Danica Davidson
April 16, 2025 
The arrests of four people by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police this week made news as the first arrests of its kind. The people had been selling pornographic posters made by AI, but because they didn’t cover up or pixilate the woman’s private parts, they got in trouble for breaking Japan’s obscenity laws.
SoraNews24, which covered the news, looked at responses from real Japanese people online. According to them, a lot of the people who commented think that the censorship laws are outdated, and some complained about why anyone would look at AI imagery in the first place. Here’s a sampling of responses:
“First of all, there are only a few countries that criminalize uncensored nudity. Anyone can find it on the Internet anyway, so these laws are useless. I think people struggle to contemplate if it’s really a problem to enjoy parts of the human body.”
“There are people who upload uncensored images to social media. Does that not count as distribution?”
“Once you get used to it, you can tell something’s AI at a glance. Are there really people who would pay money for it?”
“I just feel bad for the people buying this stuff.”
The authorities allege that one of the people they arrested brought in about $70,000 since October 2024 by selling this imagery.
Article 175 of Japan’s Criminal Code reads: “A person who distributes or displays in public obscene objects such as documents, drawings or recording media contained in electronic or magnetic records is punished by imprisonment for not more than 2 years, a fine of not more than 2,500,000 yen or a petty fine, or both imprisonment and a fine. The same applies to a person who distributes obscene records including electronic or magnetic records through the transmission of telecommunications.”
It’s for this reason that manga, anime and doujinshi, for example, can have some pretty creative styles of censorship, and this is why the four individuals got into legal trouble in Japan.
Source: SoraNews24
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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