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‘Obscene’ Photograph Gets Anime Voice Actor Arrested

A man who does voice acting for the anime “One Piece” has been arrested for uploading naked photos of himself to the internet:

Imamura, 56, whose real name is Kiyonori Imamura, is the voice of the character Enporio Iwankofu on “One Piece,” a popular anime.

Police accuse Imamura of displaying a total of four images of tattoos, showing either his genitals or his full body, from April 26 to June 12. Imamura has reportedly admitted to the allegations, saying, “I wanted to brag that I had gone even this far with my tattoos.”

According to police, over the last 10 years Imamura has spent from 4 to 5 million yen covering his body in tattoos. In addition to his voice acting work, Imamura also manages a bar for tattoo enthusiasts in Shinjuku, where he took the obscene photos.

{democracy:460}

The arrest was part of a “general crackdown on child pornography and public displays of obscene imagery” by the Japanese police. Under Japan’s absurd obscenity laws, distributing an uncensored photograph of a naked human body is illegal, while stomach-turning crap like JapaneseDogSex dot com is totally fine [do not visit that url].

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23 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - July 14, 2010 at 10:03 am

Categories: Odd / Strange, Otaku & Anime Tags:

Michael

This from the country where child porn was legal until a decade ago.

http://www.chirimotsumoreba.net Jordan

That’s right and you can still find comic books with drawings featuring children in sexual situations to this day in Akiba. It’s disgusting and yet it carries on with few people thinking twice about it.

The police in this country seriously need to stop trying to make big deals out of so-called celebrity related crimes (as well as checking grandma on her mama-chari every couple of days) and start cracking down on some of the real crime that goes on everyday in Japan.

They know human trafficking is a huge issue in Japan, yet here we are talking about a voice actor’s tattoo’s. This nation’s police are looking more and more pathetic everyday.

saddsaafs

HEY HEY HEY! Those drawn childporns are censored by black bars so no one can get offended! This censor law is so hypocrite.
Magus

Hey, now. When I stayed in Japan, that nation’s police did a damn fine job sweeping the train station floors when they clearly had nothing better to do.

Stereo

Child pornography as well as any kind of pornography is illegal in Japan for more than 100 years.

The point is how you define pornography. In Japan, drawing of a naked child is not pornography, but a photograph of genitalia is pornography. Japan has stricter obscenity rules in certain areas. Actually, most Japanese think the US has too relaxed obscenity rules, as it goes grass looks greener on the other side.

I do not think there is one universal definition of illegal pornography. Exposed breast may be illegal or legal depending on where you are. One should not criticize people in different culture based solely on the culture of the person.

WC

The whole world needs to realize that everyone was born naked and it’s not a sin to BE naked.

Child porn should be outlawed not because it shows children naked but because it is child abuse. Until they are adults, it is up to adults to protect them, often from themselves.

Adult nudity, however, should be up to the adults, both in the picture and looking at them.
Colin

I was in Japan and some friends showed me bad pictures from a magazine and they were censored with a blur. It reminded me of “the Sims”.

Can anyone explain to me why it IS illegal to display these things in Japan? In my time in Japan, Japan has always struck me as being lenient to nudity. I feel like there was a blog post on here explaining it a while back, i just can’t remember.

Tony D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Japan#Censorship_laws

Colin

Thank you, good sir

randomcommenter

Colin,

If memory serves me, it was because GHQ set up the obscenity laws in Japan. When you mix up two different approaches to sex (older Japanese “Sex is fine” and occupying American “You can see their naughty bits! That’s filthy!”), you get a weird chimera (“Sex is fine, but showing the naughty bits is filthy!”)
randomcommenter

Er…What evidence do you have that JapaneseDogSex is totally fine with Japanese obscenity laws? If it’s just because this guy got busted while JapaneseDogSex didn’t, you have to keep in mind that JapaneseDogSex isn’t hosted in Japan, it’s hosted in Germany. Japanese police couldn’t touch it even if they tried.

Now, if you have an understanding of Japanese obscenity law, and it really IS ok with JapaneseDogSex, then I apologize.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I can’t speak for the exact content of that site: it’s just the first site that came up for a google search of the keywords in its domain title. I assume it must contain the kind of content that its title implies.

I’ve seen woman-on-dog videos on open display for rent or sale at video stores in Japan. Whereas the same stores offered only censored human-on-human videos, the same does not apparently apply to dog body parts.

See:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8D%A3%E5%A7%A6

“少数ではあるが、一部のアダルトビデオでは獣姦が行われている（『獣皇』シリーズなど）。”

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8D%A3%E7%9A%87

I am awaiting your apology.

randomcommenter

I apologize unreservedly, and thank you for setting me straight.

I also thank you for the Wikipedia link, where I found out that Meiji era Antarctic explorers fucked penguins.

Vzk

What’s keeping the Japanese government from overturning that stupid and useless law?

Tony D

It’s difficult for governments to do that sort of thing, because it makes them look like they’re soft on pornography, which people will then twist and use to say “they’re soft on exploitation! They’re soft on the organised crime who make it! They’re soft on child abuse!” etc. In general, societies prefer to restrict rights rather than expand them, because of the fear (real or imagined) of what could happen.

A kind of reverse-example that comes to mind is how the Australian Government is planning to censor the internet for Australian users. The minister in charge of it has essentially come out and said anyone who opposes it is a paedophile- completely ignoring any real issues with the situation, and instead using the worst-case-scenario to villianise the opposition.

Vzk

Why not ban all pornography while they’re at it?

Bunch of conformist hypocrites is what they are.

Tony D

“while stomach-turning crap like JapaneseDogSex dot com is totally fine [do not visit that url].”

You know, normally I’d take that sort of thing as a challenge. This is not one of those times.
http://thejapanjourney.blogspot.com Geckomayhem

Why the argument about pornography? He obviously put up the photos because he is a tattoo enthusiast, and thus an artist. The naked form is often painted and sketched because of the curves of the body. That he was arrested isn’t surprising. It’s most probably not that he posted “naked” photos, but that he is a yuumeijin, and tattoos are frowned upon; especially to that extent.

Japan never ceases to amaze me, how ridiculous their stories can be.

randomcommenter

The picture where he’s tied up S&M porn style while someone holds a kendo sword to his crotch might also have had something to do with it. Not that I think he should have been arrested, but the pictures are not all like the nonsexualized one shown in the above image and news clip.

Dan

I like how they blur his entire body and not just the naughty bits.

“Oh man, we can’t let people see this guy’s elbows!”
Ari

The tattoos had to be blurred out because it could be related to the Yakuza or a gang.The Japanese will usually relate tattoos and especially full body tattoos with the Yakuza and in some places tattoos are not to be seen in some business like in bath houses.
richardkoshimizu

this is completely ridiculous. pick up and issue of tattoo burst, or search tattoo on flickr and youll see hundreds of body suits exactly like his, in the same pose.
Ido

This is pretty rough, he shouldn’t get arrested but only given a warning to take that picture down or censor whatever part they need to censor, this is ridiculous.

‘Obscene’ Photograph Gets Anime Voice Actor Arrested

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