Under the Tempō Reforms, printing blocks of erotic literature, as well as the novels of Tamenaga Shunsui and Tanehiko Ryūtei were among those seized.
[9] After the surrender of Japan in 1945, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers abolished all forms of censorship and controls on freedom of speech.
[11] Censorship of certain events related to the Allied forces left various groups of Japanese citizens to be subjected to discrimination by their peers.
Unable to speak out against the results of the atomic bombs and to assimilate with other Japanese citizens, most Hibakusha had to live in isolation within the homes of their family.
The CIE on the other hand, was primarily used to educate Japanese publishers and producers on how to integrate prodemocratic values into their publications to boost support for the new government.
In the court's opinion, it cited a three-part test for obscenity previously established by the Supreme Court of Judicature in 1928; under this test, a work is considered obscene if it "arouses and stimulates sexual desire, offends a common sense of modesty or shame, and violates proper concepts of sexual morality".
[16] Due to this legal interpretation, the majority of pornography produced in Japan undergoes self-censorship; the primary means are digital mosaics and/or censor bars placed over genitalia.
The lower court held that the defendants–Takechi and Nikkatsu distributor chief Satoru Murakami–were not culpable because the film had successfully passed Eirin, Japan's self-regulating movie regulator.
[17] In January 2004, Yūji Suwa, Motonori Kishi, and Kōichi Takada were prosecuted for producing and distributing the hentai manga anthology Misshitsu, in the first manga-related obscenity trial in Japan.
In its 2007 decision, the Court upheld the guilty verdict, concluding that Misshitsu satisfied the three-part obscenity test and was therefore subject to restriction.
After the convictions of Kishi and Suwa, a number of retail bookstores in Japan removed their adults-only section, a phenomenon attributed to the chilling effect of the outcome.
[21] In July 2013, three people related to Core Magazine, a Japanese publishing company focused on adult material, were arrested for selling "obscene images" with "insufficient censoring.
[25] In 2022, Japan introduced a law to revise its Penal Code that would mandate a jail time for up to a year and a larger fine for making "online insults".