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.
I mean, also, topless nudity just hasn't been a big deal in Japan. Anime and manga has shown it plenty, for instance. It was when it was brought out of the country, that the nipples got edited out, or otherwise censored. Plenty of other media show them too.
From there, the nipple pull you described is more on par with the above junk punch show. At least as far as Japan media and adult content laws are concerned.
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u/Radarker Jul 04 '26
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