Tenga doesn’t waste time and money with New Year’s cards, as is the custom in Japan.

Instead it produces a special customized version of its Deep Throat Onacup to celebrate 2016, the Year of the Monkey.

The deep red of the cup is paired with a gold monkey face and mizuhiki-style ribbon.

Sadly this isn’t for sale but what a great design.

Japanese love hotels come in all shapes and sizes.

There are all manner of crazily themed hotels out there, enough to fill more than one coffee-table book.

A recent one we looked at is Keibajo US in Niigata, with its classrooms, hospital ward rooms, and more, plus there is this great “vintage Japan” hotel in our old stomping ground of Osaka.

Here is another great example of the sheer inventiveness and skill of love hotels to appeal to our fantasies.

Again, as we know from the history of love hotels, like with most of the really outrageously designed hotels, it is not in a central metropolitan area (for example, most of the hotels in, say, Shibuya or Kabukicho are garish and neon, yet relatively tame).

As shared by steampink afficionado @kemekime on Twitter, this love hotel has a steampunk room.

It is located in Kinshicho, an area in east Tokyo near the Sumida River.

You can find the steampunk room in Hotel Sara, which opened in late September 2015. The hotel has a lot of differently themed rooms, including a “ninja room”, a train room, company president suite, planetarium, and more. Enough kitsch to supply a small nation.

The steampunk room is number 601. The bathroom is fairly conventional, though.

While the days of ever more insane love hotel facades are apparently long gone in favor of better facilities and amenities, examples like Hotel Sara show that themed rooms are still in demand.

Only the other day we blogged about Tenga’s awesome Year of the Monkey design onacup.

Well, Tenga actually closed their special year of celebrations for their tenth anniversary by opening a new store in downtown Osaka in December.

It’s their first outlet in Osaka and occupies a prominent site in Namba (our old stomping ground).

To promote the store, Tenga invited porn star Mana Sakura to join them for the opening. Mana is fast becoming Tenga’s go-to girl for advertising.

Here she is cutting the ribbon and then posing with Koichi Matsumoto, the Tenga company president. He is wearing his trademark Tenga jumpsuit while she is sporting a Tenga onacup costume.

The Tenga Store can be found at 2-2-2 Nanba-naka, Naniwa Ward, Osaka. They are also currently recruiting staff, it seems, though the pay is rather measly ¥900 an hour. We’re sure there are peaks, though, not least is hanging out with Mana Sakura.

Can’t make it to Osaka but fancy some Tenga? We know a shop that can help you out.

We previously covered the slinky, slutty delights of Yuki Mamiya, aka Yuki Mogami.

The gravure idol is an occasional actress, appearing in such masterpieces as the soft-core pono Chotto Kawaii Iron Maiden.

She has already done semi-nude (butt) shots and some very revealing gravure idol “image videos”.

But in May 2015 she did a hair nude (full frontal) shoot for Shukan Gendai, shot by the legendary Hajime Sawatari. He is a famous photographer but also does these hair nude shoots from time to time, such as with AV actress Yuu Kawakami.

In 2013 she starred in Sweet Whip (Amai Muchi), in which she did these crazy bondage sex scenes.

The film also starred Mitsu Dan (in an award-winning turn) and narrated by sexy MILF actress Mai Kitajima.

While we could spend the whole post gloating over Mitsu Dan’s naked body in the film, her flesh is pretty familiar by now. We are interested in Yuki’s!

Vice seems to have a bee in its bonnet over Japan’s so-called “JK industry” of schoolgirl prostitution.

After its provocative and criticized article and video last year, now it reports on a police crackdown on “businesses that exploit underage girls”.

The article is written by Tokyo Vice (no relation) author Jake Adelstein, who has made a career out of presenting himself as the gaijin expert on all things Yakuza. Recently he has tried to talk a lot about teenager prostitution too and linking it to AKB48, getting a lot of flak for it.

When a UN investigator visiting Japan condemned the country’s lack of effort to deal with the sexual exploitation of children, she made special mention of JK businesses.

JK stands for joshi kousei, or a female high school student. The businesses offer a wide range of services, from simply taking walks with girls to buying sexually provocative photos of them to having sex.

After the investigator, special rapporteur for the United Nations on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, made her claims, the Japanese government demanded that she retract them. But the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) appears to be reacting somewhat differently — by creating an ordinance to regulate JK businesses in the city of 13 million people.

Police sources admit to VICE News that the businesses are hotbeds of prostitution, and that there have been frequent cases of young girls suffering sexual abuse. In addition, girls often end up graduating from the JK business into the more overt sex industry. Last year, the TMPD raided four JK businesses on suspicion of violations of child welfare laws and other offenses, and subsequently put at least 10 high school girls in protective custody.

