Tokyo’s Kabukicho neighborhood, part of the capital’s Shinjuku Ward, actually has a pretty classy name. Kabuki, of course, is Japan’s proudest and most internationally recognized acting discipline, and the “cho” part just means “town,” referring to a proposal to build a kabuki theater in the district.
However, that proposal was originally made in the late 1940s, and plans to build the theater have long since been abandoned. Instead, Kabukicho has developed into Tokyo’s most unabashed collection of dive bars, hostess clubs, and strip joints. But while Japanese society usually takes a pragmatic view of carnal desire, some things are still considered over the line in the eyes of the law, and a recent investigation turned up the largest collection of illegal adult videos ever confiscated by the Tokyo police in a single operation, as 579,000 porno DVDs were seized.
Despite producing a steady stream of media designed to titillate, Japanese law requires certain censorships, such as mosaics being placed over performers’ genitals. A black market tries to get around these regulations by producing and selling uncensored porn, and on Nov 11 the Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested 47-year-old Kabukicho resident Ariake Morita at a DVD shop in the neighborhood, on suspicion of selling 38 prohibited DVDs to customers for a total price of around 15,000 yen. The subsequent investigation spread to raids on four other porn shops with the same ownership, as well as facilities in which uncensored videos had been produced and stored.
When the dust settled, the police had arrested 17 men, ranging in age from 22 to 79. They also had a massive collection of contraband seized from the stores, which investigators claim were each earning roughly 12 million yen per month (though how much of that came from sales of illegal pornography has not been specified). The police speculate that the proceeds may have been funneled to yakuza criminal organizations, which would add additional charges to those the accused already face.
All 17 suspects have admitted to being complicit in the illegal activities, saying they did so “to earn money for living expenses,” and await trial. In the meantime, no official statement has been given as to how the authorities plan to confirm that all 579,000 DVDs contain illegal, uncensored material, leaving open the possibility of public prosecutors sitting through a lengthy porn marathon as part of their civic duty.
Sources: Nikkan Sports, Kyodo Tsushin 47 News via Otakomu
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© SoraNews24
35 Comments
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Bluewater
These dvds are watched by ojisans since young people tend to download them.
NZ2011
Its such an odd restriction the mosaic thing... perhaps some time spent to make sure people in that industry are there voluntarily and in good mental and physical health would be a better use of time.
Personally I think the very public display of suggestive magazines and manga in everyday conbini's is more of an issue than if a video you have gone out of your way to buy or download has some fuzzy bits.
Aly Rustom
Not only you. I think it is absolutely moronic. Young underage girls in skimpy bikinis being sold in the conbinis whether you want to see it or not- NO PROBLEM! But don't you dare show the genitalia! Anuses on the other hand, hey no problem. Its absolutely bizzare!
ANother point-why are my tax yen being used to fund these worthless sting operations? Don't the cops have real criminals to catch?
Aly Rustom
Of course! How are they going to stop people watching streaming porn on porntube or youporn or pornhub......?
sensei258
Where can I buy one?
dcog9065
Jesus, don’t the police have anything better to do? Leave these guys alone
Bintaro
And I'm sure they won't share any !
Dan Lewis
Uh... pull one out of China's playbook and block foreign sites?
Garthgoyle
Politicians are trying to change the constitution but this archaic dinosaur law still hasn't even been considered for a change.
Daniel Naumoff
"Tadashii Shakai" is just around the corner, comrades. Now to fine and arrest those producing this humanfilth, and we are one step closer to the stars.
papigiulio
Hmmmm, I've seen various famous pornstars in uncensored versions, are they breaking the law? Or is there a loophole? Or is making legal but selling/distribution only illegal?
gogogo
Strangerland
All of it is made uncensored. The mosaics are added in post-production. It's illegal to distribute the non-mosaic porn in Japan, but perfectly legal overseas.
Aly Rustom
Um hackers?
nakanoguy01
who the heck watches porn on DVDs anymore? come on, there's tons of uncensored porn on the net.
but get rid of this stupid mosaic law to begin with. it's so archaic like the anti-dancing laws they just recently got rid of. and paid sex can be had so easily in japan so it just doesn't make sense to censor the vagina and penis.
Aly Rustom
LOL nice one!! Made my day!
Guess I'm the Dunce for the Day- I forgot to put in the magazine part!
DaDude
Someone in the government should come out and tell people, "Folks, put down the porn and get out there and meet real women to make babies." "We are running out of people here!" lol
gokai_wo_maneku
On the one hand it seems that Japan is so safe that police have little to do, on the other hand, as people pointed out, you can download whatever you want to see from the internet. Don't waste tax dollars on this. The police should just take a longer coffee break.
Myhumbletake
Police stations now have lots of videos to spend the day with.
Alex Einz
omg people still use dvds?
maybeperhapsyes
I guessing the overtime budget will be exceeded this month reviewing all those DVD's??
One officer was quoted as saying: "It's a tough job by somebody's gotta do it!"
pacint
BTW, go walk into any store selling porn stuff and ask for 'Ura Video's most will have uncensored videos in the backroom?
We had a local store who produced their own and you could get them uncensored. ;)
Dan Lewis
You don't say!!?? I thought they had semi-transparent filters decorated with small, fuzzy squares that they taped over their bits!
Strangerland
The user who posted this question didn't:
Fair enough you already knew it, but no need to mock those that don't.
shogun36
They don't. Don't you see them in the Koban doing nothing? I walk by my local Koban and see them sleeping at their desks or checking their smartphones. It's an excuse for them to have purpose.
pacint
Koban Cops work a 2-3 Days shift, small room at the back where they sleep. They don't get involved in other duties besides patrolling the neighborhood.
Mostly staffed by juniors or ones close to retirement.
That is for red lighted ones, blue lighted ones are not full-time staffed. Like the blue lighted neighborhood patrol cars.
Kogabriga
DVDs? Mosaic censorship? Wait a minute, which year is this? 1925?
Goodlucktoyou
At least with mosaic porn, a certain amount of acting is involved, as opposed to breast implants and viagra.
Slickdrifter
Only in Tokyo. Cleaning up before the Olympics I guess.
Disillusioned
But, if they can pull half a million DVDs in one bust, how many more of them are floating around?
paradoxbox
fantastic use of our tax money
good job tokyo police. you've surely taken down some serious criminals with this one.
next on the list please:
serial murderers
child rapists
but yeah, first get around to confiscating more of those uncensored porn dvd's. the other issues can wait.
thank you.
Daniel Naumoff
Police has basically seized physical access to those elements that could eventually lead to the degeneration of human being into the ones in you list, "Paradoxbox". Called "prevention", and is a mighty lot more than what police usually does out there. Which I fail to see any reason to call a "bad" thing.
paradoxbox
A few grams of prevention would have saved the lives of a large number of young women who were lured to their deaths in Kanagawa last summer.
I have a real hard time taking garbage police work like this seriously when we have lunatics murdering dozens of women without the police ever having a clue. If they have enough time to examine whether or not DVD's have pixelated someone's genitals they ought to be able to spend time looking into reports of young girls going missing.
mmwkdw
Wonder if they checked each DVD in turn to determine that it was uncensored ? That must surely have been a "hard" job...
bones
You can bet they are going to THOROUGHLY investigate the dvds for CLUES and evidence!!!!