Pornography in Japan is a large and intertwined business of adult entertainment with unique characteristics that readily distinguish it from Western pornography. Reflecting Japan's views on sexuality and culture, Japanese pornography delves into a wide spectrum of heterosexual, homosexual, and transgender sexual acts in addition to unique fetishes and paraphilias.
The inclusion of sex and nudity in video games has been a controversial topic since the early days of the industry. While many video games have used scantily clad images or characters to sell or enhance games, some go further, using sex acts or nudity as a character motivation, in-game reward, or simply as a gameplay element. These games originate worldwide, on most platforms and can be of any video game genre. While releases in Europe and North America have been sporadic and often unlicensed, Japan has seen the emergence of a pornographic video game subgenre—eroge, first appearing on the NEC PC-88 computer platform in the 1980s. In the 1990s NEC and Sega were the only companies who officially allowed sexual content on their consoles in Japan, but eroge was more prevalent on the NEC PC-98 and FM Towns computer platforms.
Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle is the organisation responsible for video game ratings in Germany.
Hot Coffee is a normally inaccessible mini-game in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, developed by Rockstar North. Public awareness of the existence of the mini-game arrived with the release of the Hot Coffee mod, created for the Microsoft Windows port of GTA: San Andreas in 2005. This mod enables access to the mini-game.
Super Princess Peach is a platform video game developed by Tose and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. It was released in Japan in October 2005, and worldwide the following year. The second in the Mario series of games to feature Princess Peach as the main playable character, Super Princess Peach follows the titular character as she ventures to Vibe Island in order to rescue Mario and Luigi, who have been kidnapped by Bowser, in a reversal of the damsel in distress trope.
Dengeki G's Magazine is a Japanese magazine published by ASCII Media Works and sold monthly on the thirtieth that primarily contains information on bishōjo games, but also includes an entire section on anime based on bishōjo games, and serializes manga and light novels based on such games. The "G's" in the title stands for "Gals" and "Games". The magazine is known for hosting reader participation games whose outcome is directly influenced by the people who read the magazine; such games include Sister Princess, and Strawberry Panic!. Dengeki G's Magazine first went on sale on December 26, 1992 with the February 1993 issue under the title Dengeki PC Engine, which changed to the current title in 2002. A special edition spin-off version called Dengeki G's Festival! is published in irregular intervals and each issue focuses on a specific bishōjo game. Four other special edition versions under the Festival! name are Dengeki G's Festival! Comic, Dengeki G's Festival! Deluxe, Dengeki G's Festival! Anime, and Dengeki Festival! Heaven. Dengeki G's Magazine's sister magazine is Dengeki Girl's Style, which publishes information on otome games, targeted towards females.
Suika (水夏) is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Circus and was first released on July 27, 2001 for Windows as a CD-ROM, followed by a DVD-ROM release on August 31, 2001. It was followed by two all-ages consumer ports for the PlayStation, retitled as Water Summer, and the Dreamcast on July 18, 2002, which was subsequently followed by an all-ages version for Windows, released on July 25, 2003. An expanded version, entitled Suika A.S+ (水夏A.S+), was released in Japan on September 24, 2004 with the adult content found in the original version, followed by a European release on April 25, 2009, and was again ported to the PlayStation 2, entitled Suika A.S+ Eternal Name, released on August 30, 2007 with the adult content removed. The gameplay in Suika follows a linear plot line, which offers pre-determined scenarios and courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the main female characters.
ZyX is a Japanese erotic bishōjo video game maker. Some of their products have been localized in North America by JAST USA under the G-Collections label, and most of them feature designs by either Masahiro Yamane or Keiji Muto.
Three Sisters' Story is a Japanese adult bishōjo visual novel for the PC. The original DOS version was published in 1996 by Sakura Soft. It was translated to English by JAST USA, and later re-released for modern Windows systems in 2002 as part of the "JAST USA Memorial Pack" along with Season of the Sakura and Runaway City.
G-Collections was an English translator, publisher and distributor of Japanese bishōjo games.
Hacker International was a Japanese video game company that developed and published games from 1990 to 2001 for the Nintendo Famicom, NEC PC Engine, Sony PlayStation consoles, and Microsoft Windows PCs. The company was known for its play-for-porn approach to gaming, with such games as AV Pachi-Slot and Soap Panic featuring female nudity as a reward for skilful playing. These games were usually distributed through mail order and sold approximately 30,000 to 50,000 copies each. Many of their games were developed by Taiwanese companies and were released in non-pornographic form elsewhere in the world; however three were released in the United States for the Nintendo Entertainment System with pornography intact by another Taiwanese company, Panesian.
Nitro+chiral is a subsidiary of the Japanese visual novel company Nitroplus that focuses on creating BL eroge visual novels.
Flowers is a series of yuri-themed visual novel video games developed by Innocent Grey. The first entry, Flowers: Le Volume sur Printemps, was released in 2014; three more games were released in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
