Why is Japanese Porn Censored?
Unless you are a pure individual, you probably know that Japanese porn is censored. Male and female genitalia are censored using a mosaic blur. If you watch Japanese porn expecting to see the female crotch area, you will likely see something like this instead:
Why is this so? Why does Japan, one of the largest markets for pornography in the world, force film makers to censor their films?
Porn was first seriously restricted in Japan in the Meiji Era, when materials deemed “injurious to public morals” were banned [thanks to the introduction of Victorian morals from the West]. After Japan’s defeat in WW2, American occupation authorities changed many of Japan’s laws to guarantee freedom of speech and expression. Sadly, the occupation authorities decided that the pre-existing law regarding pornography didn’t need to be changed. It has remained in effect to this day.
While the 60 years after World War II saw the acceptance of uncensored pornography as freedom of expression in the West, Japan continued to consider it “injurious to public morals.” One still cannot legally buy a movie featuring fully visible hardcore action.
In recent years it seems that the definition of “injurious to public morals” has been relaxed. Ten years ago, pubic hair was censored: now it is not. Last year, the American film Kinsey was allowed to air in Japanese theaters uncensored. The scene in which Dr. Kinsey is giving a slideshow of penis/vagina picture made history as the first ever scene showing human genitalia allowed by the censors.
Does this mean we will be seeing uncensored porn anytime soon? Probably not; the display of genitalia in a serious educational setting is a far cry from pure porno. Until then most porn consumers within Japan cannot legally buy uncensored porn.
The uncensored Japanese porn that exists does so because 1) It was made for foreign export, or 2) It was illegally produced/uncensored. Certain machines, such as the one pictured above are supposedly capable of removing certain types of mosaic censoring. Various knobs are used to adjust settings to match the mosaic censoring, while a small joystick is used to target a certain area of the video. As one Japanese guy explained to me, “it is kind of hard to whack” when you have to concentrate on using your other hand to move the joystick and make sure the de-mosaic is centered on the action. This doesn’t stop Japanese guys from shelling out hundreds of bucks for such machines. Smarter men go onto the internet, where the uncensored movies made for export are downloadable from sites hosted outside Japan.
Censorship is enough to completely turn off most Americans to Japanese porn. They are so used to seeing hardcore penetration shots that the fact that they can’t actually see the genitals make the porn useless to them. It’s a shame, since some out there think that Japanese pornography is often far superior to American adult videos. Japanese porn doesn’t focus on the penetration shot, instead using a variety of direction styles to create a sex scene. Without censorship, most Japanese directors would be as lazy as their American counterparts, who rely heavily on close-ups of penetration. It is possible that Japan’s wacky and innovative porn is a partial response to censorship.
Categories: General Japan
Japan’s Foreign Talento, Profile I: Thane Camus
Hello there and welcome to a new type of post in which I will tell you the stories of famous foreigners who have achieved the status of “talento” in Japan. The term “talento” sounds a lot like the English word “talent”, but don’t let that fool you. Any loser who frequently appears on Japanese TV is considered a “talento.”
Profile I: Thane Camus
At first glance he may appear to be some queer white guy with a pirate earring, but he actually Japan’s most popular foreign talento. Thane Camus’ past is largely a mystery. Some say he came to Japan at age 3, while others claim it was more like age 6. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that he is the grandson of Albert Camus, the pied-noir philosopher.
Since he spent his formative years in Japan, Thane Camus is about as close to Japanese as white guys get. His Japanese is top notch(some say it is even native level)and his mannerisms are somewhat Japanese. If he were asian, some Japanese would probably misake him for one of their own. Internet rumors have speculated that Thane’s English is nowhere near as good as his Japanese, some citing an e-mail he apparently wrote in broken English(it was a complaint to a webmaster who was hosting some anti-Thane pages/forum posts).
Thane rose to fame as an English conversation guy on N-H-K. He also wrote several popular books in Japanese about how to speak English. His English learning CDs are available at stores. His break into mainstream talento status came after he started appearing on Sanma’s comedy show, Karakuri TV.
