The Sex Shogun of Shinjuku

Overview

"This world of porn exists to make everyone happy," says Touru Muranishi, 49, Japan's leading pornographer. Acting as producer, director, cameraman and star, his motto is 'real sex with real women in real places'. Despite Japan's stringent censorship laws, Muranishi has been phenomenally successful, making and broadcasting 15 films a month on his own satellite channel. His 'documentary' porn films provide a fascinating insight into male chauvinism in the land of the geisha girl. Heavily made-up glamour models are a definite turn-off. Instead, the women should have the face of a 'princess' and the body of a whore. But despite Touru's insistence on 'real' sex, his films show that in Japan, as in the rest of the world, adult videos reveal male fantasies, not female desire.

Gwyneth Hughes