After Asai’s own copy of the book was confiscated by an airport
customs agent in 1999, and after receiving a subsequent summons and
warning from the Tokyo Police, Asai voluntarily suspended sales of the Japanese
edition. He won a suit to retrieve his confiscated copy of the book in 2002, and today’s ruling he says “could change the obscenity standard” in Japan.
We’re not sure if anyone else out there was ever in an upscale
bookstore as a proto-gay teenager and had their mother catch them
thumbing through a copy of this book, but we’re pretty sure if we were
in Japan this experience would have been about nine times more
mortifying. We might have even, like, died right there. But the
pictures are super hot and probably count as the first gay porn we ever
saw, so we’re glad Japanese gays can salivate over them anew.