Market size of Japanese sexual image and adult video businesses FY 2015-2019
The Japanese porn industry: development and legalities
The number of Japanese adult video (JAV for short) related businesses has remained stable throughout recent years, including a variety of video chat platforms, pornographic websites, and television channels. Modern JAVs were preceded by soft-core pornographic productions dubbed pink films, which first gained popularity in 1960s-Japan. As movie theaters saw a decline in attendance amid the rising popularity of television, major production companies such as Nikkatsu began to enter the more lucrative pink film market, which had been mostly independent hitherto.Since its implementation in 1907, Article 175 of the Japanese Penal Code has remained the main legal base regulating the Japanese pornographic industry. While the article deems the distribution, sale, or public display of obscenity punishable by short-term prison sentences or fines, the vagueness of the term obscenity has since led to inconsistencies in court decisions and numerous legal loopholes. Commonly, the act is interpreted in a way that genitals and sexual intercourse are being censored or blurred in Japanese print and digital pornography. Nonetheless, approximately two thousand people face arrests for public indecency and obscenity offenses per year.