Some say that it was Thane who introduced the Japanese to Bobby, a Nigerian whose comedy acts featuring stupid behavior and incomprehensible Japanese helped reinforce the image of blacks as moronic clowns. Thane may not have created Bobby’s act, but he did host many of Bobby’s ‘LOL stupid monkey clown’ comedy segments. Thane would have to be stupid not to see the racism in such segments, but that didn’t stop him. He was just another gaijin talento doing what the Japanese audiences wanted to see.
Last year Thane went on TV frequently to talk about how great it was to have a baby with his Japanese wife. With his friendly smile and his shiny earring, he was the image of the ideal foreign husband/father.
In August 2005,a Nikkei Entertainment survey found Thane to be the most popular foreign talento in Japan. So basically, Japanese viewers prefer foreign “talento” who are essentially Japanese. If you are lucky enough to be a rich foreign guy who moves to Japan at age 3, you could be a foreign celebrity in Japan too!
Categories: Celebrity News, Discrimination
Akihabara Geeks Popular With Women? -Japan Times
I recently came across this little article in The Japan Times on the growing popularity of Akihabara geeks among Japanese women. Apparently the popular TV drama Densha Otoko has turned women on to nerds?
Sweetness counts for women in search of geeks
By KAORI SHOJI
First of all, they’re not called otaku anymore but go by the much snazzier name of Akiba-kei. With this recasting, it looks like Japan’s muscle-less, girlfriend-less, PC/iPod obsessed class of bespectacled oddballs have moved en masse into the cultural mainstream. No longer the shunned weirdos of yesteryear, Akiba-kei are now reputed to influence everything from stock points to semantics to sexual relationships. So while the New Yorkers looked to the television series “Sex and the City,” Tokyoites are looking to Akiba-kei for pointers on love.
After all, the season’s most popular TV drama, “Densha-Otoko (Train Man),” was about the relationship between a virgin Akiba-kei who had never dated and an intimidatingly beautiful, sophisticated career woman. To borrow a phrase from my niece Asami (15): “Ussssoooooo, arienaaaaaai! (You’re kidding! It can’t be happening!)”
Naturally, Akihabara has now been upgraded to Akiba. Though the majority that stomp its streets are still the classic geek types in sleep-flattened hair and bad jeans, there has been a noticeable surge in hip foreigners and sightings of young women, two segments of the populace who until recently, would not have been caught dead anywhere near the place. Supermodels like Naomi Campbell have reportedly been seen there, and actress Daryl Hannah was walking around in Akiba-kei jyaajii (sweats) in Omotesando with a “Toyoko Takkyubu (Toyo High School Ping Pong Club)” inscription. Akiba has actually become oshare (fashionable), a transformation I rate on par with Baghdad becoming a Club Med destination.
And who would have thought that the Akiba-kei could ever become an object of desire among young women looking for marriage? Says my friend Maiko (32): “Mou, moteotoko no jidai wa owatta. Akiba-kei no houga yasashikute, dasakute, kawaii (The age of the hunk is over. I prefer the kinder, nerdier, cuddlier Akiba-kei.)” Indeed, Maiko and her friends profess that the less dating experience a guy has, the more they are susceptible to — and appreciative of — feminine charms. So what if they’re a little overweight, a little sloppy and have never, ever shopped for Armani? They’re sweet, and in the end, sweetness is what counts.
At the same time, Maiko admits: “Akiba-kei otoshi wa muzukashii (It’s difficult to bag an Akiba-kei.)” She’s right: having played around with digitally animated cuties in cyberspace for most of their lives, Akiba-kei are notorious for their impossibly high standards. To catch their attention a woman must be “kawaii, atsukaiyasui, kyo-nyu, ashi-hoso, dekame de ecchi (cute, malleable, big-breasted, thin-legged, large-eyed and erotic),” as described by hard-core Akiba-kei Yuusuke (35), whose most recent dating experience goes back to his second year in college. “Nama no onna wa dejitaru no kawaiko-chan ni doushitemo makeru (a real woman will always lose out to a digital chick)” he claims and says it’s OK because he prefers the digital versions anyway. Asked if he doesn’t feel the usual, “I’ve-been-single-too-long symptoms of loneliness, alienation and self-doubt,” Yuusuke shook his head. “I’m not after sexual or conventional relationships. It was never about any of that.”
