This kind of thing is known as ‘goroawase’, where numbers/letters/symbols are used to replace the syllables they match! The 5 is actually ‘ko’ because ‘go’ is 5, and go is a “muddied” version of ko (ko = こ, go = ご)
You see it used as jokes, but also in phone numbers in the same way that we’d use “dial 1800PAINTER”. For example, one dentist’s phone number ended with 8480, which can be read as mushibanashi, or “no cavities”.
If you can read Japanese, there’s a great goroawase generator over here: http://seoi.net/goro/
Punch in a sequence of numbers and it’ll give you a number pun for it!
Yeah but in all that you’ll never actually see the school girl’s (plural noun), even though you know it’s full of (plural noun) and she’s covered in (noun) and her (body part) is stretched out past her (body part). Only by not (verb, present tense) her (noun) are we fully protected from (noun) and (noun (even if we might (verb) on our (noun) or someone might (verb) our (plural noun)).
Since she’s actually (adverb) her (noun), it’s enough to make little (plural noun) (verb).
Exactly. There’s two words for most numbers… maybe all of them, but I don’t know them all. That’s why it’s so easy to build puns out of them. Four can also be “yotsu,” as in Yotsuba. 893 makes ya-ku-za.
Isn’t there something we can do for her - give international support and pressure to release her from jail ?? It’s all well and good to talk about what an interesting person she is, etc… but she is in jail and we really should do something! ! ! It’s totally not cool.
An Okinawan man once told me that in traditional Japan a healthy male organ was thought to be pleasingly proportioned and a suitable subject for art, but the ladyparts were so unpleasant to look at that they could frighten away demons. :eyeroll:
I can’t speak to the fetishy stuff, but I spent some months in Japan on the outskirts of Nagoya in 2001 (and a few weeks in Tokyo in 2009).
The first visit, they had porn and toy vending machines out in the open, near bus stops, etc. Not even in the big city either, in the suburbs. Granted the porn machines had the double sided glass so you could only see in at night.
The 2009 visit saw no casually placed porn vending machines. So either things have changed, or the Kantou region has different sensibilities than the Kansai region. I do know there was some reform on cigarette and booze vending machines in that time.
Supposedly, men openly read pornographic manga on trains, but I don’t recall having seen this during either visit.
I know we have locals on the board that can probably speak better to this. But, at some point, in some part of Japan, openly selling porn was more accepted there.