The TMPD is apparently now debating the best way to combat the industry. This may result in legislation like the one Aichi Prefecture introduced to combat its local problems with underage female prostitution.

The first business to be punished in Aichi after the law went into effect was Studio Ee in the city of Nagoya, which billed itself as a “Field Trip Club.”

“I thought this level of stuff was okay,” the 51-year-old owner reportedly told police when he was arrested last September. “My sense of it all became dulled.”

At Studio Ee, customers would look at girls through a one-way mirror and choose which girl they wanted to observe more closely. The girls chosen would go to the mirror and pull up their skirts or get on all fours. Some girls would masturbate or simulate masturbation.

To be honest, there have been reports about a police crackdown in Akihabara and Kabukicho at regular intervals for years, much of it addressed at the JK industry, borderline maid cafes, and other dark corners of the districts.

While Aichi is proud of having already investigated and warned many businesses, the new ordinance does not carry much in the way of a penalty.

Violators can have their business operations suspended for up to six months, and repeat offenders can face imprisonment of up to a year or a fine up to about $4,200.

The article has some oddities — editorially, one whole paragraph repeats at the end — but it also highlights our issue with Vice in general. It’s called “Vice” for Chrissakes; it has made its career out of reporting on edgy and criminal things in an exploitative way, so we find it a bit much when it, and Adelstein, try to get on a moral high horse.

We don’t condone underage prostitution but we wonder how useful such moralizing is. We think these things have to put into context. How big is this “industry” really? By reporting so much on it, it creates the impression that men in Japan are disproportionately making use of these services.

Remember, they highlight cases of girls under 18, but they mention a case of a girl aged 17. Well, that’s above the age of consent in most countries (Japan’s own age of consent is ambiguous, though it is below the age of official adulthood, which is 20).

Of course, we don’t have the overall stats on the JK industry either, nor are we in the position to start lecturing other westerners about damaging Japan’s reputation (we are “Tokyo Kinky” after all) — though our power is tiny compared to the likes of Vice. Even so, we can’t help calling out sensationalism when we see it.

For example, the article depends a lot on the judgment of the UN investigator for authority, but she was forced to withdraw some of the things she said as they were too colloquial and sensational.

Japan, the land of the panchira (up-skirt panties shot) fetish. Well, not quite. Nonetheless, there is a robust subculture of men obsessed with panchira, so much so it crops up even in mainstream culture too a fair bit.

And now there is this awesome tongue-in-cheek product: the Upskirt Umbrella.

It’s been created by the Million Girls Project, which sounds like a college fraternity sex contest.

While people in Japan probably have to head to a store in Akihabara to get their hands on this unique umbrella, international interested parties can instead order one from Japan Trend Shop.

They say…

We’re not going to pretend this is a mainstream trend in Japan but even the puritans among us have to admit: it’s a fun idea. The Upskirt Umbrella (or An-burera, a play on the words for “underpants” and “umbrella”) by Million Girls Project might be the most original umbrella you ever buy. Please just be careful not to get arrested when using it, though! The Upskirt Umbrella is a very tongue-in-cheek spin on Japan’s reputation for turning schoolgirls into sex objects. Well, it might not improve that image but it certainly makes for a novel way to keep the rain off your head!

Hell, we think this is the true Cool Japan! What other place could get away with this?!

Open up the canopy and on the front there is a moe anime idol. That alone might draw heads. But the user can also entertain him or herself by looking up to view underneath her skirt! There are two versions with different panties: striped or swimming costume-style dark blue. The stripy panties girl is a character with blond hair in the first grade, while the more demure girl wearing the swimming costume is a second grader. The Upskirt Umbrella has caused a stir online when it was spotted in stores in Akihabara. Do you dare try to use it?!

So which girl do you want?

We’ve written before about Japan’s amazing condom brands that go to great lengths to market their products in original ways. They have to do this since Japanese people — if we believe the media and the surveys — are either not interested in sex or, if they are, don’t bother with contraception, leading to rising STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

And so we get the Durex “horror movie” or the annual “Condom Day” stunt.

Okamoto, the makers of the world’s thinnest condom, have created this new ad for their products, using a lot of CGI.

It starts with two dinosaurs roaring. But if you think you’re watching a bad sequel to the Jurassic Park franchise, think again.

These dinosaurs are humping and having a good time.

That is, until the female dino realizes her partner isn’t wearing protection. Then she gets angry. Watch and learn.