This is precisely what Maiko and other women are up against: the Akiba-kei is uninterested in intimacy; they are after sensations. The closest they get to falling in love is the state of moe (pronounced mo-ay) which means “blossoming.” They want to look at a woman (digital or otherwise) and feel an agrarian bloom somewhere in their jaded brains. After that, the Akiba-kei will tend to their blossoms like gardeners fussing over their favorite roses, and if the blossoms should die, well they’ll look around for something new.
Nowadays, that something can often be found in the Akiba-specialty: the Medo Cafe (Maid Cafe). In these establishments the waitresses are decked out in full Victorian maid regalia, complete with huge white aprons and little lace caps adorning shiny black braids that hang from each side of their pixie faces. And they will refrain politely from any personal interaction. The Maid Cafes are the Akiba-kei’s current No.1 moe hot spots; in the maids, they see a shyness, stoicism and demure charm long gone from ordinary Japanese women. Indeed, why go out with a namano onna when A-kiba beckons, twinkling in all its cyberspace, kosu-pure (costume-play) glory?
The Japan Times: Dec. 13, 2005
Can you say bullshit?
Categories: Celebrity News, General Japan, Japanese Girls
Is Hard Gay Rich?
If you live in Japan, you should know about Hard Gay. He’s that fantastic comedian who goes around gyrating his hips and shouting “Fooooo!!” Appearing on TV programs every day, he is never without his totally gay black outfit and his big sunglasses. I don’t know if he is really gay, but one thing is clear; he is incredibly popular at the moment. In the children’s English classes I teach it is impossible to make the students say the word “four” without at least one of the boys going “Foooooo!!” and doing Hard Gay’s trademark gesture.
You’d think that such a popular celebrity would be incredibly rich, but Japanese comedians often work for talent agencies. These talent agencies whore them out of most of the money they would be making, and it looks like that is the case with Hard Gay. According to this article from Mainichi Daily News, in the last 6th months he has only made about 262,000 US Dollars, which isn’t a whole lot considering the fact that he has several commercials, popular lines of merchandise, and daily TV appearances. Anyway, here’s the article:
Successful spurt leaves Hard Gay with limp bottom lineNobody, according to Asahi Geino (12/29-1/5), got as big a break in Japan this year as Razor Ramon Hard Gay, the skimpy leather-clad comic who made himself a household name in 2005 by parodying hard-line gay rights activists.An unknown at the start of the year, by December it was impossible to watch TV for a day without at least one show featuring Hard Gay, as he is almost exclusively referred to across the country, gyrating his pelvis and screaming out “whooo!”Anybody dominating the airwaves to such an extent would generally expect to pocket a small fortune — American Bob Sapp may still be counting all the cash he made after being flavor of the month in Japan a couple of years back — but how did Hard Gay go?
Hard Gay is currently on the books at the Tokyo headquarters of Yoshimoto Kogyo, one of Japan’s biggest handlers of comic talents. Before that, however, he was a member of its Osaka-based subsidiary Yoshimoto Shin Kigeki.
For young Yoshimoto comedians, a stint in the Shin Kigeki is a mere step on the corporate ladder. Hard Gay, however, wasn’t a standout comedy during his time there.
“He lived in a tiny room in Osaka from the time he joined Yoshimoto. But, everybody who joins Yoshimoto does that,” a sports newspaper’s entertainment editor tells Asahi Geino. “New members of Yoshimoto only get paid a few thousand yen every time they go on stage. And they only get about 10 appearances a month. They don’t get paid otherwise. If they can’t make themselves popular quickly, it’s pretty hard to make a living.”
Hard Gay got his big break in February when he was given a five-minute segment on “Bakusho Mondai no Bakuten,” a Saturday night variety show on TBS. Within weeks, Hard Gay had achieved cult status and his stocks in the popularity stakes skyrocketed. Soon, other networks were flooding him with job offers and he remains busy to this day.
But being one of Japan’s hottest properties hasn’t exactly equated to hard cash for Hard Gay.
