And so the pre-Olympic crackdown continues.
After earlier initiatives outside Tokyo, we reported in November 2017 on the decision by the convenience store chain Ministop to stop selling pornographic magazines.
Well, the sentiment is spreading and one of the largest chains in the country, Lawson, announced on January 21st that its 14,574 branches nationwide would in principle cease sales of adult magazines by the end of August.
Until now, it was up to affiliates in the franchise whether or not they sold porn magazines, which typically are available in most conbinis among the rack of other types of magazines. But now the Lawson HQ has made it an explicit recommendation to stop selling adult magazines, which branches are pretty certain to follow.
The 231 branches of Lawson in Okinawa has already stopped offering such materials since November 2017 and, after apparent “success” and “understanding” from customers, the chain is now rolling this out to the rest of the country.
Heaven forbid if some tourists, athletes, or IOC bigwigs happen to see some pornographic materials on sale at a store in summer 2020!
Of course, it starts with adult magazines, defined as content for those aged 18 and above, but perhaps next it will be the weekly tabloids that always have plenty of gravure idol shoots and even sometimes “hair nude” shoots.
We hate to do this but we told you so: back in 2013 we had already speculated on this happening.
Fingers crossed that things get back to normal from 2021…
