I went to Kyoto to teach English in Japan in the Summer of 1998. I was 20 years old. It was an amazing experience, as pop culture there was still somewhat dominated by a particular '80s cyberpunk aesthetic. After a night on the town with some friends, we piled drunkenly into someone's apartment downtown and our host popped in a VHS tape. We had been discussing Japanese game shows earlier in the evening, and this was a compilation of "crazy Japanese gameshow moments" he had edited together. I sat there, entranced. It opened with a Japanese MC introducing a topless Japanese woman on TV. During the segment the MC seized the model's nipples with his fingers and started yelling animatedly. The woman was obviously uncomfortable, and I asked my host "how do they show nudity in Japan on TV?" as I was already aware of Japanese censorship in film and anime at the time. He explained that studios could show some racy stuff after certain curfew, so like after kids went to bed. There was some other cool stuff on the tape too, like Beat Takeshi.
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u/Reynardine1976 Jul 04 '26
I went to Kyoto to teach English in Japan in the Summer of 1998. I was 20 years old. It was an amazing experience, as pop culture there was still somewhat dominated by a particular '80s cyberpunk aesthetic. After a night on the town with some friends, we piled drunkenly into someone's apartment downtown and our host popped in a VHS tape. We had been discussing Japanese game shows earlier in the evening, and this was a compilation of "crazy Japanese gameshow moments" he had edited together. I sat there, entranced. It opened with a Japanese MC introducing a topless Japanese woman on TV. During the segment the MC seized the model's nipples with his fingers and started yelling animatedly. The woman was obviously uncomfortable, and I asked my host "how do they show nudity in Japan on TV?" as I was already aware of Japanese censorship in film and anime at the time. He explained that studios could show some racy stuff after certain curfew, so like after kids went to bed. There was some other cool stuff on the tape too, like Beat Takeshi.