Okamoto is on something of a marketing high right now. It recently aired its first TV ad in 11 years and is pushing its lineup hard (no pun intended).

The same Okamoto campaign (called Lovers Labo) promises more concept products, including a “condom belt”. We’ll update when more details emerge.

First she shaved off her hair in a penitence for having sex. Now she is getting fat.

AKB48’s Minami Minegishi has gained weight to pose for this “chubby” idol picture.

Why? Because it is a campaign for the luxury fitness gym RIZAP, which runs intensive programs for getting metropolitan people into shape.

Here is Minegishi in her buff form again.

If you live in Tokyo, you would be familiar with RIZAP for the loud advertising trucks they drive around city, depicting before-and-after images of unhealthy bodies transforming into muscular ones.

The gym has been criticized by some, however, for its overly intensive programs which can have bad effects on the body, especially women (e.g. affecting their menstrual cycle). After all, it can’t be good to go from slightly overweight to muscular so suddenly.

A triumph at last for basic human rights and fans of idols in Japan.

A 23-year-old female member of an idol group who was sued for around ¥9.9 million (over $80,000) for breach of contract by dating a fan can celebrate — and her bank account can let out a sigh of relief — as her former management agency’s suit has been dismissed by the Tokyo District Court.

The girl — unnamed in the media reports — had made a contract with the company in April 2012 when she was just 19. It contained a clause saying that damages would be sought if she had a relationship with a fan. She started dating a male fan in around December 2013. She told the agency she wanted to quite in July 2014 and did not appear in a concert as planned. The agency then filed a suit against her for compensation.

“Having relations with the opposite sex is part of our liberty to pursue happiness. Even taking into account the special circumstances of being an idol, a ban on this was taking things too far,” ruled the judge on January 18th.

Many idols have been forced to resign or have lost their positions in music groups due to the notorious “no-dating” rules.

A recent victim is Mayu Harada of Keyakizaka46, who had to leave the group when pictures emerged of her kissing her former teacher.

In AKB48, Rino Sashihara was exiled to a smaller sister group but ultimately survived her sex scandal to become one of the most popular and powerful girls in the AKB roster.

Likewise, Minami Minegishi made headlines when she shaved her head as penance for her “sex crime” but has since bounced back.

If you are expendable, though, you end up out on the street. Yuka Masuda, for example, was sacked from AKB48 for having a relationship with a male colleague.

Management companies have been known to sue idols who breach the no-dating clauses in their contracts. Not only the idols, but fans who cross that forbidden line and have relationships with idols have also been known to face suits.

Are we now entering a new age where idols will be able to have relationships just like ordinary human beings?

Remember the Oppai Bokin (Boob Aid) event in December?

The annual event is run by a cable television network as part of a weekend of charity shows called ERO24TV (or 24-Hour TV: Eroticism Saves the Earth). This is perhaps the highlight of the event, because it allows ordinary men and women to grope porn stars’ breasts if they make a donation to charity.

This year’s squeeze-a-thon was the most successful Boob Aid yet, with 7,175 men lining up to get their hands on porn stars’ busts for a few seconds each.

Well, Boob Aid has become famous overseas too and is regularly featured in lots of media coverage (in the kind of “wacky Japan” bargain bin of news, it seems).

It seems that not everyone sees this cop-a-feel event as a light-hearted way to raise money for an AIDS-awareness charity.

An online petition has been launched, titled: Stop exploiting women’s bodies while using “fund-raising for AIDS” as an excuse to promote the company and raise profits.

At the time of writing, it has just shy of 9,000 signatories and it aims to get 10,000, whereupon it will be sent in a flurry of moral high-horsing to the network (to be promptly ignored, we expect).

Here are some excerpts from the outraged polemic.

This petition campaign is not criticizing the (legal and consensual) sex/porn industry, nor is it trying to discourage people from expressing their sexuality or being sexually active. That said, this event should not be condoned and continued.

Please stop exploiting women’s body for promotional and commercial aim.

This event hides behind the front of being a “charity event” but in reality, the participants are basically just paying to touch bare breasts. If this is really a charity event, where all involved parties are volunteering (meaning they aren’t financially compensated), then technically, aren’t the real donors the women themselves, who gain little to nothing from this event?

Using the word “donation” makes it seem as if this is a good thing that serves public interests. However, sexualizing female breasts and using it as part of fund-raising is merely a ploy to attract public attention to the program or channel. This entire deal, from the women’s bodies to the fund-raising, is an effort to boost viewership, and in the long run, generate profit for the companies involved.

