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The sale and distribution of pornography in Japan is restricted under Article 175 of the
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(1907), which states the following:'A person who distributes, sells or displays in public an obscene document, drawing or other objects shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not more than 2 years, a fine of not more than ¥2,500,000 or a petty fine. The same shall apply to a person who possesses the same for the purpose of sale'.
The definition of "obscenity," which is absent from the text of the code itself, has developed through a series of judicial decisions. In the 1957 Chatterley Case [ja], the Supreme Court of Japan upheld the convictions of translator Sei Itō and editor Kyujiro Koyama, accused of violating the law with their 1950 publication of D. H. Lawrence's erotic novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. 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.
