Happy Valentine's Day

This week I have three entries that could be intimate activities for many couples out there to do, if they are so inclined.

These are:

paizuri (tit job) パイズリ

tanima no shirayuri (white lily of the valley) 谷間の白百合

wakame zake (seaweed sake) わかめ酒

I have received some teasing for the large number of sex related entries over the past few years. In fact I had wanted to start including such entries from the beginning, over ten years ago, when I started what became The Anime Companion. However there was one barrier, the lack of reliable secondary sources in print on sex and the sex trade in Japan. So I waited and in 2006 was double rewarded by the publication of Joan Sinclair's book Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs and a friend locating a copy of Peter Constantine's book Japan's Sex Trade: A Journey Through Japan's Erotic Subcultures. The Constantine book has long been out of print and I had been looking for a copy since 1999.

So armed with these resources and a few others that have proven useful I began tracking down further references in anime and manga. I started emailing and talking to folks I knew who were consumers of erotic anime and manga asking for assistance.

I quickly learned something interesting, explicitly erotic works rarely mention the Japanese sex trade. Most references to the sex trade are found in manga that have it only as a small part of the story such as GTO Great Teacher Onizuka and IWGP, two titles I strongly recommend. While there is plenty of sex in erotic titles there is little I can put to use for this guide and this is reflected in the examples I use.

I do have to state one thing, around the time Joan Sinclair's book came out I decided to do a google search to find web sites on Japanese sexual terminology in the hopes that the site owners would refer to their sources. There was almost nothing, in fact one particularly whimpy site bragged about being the largest site for such information. The sad thing is it actually was the largest such web site at the time. However with my additions, and the fact that I cite my sources, folks are no longer limited to such small sites.

If you spot something in a manga or anime that has been released in the US and is not covered in the web supplement please let me know I would like to continue to improve the supplement. Of course suggestions are not limited to the sexual, other topics are most welcome.