By catering to men’s desire to touch female breasts under the guise of a charity, treating erotic content as if it were anything but that and making it accessible to the vast public shows a lack of discretion on the part of the event organizers. Despite the blatantly sexist and exploitative nature of the event, they promote it on their website and through social media openly using women’s bodies as an advertisment tool, accessible to the general public, including minors.

And the zinger: “Moreover, what do boobs have to do with AIDS advocacy?”

Well, nothing — but it is a good way to raise money and Boob Aid has raised millions of yen.

There is a version in Japan, suggesting its instigators are not all non-Japanese. Even so, we are not sure if even 10,000 signatures from around the world will mean much to the Japanese organizers when the event has been such a success in terms of funds raised and participants.

We stumbled upon this report about a doujin game called Naked Run.

It involves a male streaker (you!) who has to run through a school full of cute Japanese schoolgirls with nice legs. (Wait, didn’t this actually happen a while back?)

However, the school has a hot security force who will knee you in the balls, so watch out for that!

Note the censored genitals. This is Japan — you can make a game about a man trying to harass schoolgirls with his naked schlong but you can’t show the you-know-what!

The game is free and available on DMM.r18’s doujin portal. Windows only, we’re sorry to say.

We all know that Japan has a thing about cat girls and related adult toys, and in general kemonomimi anthropomorphism is huge.

So you’ve probably already tried the whip and the collar, the cat ears, the costumes, and the animal tails.

But what about this?

The Chokyo Dog Bone Gag is a BDSM mouth accessory that transforms your partner or slave into a canine canine.

He or she can crawl around on all fours with this bone between their mouth.

The bone looks great and is just the right size: not too big to affect movement or cause pain.

The gag collar is also adjustable and comes in faux leather so it has that luxury look while still being easy to clean and maintain.

Now you just need to find that slave to be your bitch.

Nico Live is Niconico’s live streaming service.

This Japanese girl is apparently a frequent user of the service but ends up getting banned. It’s not hard to see why when she is stripping off nude in front of her webcam.

Here are some great nude selfies that really show off her body.

Not as seductive as Nima Park but incredible breasts!

Her user named is Oimotan (お芋たん). Forget those boring YouTubers now dominating pop culture in Japan: it’s Nico Live where the real fun’s at!

Perhaps the most famous webcam girl was Eririka Katagiri, who delighted us with her nude dancing before creating her own clone onahole and carving out a niche in porn.

Despite recently marrying (or perhaps because she recently married) Japan’s most eligible bachelor, Masaharu Fukuyama, Japanese women have chosen Kazue Fukiishi as the celebrity with the best breasts.

Fukuiishi has a nice slender body but she certainly wouldn’t be most people’s initial choice. She hardly has much of a bust to speak of anyway, though what she has was shown off in a series of UNIQLO ads.

She also posed semi-naked for women’s magazine Anan a few years ago.

Second was Ryoko Shinohara, who raised some eyebrows with her tantalizing bra ad for Triumph.

Less surprising is the cute and busty Haruka Ayase, who was third. Haruka is sometimes said to be the woman Japanese men most want to date.

Yui Aragaki — who basically has no bust — came fourth, strangely, while the slim but relatively busty Haruna Kojima was fifth (or at least, Haruna has been showing off her assets in the Peach John catalogues).

I guess this proves that like Japanese men, Japanese women don’t value bust size. After all, some of them wear bras to reduce their bust size.

Well, not necessarily. The top ten also included some bustier ladies such as Kyoko Fukada and Eiko Koike.

Still, for really impressive breasts on display, perhaps Japanese women should just log onto Nico Live.

Footjob onaholes seem to be a thing right now.

The Realistic Ashikoki Footjob Onahole marked the welcome return of a quality masturbator replicating the experience of a Japanese girl’s feet rubbing you to orgasm.

Now there comes this fascinating version by Tama Toys.

The Puni Ashi DX Footjob Onahole is a single foot with realistic toes. Use it to stroke, rub, and step on your member in the way you like it.

But Tama Toy, as is their penchant, take things one step further (no pun intended).

You can actually penetrate this foot through a hole in the sole, pushing your way up the lower leg.

So is that a “leg job”? Is there even a name for that?!

At music events, alcohol and passions can run wild.

At Electrox on January 9th — Japan’s largest EDM music event — two people got a little too into the festive spirit.

They were filmed having sex at the festival venue.

