Behind the curtain

Japan is obsessed. As a Brit I respect whatever people get up to in the privacy of their own basements, but the Japanese like women’s naughty bits. And what is more, they love to talk about it, endlessly. It can be an uncomfortable time when at a drinking party your boss launches into his, what is known as “ero talk”. And without a doubt at one point in your stay in Japan the subject of your member, its size and shape will be broached、or, if you’re a woman, your chest, but that is usually observable and doesn’t require a grope for confirmation　(ｔthough that never stops them trying anyway).
The Japanese are a proud nation and often like to tell you about the veracity and vicissitude of their own parts. “Us Japanese,” I was once told with a little too much gusto, “are always hard!”, accompanied by a fist thrust in the air. One wonders how they ever sit down. On television the camera often zooms in, entirely without shame or hesitation, on the bosom of some female “talent”. Many love hotels and soaplands line the streets of the major city areas. Old men browse their dirty magazines in public or on the train.
If you are of a delicate nature, Japan can be a very embarrassing place to be sometimes.

So it comes as no surprise that there are many adult game and DVD shops around. Even in regular shops there will often be an adult section separated from the resｔ by the impenetrable moral barrier of a small half-length curtain. Whereas Thursdays are usually the day of the week new games are released, Wednesday is the day for new adult games. These usually fall under the “board game” or “dating sim” categories; basically, any excuse to show pictures of naked manga.

One of the better kept secrets of the Japanese game industry is that many companies have at some point or other released a hentai game, usually under the guise of a shadow company. I can guarantee you have played regular games by a large company that have under a different banner cashed in on the easy hentai market, or the “sticky yen” as I call it.
And why not? It is very easy money. I was once shown, by a lamenting boss, a new release of a hentai mahjongg game. Imagine it: a simple mahjongg structure would require one or two programmers at most. Get one artist to draw and scan a lot of dirty pictures. Get one cheap intern to draw the GUI. One producer to claim all the credit. Once the basic game is done you can just recycle it with different dirty pictures. I am obviously guessing at the number of team members but it can't be many.
One such game, for PC, retails for as much as 8,000 Yen (approx. US$70, 55EU). Considering handheld games are about 3 to 4 thousand （US$25-35, 20-25EU) and console games 5 to 6 thousand （US$45-50, 35-40EU）that is a pretty decent profit margin considering the vastly lower budgets and shorter schedules compared to “real” games.
Show these figures to any company president and he'll be sure to consider creating hentai games to tie the company over in lean times. But so as not to sully the name of the company, they create a different company name to publish it under. Everybody happy!
Discretion forbids me to release some of the names of these companies and the real corporations behind them.

For those of you who wish to study these fringes of polite society I can heartily recommend a trip to Akihabara, where you’ll find an abundance of dodgy game and DVD stores, figurines, “hug pillows” and vending machines that spit out plastic capsules with tiny plastic hardcore bondage figures in them.
Either that or get a Japanese person drunk and you’ll be guaranteed a frank and shameless discussion on anything from size to preference, veracity to longevity. Be sure to memorise the name of at least one Japanese “talent” as you will be asked who you’d like to shag most. Don't worry about making a careful or truthful selection; they won't agree with you anyway.

Happy hunting!