Junior Idol - Regulation

Regulation

The Japanese Anti-child prostitution and pornography law enacted in November 1999—and revised in 2004 to criminalize distribution of child pornography over the Internet—defines child pornography as the depiction "in a way that can be recognized visually, such a pose of a child relating to sexual intercourse or an act similar to sexual intercourse with or by the child", of "a pose of a child relating to the act of touching genital organs, etc." or the depiction of "a pose of a child who is naked totally or partially in order to arouse or stimulate the viewer's sexual desire."

Given the above adumbrated definition, junior idol materials stand on legally ambiguous ground: it is often difficult to draw the line between art and pornography.

Despite inherent difficulties in effectively enforcing a ban on such materials, on August 25, 2007 the Japanese branch of Amazon.com removed over 600 junior idol titles on grounds the likelihood these were produced in violation of the Japanese anti-child prostitution and pornography law was high. This incident was then followed by the arrest—on October 16—of 34-year-old Jisei Arigane (有金慈青?) chief producer of Shinkosha (心交社?) (a company specialized in idol and pornographic materials, as well as a number of novels and technical texts) and three associates over the production of an "obscene" DVD shot earlier in 2007 in the Indonesian island of Bali, starring a girl who was seventeen at the time. The prolonged filming of the girl's genitalia was in violation of Japanese law. Following the incident, the release date of several photobooks and DVDs originally slated for publication in November 2007 was postponed and idol events cancelled.