まってwwwwwwwwwwww さすがにくっそふいたwwwwww #electroX pic.twitter.com/nYfuSROqKi

— たかちょ(0才児) (@takatyo1012) January 9, 2016

Their antics remind us of the bizarre Japanese porn film Dotsui Tarunen Live Music Sex Concert, in which Natsuki Yokoyama has sex during a concert by the band Dotsui Tarunen right there in the mosh pit.

Fetish Festival (Feti-Fes) was held on January 31st at a venue in Harajuku and what a serendipitous collection of fetishes it was!

We loved the one we attended last year. This January we couldn’t go in person but watched from afar via the festival’s official social media channels, from where we have pouched these shots.

Everything from rope bondage and steampunk to almost-not-there bikini idols, crotch shots, masks, blood and horror, nurses, eyepatches, facesitting, and everything in between.

The festival remains one of the most accessible ways to experience the sheer range of the fetish scene in Japan.

We especially like the candle wax girls! They can drip on us any day!

And this dreadlocked slinky cosplayer had no sense of the winter chill at all!

The zentai all-body suit brigade were out in force.

This kumo-onnna “spider girl” is one of the more bizarre ones we’ve seen in a while, though.

5F倒錯の森でFFNメギちゃん作の蜘蛛のコスチューム着れますよ*\(^o^)/* pic.twitter.com/mwaJOaQJvO

— フェチフェス07☆2016/01/31 (@fetifes2013) January 31, 2016

See you next time, Feti-Fes!

After coming very close to stripping off and showing us her nude body last year, Yuka Kuramochi has finally done it: taken all her clothes off.

That being said, sadly this isn’t a porn debut for the famously big-butted gravure idol nor even a full-frontal hair nude shoot.

But it’s the most naked she’s ever got and boy, are we glad she did it.

The series of “butt artisan” shots in Weekly Playboy showed us her unclothed ass as well as once again coming close to revealing a fully shaved paipan pussy. Come on, Yuka, you are just one step away from the inevitable now!

Tenga is back with another great vibrator for women. The Tenga Iroha Plus (or iroha+) is the latest in the Iroha series that looks as stunning as they feel amazing. (This is Tenga, so no surprises there.)

This time the Iroha comes in three shapes even bolder and unusual than before.

The black Yorukujira is a kind of “nocturnal whale” equipped with a generous mouth and squeezable lips and a tail. The red Ringotori is an “apple bird” with a tempting beak and the Kushinezumi is a shell-shaped “comb mouse” with a host of ribs to tickle.

Tenga remain one of the few Japanese adult brands who really know how to market themselves well, including globally. As such, they made this nice video.

All the vibes have the same style of matte finish that has a great texture (thanks to the double-layered silicone) and also features an anti-dust coating.

There are seven vibration modes, all controlled by the simple two-button interface on the bottom, plus the vibes are waterproof.

It has a stronger motor than before, up to 1.5 more powerful (it uses a rechargeable battery). You can see it in action here.

Hmm… I think I may have found my perfect Valentine’s Gift.

Kyodo News recently had a feature on Onna no ko Kurabu (Girls’ Club), the popular cross-dressing bar and club in Nichome where you can try on women’s clothes away from prying eyes.

The article highlights the “home from home” aspect.

Onna no ko Kurabu is not a drag bar with theatrical outfits and shows, but rather a relaxed space where a man can arrive straight from the office, perhaps in a suit, and indulge his feminine side with a complete transformation.

One side of this cozy bar is marked off with a heaving rack of outfits — everything from understated blazers to gowns with puffy lace sleeves.

Colorful stickers decorate a long mirror behind the clothes rack, with piles of makeup, wigs and skin care products on hand to complete each customer’s look.

According to [manager] Kuriko, the most popular outfits are not costumes but fashion that any stylish woman might wear.

It focuses on the attractive Kuriko.

“In my private life I’m a man, of course, and I dress as a woman for work — it’s both incredibly tiring and incredibly satisfying,” the former real estate agent explained over an iced tea.

It also highlights the changing nature of Nichome, which used to be more secretive but is now popular also with straight patrons.

“Nichome used to be a much more closed community, but with the economic downturn in recent years, gay bars have had to let in ‘tourists’ in order to survive,” Kuriko says.

However, it doesn’t mention the police crackdown Nichome has been experiencing recently or the rising rents, caused by the gentrification of neighboring parts of Shinjuku in response to the inbound tourism boom, that have forced some businesses out.

Instead it sticks to a positive message — that cross-dressing can be the answer to a lot of problems in Japan. Cross-dressing men have greater empathy for women in society and the difficulties they face.

“I would like to see a society where every man has the opportunity to try cross-dressing at least once — that’s the kind of open and warm place Japan should become.”