November 2008

Assembly line nuptials

By CJ • November 18, 2008

TOKYO – At the time, Aaron Frisell was just starting out as a wedding pastor in Japan. He stood at the head of the …

Raunchy wife, flaky husband revel in kinky togetherness

By Kazutaka Shimanaka • November 18, 2008

“We’ve been married a long time, and it’s been quite a while since my husband and I engaged in any ‘night life,’” writes a …

Woman’s foreign ‘sefure’ really hit the G-spot

By Mieko Shimizu • November 16, 2008

“Five years ago, a Canadian student I ran into in a bar district came on to me,” says Asako, a 45-year-old woman who works …

Mahjong world championship comes to Tokyo

By CJ • November 14, 2008

TOKYO – Jong Rock rides a motorcycle and plays guitar. He’s a tough guy with long sideburns and a skull-painted leather jacket. The ladies …

Tsukiji

By CJ • November 13, 2008

TOKYO – Outside the tiny Yamato sushi shop within Tokyo’s bustling Tsukiji Fish Market, a long line of customers forms down a narrow alley. …

A J-pop diary

By CJ • November 13, 2008

TOKYO – It was an experience like no other. Fully naked early one morning, she swam freely – and unseen – in the pool …

Glimpses of Taro Okamoto on television or in photographs often showed the avant-garde artist with his hands moving in circles in front of his face, flashing the cheeky grin and bulging eyes that became as well-known as his proclamation: “Art is an explosion!”

Unwinding the mystery of the gyroball

By CJ • November 9, 2008

TOKYO – Daisuke Matsuzaka is 26 and sports a crown of spiky hair. He stands at 182 centimeters, weighs 85 kilograms, and throws a …

Toshio Maeda: Hentai pioneer

By CJ • November 8, 2008

Toshio Maeda’s groundbreaking manga series “Urotsuki Doji” from 1986 firmly placed him in the history books as the pioneer of the genre known as hentai, or perverted. The work featured violent and graphic images of shapely young women being probed, felt, and fondled by the tentacles, elongated tongues, and miscellaneous extensions of creatures. The world of manga would never be the same again.

Takeshi Oshima: adult manga artist

By CJ • November 8, 2008

His “Kanji Sasete Baby” series from 15 years ago was his breakthrough. It appeared in Young Magazine with a translation into Italian appearing 10 years later. Bazooka, Shuman Special, Geino Nippon, and the women’s monthly Amour now regularly feature his comics.