There is magic in Japan and it’s called cosmetics.

It’s well-known that Japanese women spend more time and care on their make-up than women in other countries. Shiseido and its peers are respected for being some of the most successful and effective cosmetic brands in the world.

Here we can see it in action.

S Cawaii fashion magazine organized this incredible demonstration of the power of make-up.

It took a bunch of girls who, without being mean, were fairly ordinary looking — or perhaps even, if we are honest, below average.

But cosmetics was used to bring out their true charms and accentuate their beauty.

For this lady they transformed her lips.

Here the work was on the eyes.

Here’s a video of the make-up before and after!

Last autumn a sensual ad for Glico’s sweet Dororich drink with five Gravure idols was a big hit.

Glico had such a good time with the curvy ladies that they made a new one!

This time the five lovely ladies are…

Anna Konno (b. 1989)

Ayaka Sayama (b. 1993)

Asuka Kishi (b. 1991)

Mitsuki Hoshina (b. 1996)

Arisa (b. 1989)

It’s great to see Gravure idols getting mainstream exposure like this. More of this please!

No one is above the law.

An ex-cop from the riot police has been arrested for the attempted abduction of a 15-year-old school girl in Akishima, Tokyo.

Former police sergeant Koichi Omura (32) left the force in March but has been busy since then.

He is accused of coming up to a fifteen-year-old high school first grade student early in the morning on April 15th. He was in a rented car and she was walking along a street.

“There was a crime nearby. You need to cooperate with me in a case,” he said to her, no doubt hoping either to terrify her into “cooperation” or to make her feel excited to be part of a top police unit.

He flashed a police notebook at the innocent teenager.

Brilliant, using his former police resources!

She got in but there was no pulling the wool over this young girl’s eyes. She smelt the unmistakably stink of lewd motives in Omura’s eyes and tried to get out.

Despite Omura’s best police-trained efforts, the schoolgirl managed to escape with the help of passersby.

Omura — who must know that Japan has a 99% conviction rate — is now being sweated by his former peers. He denies all charges of attempted kidnap of a minor.

“I rented the car the day before, but I loaned it to an acquaintance.”

Years on the force taught him how to conjure up terrible alibis!

Outspoken former Osaka mayor and founder of the Japan Restoration Party, now Japan’s third largest party, Toru Hashimoto has got himself in hot water over some comments he made about the “comfort women” during the war and his recommendations for how to avoid rapes in Okinawa.

Hashimoto, no stranger to getting noticed by provocative comments, told reporters in Osaka on on Monday that the “comfort women” (local women forced into prostitution by the colonizing Japanese forces in Asia during the war) were necessary in order to maintain military discipline.

The women “were necessary in order to provide relaxation for those brave soldiers who had been in the line of fire,” he said.

He then explained that on a trip to Okinawa he told leading US military staff that troops should make more use of prostitutes to relieve sexual tension.

“I’m not merely making conversation. I want them to use sex shops more,” Hashimoto told the American.

US troops are formally forbidden from entering brothels and the number of sexual assaults on Okinawa against local women is high.

On the surface, what Hashimoto is saying is not crazy but his style is likely what is upsetting people. (Also, Osaka has the largest population of Korean-Japanese, many of whom are descended from people forcibly brought to Japan, so he should have tread more carefully given the turf he was on!)

“The wartime violations of women is a grave violation of human rights that is widely shared by the international community. The remarks by Hashimoto reveal a serious lack of perception for women’s human rights,” responded one South Korean government spokesperson.

Of course, just because “comfort women” were “necessary” it doesn’t mean they wanted to do it (and Hashimoto also admits they were forced, which many Japanese deny — including Shinzo Abe’s first government in 2007!) or that it was a nice thing, but it would be naive to suggest that armies don’t “need” sex.

Likewise, he justified his other remarks with the valid historical example of how the American Occupation forces and Japanese government organized prostitutes for the US troops immediately after the foreign troops arrived to avoid large-scale rape… It basically worked, though I’m sure it was horrible for the women involved.

Shintaro Ishihara, who is co-leader of Hashimoto’s party and well-known for his own verbal gaffes, said: “Any military is commonly associated with prostitution. It’s a principle of history and by no means preferable. But Hashimoto is not saying anything wrong, basically.”

Washington apparently responded that Hashimoto’s comments were “ridiculous”.

Boys, time to despair. The pages of your tabloids won’t be filled with images of sexy Gravure model Yumi Sugimoto for a while.

The top sexpot has come down with acute pyelonephritis, meaning she has to take a few weeks off work and recover.

