The man, a staff member of a producer of adult videos (AVs), relates to Weekly
Playboy what befell his company August 23, when a 300-strong force from Tokyo
Metropolitan Police spread out to conduct raids on some 20 locations.
During the bust, office staffers were even ordered to empty their pockets so
the cops could make photocopies of personal data from health-insurance cards.
Police launched the raids in reaction to the current crop of DVDs, which it
claims fail to sufficiently mask on-screen action, thereby qualifying them as
obscene.
Until recently, the main players in the AV industry cooperated with the Nihon
Ethics of Video Association (NEVA), which applies its seal of approval to discs
that comply with self-imposed censorship.
"Participation in NEVA is voluntary, but most makers joined because major
distributors wouldn't touch their products otherwise," an AV producer tells
Weekly Playboy. "Their influence was such that an old saying went, 'Your video
won't succeed without girls who squeal and NEVA.'
"But then a certain company developed 'digital masking' (which typically appears as a mosaic). In a scene showing oral sex for example, the mosaic would perfectly overlap with a man's procreative member, so it was like watching the real thing.. ..and the main business shifted to the independent operators that applied these digitalized mosaics."