Whilst wandering around Nipponbashi, my friend and I couldn’t help but notice certain sights every 6 shops or so. At first we thought it couldn’t be. It had to be a ruse. We were goin’ crazy. Surely not on main streets, in broad daylight and clear view of everybody?! But turns out it was so. Porn shops. Lining the streets like any other shop. Unobtrusively. Just there in clear view of everybody who happens to wander past. Some of stores lucky enough to have forward thinking merchandisers even had HDTV’s set up at the front of the store with videos playing of big breasted Japanese ladies skipping, running through sprinklers in slow motion and bending over to music – all in 1080p. My friend and I figured: we’re guys, we are in Japan and people pounding the pavements didn’t seem to care or be objective and judgmental of the sex shops one way or the other – so we wandered into one or two…or three…maybe five. Okay, six!

It truly was surreal. There were other men wandering around in the shops with shopping baskets like they were walking down the aisle of their local Family Mart, which begged the question: How much porn do some buy in one go? I guess buying in bulk saves trips. It was funny watching other men mooch around like they were in HMV. Shop attendants aren’t as helpful as they are in HMV though. These stores are all about anonymity. The store attendants only acknowledge you if you approach them, which is fair enough. I guess no dude wants a store attendant creeping up behind him yelling “Irasshaimase! What kind of DVD are you looking for? We have a buy one get one free on guzzling and bum sex today!” A couple of the stores have till points where a piece of non-transparent plexiglass or a curtain is placed between the cashier and the buyer, so the transactions were faceless. Again, adding to the anonymity, and also killing alibi’s in cases where a husband is buying porn when he should be buying his family that new rice cooker or heated toilet seat instead.

Sex is a weird thing in Japan. It’s still a bit of a taboo subject, yet it isn’t at the same time. But it sure is funny.