from an interview with the photographer Tetsuya Kurosawa, who has documented the vending machines (visiting some 500 locations along the way!). It's true, we haven't seen one for many a moon. Here's why. At the peak of the adult vending machine boom, there were some 50,000 machines nationwide in the 1970s. That lofty number has been reduced to a mere fraction now. What are left are often ...

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