Recently Yumi has been working more in the mainstream, including a role in a musical till earlier this month and even a supporting part in a NHK period drama in 2012. She also appears in the tokusatsu TV show, Engine Sentai Go-onger.

Get well soon, Yumi!

A man has been arrested for molesting a woman on a train, known as chikan in Japan.

Nothing new in that. Another day, another groper.

But this time the 26-year-old man from Osaka claims the whole thing had been arranged via a special online forum. On the website people who want to molest and a woman who wanted to be molested invited collaborations for a public “session” on a moving train.

The date and plan was set for the Kokawa-Kainan Wakayama line one morning during the Golden Week holidays.

The woman told forum members what she would be wearing and that she would respond realistically — i.e. resist!

The would-be victim even posted information on her wardrobe and where she was sitting on the day of the session itself.

Two men decided to satisfy her cravings and went up to a sitting woman who matched the description on the train. One sat next to her and another stood in front, and both proceeded to grope her for around twenty minutes. She protested, louder and louder, to the extent that one man got scared and got off the train. The other lapsed into silence. Her “realism” had been a bit much and all the eyes in the carriage were on him!

At the end of the line the man tried to get off but the victim grabbed him and brought him to the station staff.

The twenty-three-year-old woman claims to have never used the website and that she always sits in the same seat on the train.

It seems our hapless chikan may have been set up by a prankster (who no doubt was also on the train and watching the events with amusement) and the online forum admin is now co-operating with the police. After all, they have the IP address and other details of the original poster.

So it just goes to show, guys, some things are too good to be true!

We’ve always known that the people behind AKB48 do not understand the meaning of bad taste, and here’s the latest demonstration. From Lolicon kiddy dancing to “hand-bras”, AKB48 continues to plumb the depths of the cringe-worthy.

AKB48 member Yuki Kashiwagi is filmed grating a yam to make totoro for no better reason that than it is an excuse to show incredibly gratuitous and infantile shots of her drinking what is suggested to be cum.

Seriously, this is embarrassing to watch. They literally show close-ups of the idol’s mouth eating the white liquid — and yet, Yuki is forced to remain a virgin and never have boyfriends all the while she stays a member of AKB. (Although, Yuki does not seem to be obeying the rules about dating, at any rate.)

Come on! We love porn but don’t hide behind a facade of “innocence”. Just make a porno, for christ’s sake! We know that Yuki Kashiwagi is sexy, so why not go through with the real thing?

AKB48 is the perfect example of chuto hanpa, being halfway somewhere and thus nowhere.

It pays to be careless sometimes, it seems.

For a Japanese porn star, despite all those nakadashi scenes, you would think that getting pregnant was the thing they fear most. It signals if not the end of their career, at least a large blimp where they cannot work.

But not if you are as cute as the cosplayer JAV porn star Tsubomi, whose latest film is simply called Tsubomi Pregnant.

We think the main point of the film is thus pretty obvious.

Of course, there are lots of pregnant porn films already and even pregnant women sex shops for people with lactating breasts fetishes.

But this is a major star, so the profile is much higher and Tsubomi has made an image out of innocence and purity.

Now that has been smashed by the large lump in her stomach… which can be used to great advantage in this two-hour film. For example, to be dripping with spunk or groped by two men at the same time.

Offensive to the idea of maternity? Or just plain sexy?

Hurray for good customer service.

Over on Tokyo Reporter we read a interesting little summary of a tabloid article that claims Abenomics — the Japanese prime minister’s fiscal policies aimed at bringing inflation — are having no effect on the sex industry.

You can still head to a soapland and have a good time with all the foam and frolics for as little as 10,000 yen, and sometimes even lower in certain east Tokyo neighborhoods like Yoshiwara.

Abenomics might have raised the Nikkei by sixty percent but actually a price war has emerged between certain establishments in notorious areas like Ikebukuro. There are even early bird discounts from 7am to 8am in at least one soapland.

For the uninitiated, soaplands are bathhouse-style sex parlors where you get a wash and other “extra” services are also on the menu. A naked women will rub you down with soap and her body, and then perform others of physical “cleaning” on your body. Foreigners are typically turned away but certain places are welcoming.

And a cheaper price doesn’t mean lesser quality services either, apparently. “In these recessionary times, the high-end shops still provide luxurious facilities,” says one source! Great!

To celebrate the upcoming Tokyo performances of the Hatsune Miku opera “The End” we wanted to show a side to the virtual idol that likely won’t be put on a stage soon… but deserves to be.