

In earlier hentai, like many before 2010, genitals are directly shown. But
after a certain point, all hentai have their genitals pixelated, first female
ones, then the male. When exactly did those changes happen? What caused the
changes in censorship? It can't stem from the international, since there're
still many uncensored obscene videos broadly available on the internet.


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censorship law
When and why has the censorship of obscenity for hentai changed?


Hentai (R18) has been always censored in Japan, but _how much_ seems to have
been a decision on publishers' side.

From what I see from a brief web search:

  * According to [this blog post](https://www.menscyzo.com/2013/10/post_6591.html), some editors of hentai magazines were arrested because they did not put enough cover (pixelation or black stripes) on genitals etc. This happened in July 2013.
  * [Another blog post](https://wappaku.hatenablog.com/entry/2020/03/15/191503) says, regarding Doujinshi, the organizing body of Comic Market started requiring stricter censoring (bolder stripes on or whiting out the genitals) starting from Summer 2017.

So over these 10 years, censorship has actually been increasing, which is
probably consistent with your impression.

* * *

(added)

[Ken Akamatsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Akamatsu), mangaka known for
[Love Hina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Hina) and
[Negima](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negima!_Magister_Negi_Magi), won a seat
in the House of Councillors (equivalent of Senate in the US) last year,
advocating the freedom of expression. According to [the
description](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Akamatsu#Advocacy_and_politics),
it seems that issues stemmed from (talk of) Trans-Pacific Partnership, because
of which Japan needs to adjust publications towards international/American
standards. I'm not clear about this, but probably the concern is related to
child pornography (The first blog link above mentions that a Swedish
translator of Japanese manga was arrested in 2010 because some images were
regared as child pornography, and then
[acquitted](https://cbldf.org/2012/06/manga-translator-acquitted-of-child-
pornography-charges-in-swedish-supreme-court-ruling/) in the Supreme Court in
2012).


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As to why the uncensored version became extinct, there's [a
blog](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2016-07-13/.104191) on this.
It's quoted below for reference. Long story short, the producers released
uncensored version outside of Japan originally. But after domestic fans found
this out, they no longer bought those sold in Japan, reducing the industry
profits. So, producers then decided not to release uncensored version even
overseas.

> Many people don't realize that hentai is censored in Japan. The naughty bits
> are always obscured with a mosaic filter (or something similar) when you buy
> hentai (or any other adult video) over there. But hentai is always animated
> in its full glory to begin with.
>
> ...
>
> Those uncensored versions are kept for sale to overseas areas, which don't
> have those censorship laws on the books. The fans don't want that
> censorship, so the US publishers always request the uncensored versions.
>
> I've seen some hentai titles where the animators got lazy and didn't draw
> any detail where they knew censorship would take place, but the majority of
> hentai has quite a bit of detail down there. (Sometimes, quite horrifying
> detail.)
>
> In recent years, web savvy fans in Japan realized that they were getting a
> bum deal compared to fans overseas, who didn't have to deal with the
> censorship. They started importing uncensored American hentai DVDs, and not
> buying or renting the super-expensive Japanese discs. So the hentai
> producers decided not to allow the uncensored masters to be published
> overseas anymore. Most publishers balk at this, and don't want to proceed
> with licensing it.


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