“OK, he’s really popular, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s laughing all the way to the bank. Yoshimoto is famous enough for its tightwad payments that many of its comics get material from them. Still, compared to when he was in the Shin Kigeki, I’d guess he’d be making about 10 times as much,” a TV industry insider tells Asahi Geino. “Hard Gay’s biggest problem is that most of his work is done in segments filmed outdoors. When you include rehearsals, outdoor shoots are time-consuming. There’s no time in a day to add in extra work. I’d say Hard Gay’s making about 2 million to 3 million yen a month. With commercials and merchandising added in, I’d say he’s picked up about 30 million yen in the second half of the year.”
Yoshimoto refuses to divulge the exact sum that Hard Gay has picked up. His mother is just as tight-lipped.
“I haven’t talked to him about it. In fact, I haven’t even met him recently,” Hard Gay’s mom tells the weekly. “The only thing he’s told me is that I shouldn’t tell anybody too much.”
Entertainment world pundits say it soon won’t matter too much what people say about Hard Gay.
“It’s make or break for Hard Gay in 2006,” the TV insider tells Asahi Geino. “It’s hard to see him surviving just by going around screaming out ‘whooo’ and alternatives to what has become his trademark call haven’t kicked off nearly as well.” (By Ryann Connell)
December 30, 2005
Categories: Celebrity News, General Japan
Generalizations about Japanese Girls: Part 1
What are Japanese girls like?
So what are Japanese girls like? Perhaps you’ve heard some stuff from internet sites or guys you know who have lived in Japan. Here are some generalizations that you’ll often here:
Japanese girls are easy.
Many foreign guys go to Japan and are very successful in bedding Japanese girls. Is this because Japanese girls are easy? Certainly there is a large group of Japanese girls who like to go to foreign hangouts in big cities and hook up with foreign guys. There are also many Japanese girls who are very interesting in learning English and the possibility of going abroad. Many of these girls find the idea of dating a Westerner very exciting. As a foreigner you will come in contact with both of these groups, and even if you are pretty clumsy with girls in your home country you will likely be able to pickup a Japanese girl from one of these groups. So, to foreigners, some Japanese girls are easy. The majority of Japanese women are no easy for foreigners to pick up.
Japanese women look younger than their age.
In my experience this is a pretty accurate statement. To a foreigner, Japanese girls in their teens to thirties generally appear younger than their actual age. Some of these girls actually appear young, and some of them just know how to apply makeup to look younger.
It is the dream of every Japanese woman to be swept away by a foreign man.
It has been said that Hollywood movies have planted fantasies about foreign men in the minds of Japanese girls. This might be true of some girls, but the majority of Japanese girls avoid contact with foreign men. I have heard several reasons for this:
-The vast majority of foreigners in Japan cannot speak Japanese at an adult level. Many of them cannot speak any Japanese at all. When a foreigner tries to ask for directions in English or broken Japanese, it will often fluster/stress a Japanese person. Most Japanese girls have forgotten almost all the English they learned in school and having a boyfriend who they can’t communicate with.
-Foreigners are also often unfamiliar with Japan’s societal norms and protocols. This makes them unpredictable and strange to many Japanese. The Japanese way of doing things is often very different from the Western way, so there is a lot of opportunity for cultural misunderstandings.
-Certain foreign men in Japan go around trying to have sex with as many Japanese girls as they can. Some Japanese women have heard stories about these foreign players and are weary of foreign men (especially eikaiwai teachers and military guys).
-Most foreigners who come to Japan only stay for a short period of time. Why date a foreigner if he is going to ditch you and go back to his home country in 6 months?
-General fear of unknown.
Japanese girls will think I look like Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise
If you are white or black you are likely to hear yourself compared to some celebrity. Usually it is someone who you do not resemble in the slightest. Just as many people in America might claim that Asians all look similar to them, Japanese people seem to have trouble seeing the differences in foreign faces. Hopefully you’ll look like a celebrity they find handsome.
Categories: General Japan, Japanese Girls
Hello and Welcome to Japan Probe!
I have created this site to act as a blog-based reservoir of information on the more interesting aspects of Japan. Some of the material I post will be of my own original creation, and some of it will be submitted by others or linked from other sites on the net.
I am sure that some of the stuff I post may shock or offend certain people. I haven’t created this site to bash Japan or spread false stereotypes about the Japanese. The content of this site does not necessarily reflect my personal opinions. My goal is to create a site that allows users to read interesting things about Japan.
Thanks,
James
Categories: General Japan