18+
The common age-label marking media or spaces as intended for adults eighteen and over.
Glossary
Japanese terminology, explained.
Short definitions first, then history, usage, and common misunderstandings. Informational — not a nightlife guide.
1
A
Adult Broadcast
Television or satellite programming slots historically used for erotic variety, softcore features, or late-night adult segments.
Adult DVD
Physical disc releases that dominated Japanese commercial AV packaging after the cassette era.
Adult Magazine
Print periodicals for erotic photography, comics, or review culture that predated and paralleled home video.
Adult Manga
Comics created for adult readers, including erotic and pornographic storytelling in print or digital form.
Age Gate
Interface and retail barriers that ask users to confirm they are adults before adult content is shown.
Agency
Talent offices that manage AV performers' contracts, schedules, and negotiations with makers.
Amateur AV
A marketing and stylistic category that presents performers or situations as non-professional, whether or not that claim is literal.
Anti-Prostitution Law
Japan's Prostitution Prevention Law, a postwar statute central to how sexual commerce was renamed and regulated.
Article 175
The Penal Code article most often cited in debates about obscenity and sexual expression in Japan.
AV
The standard Japanese abbreviation for adult video: a domestic name for a media industry, not a single genre.
AV Idol
A marketing identity for AV performers promoted with idol-like glamour, narrative, and fan service.
C
Cabaret Club
A nightlife form related to hostess entertainment, sometimes used interchangeably with kyabakura in loose speech.
Consent Documentation
Paperwork and verification practices meant to record performer agreement and age for adult media production.
D
Daimon
A Tokyo place-name historically linked with adult-business geography near older pleasure-quarter patterns.
Debut
The public launch of an AV performer's first marketed title or promotional cycle.
Deepfake
AI-generated or manipulated sexual imagery that can target performers or private people without consent.
Delivery Health
A Japanese industry term, often shortened in domestic speech, for a dispatch-style adult-service category — treated here as vocabulary, not as a directory.
Doujinshi
Self-published comics, novels, or art books circulated through fan markets and specialty shops.
E
Eroge
A Japanese portmanteau for erotic games, usually narrative computer games with adult scenes.
Ethics Committee
Industry self-regulatory bodies that review adult video against voluntary standards beyond raw statute text.
Exclusive Contract
An agreement binding a performer to a particular maker or agency arrangement for a period.
F
Fan Platform
Subscription or tip-based sites where creators sell photos, clips, and messages directly to fans.
Fashion Health
A Japanese adult-business category name that uses fashion as a branding cue within the wider fuzoku vocabulary.
Fueiho
Common short name for Japan's Entertainment Business Law, which frames how many nightlife businesses are classified and policed.
Fukuhara
A Kobe entertainment-district name associated with adult nightlife geography in the Kansai region.
Fuzoku
A broad Japanese umbrella word for adult nightlife and sexual-service businesses as a social category.
G
Girls Bar
A bar style where female staff serve and chat across a counter, generally framed as lighter than full cabaret-club systems.
Gravure
A Japanese magazine and idol-photography culture; adjacent to adult media, not identical with adult video.
Gravure Idol
A performer centered on gravure photography and related TV or event work rather than AV production.
H
Hentai
In English, a catch-all for Japanese erotic anime and manga; in Japanese, a broader word for perversion or abnormality.
Horinouchi
A Kawasaki-area entertainment district name in Kanto adult-nightlife geography.
Host Club
Nightlife venues where male hosts entertain mostly female customers through conversation and bottle service.
Hostess Club
English-friendly name for clubs where hostesses entertain customers through talk and drinking rituals; overlaps with kyabakura talk.
I
Image Club
A roleplay-oriented adult-business category known in Japanese as image club, often shortened in speech.
Indie AV
Smaller-scale or non-major adult video production, sometimes framed against big-maker catalogues.
J
JAV
An English-language abbreviation for Japanese adult video, used mainly in international discussion.
K
Kabukicho
Shinjuku's famous entertainment district, a national symbol of nightlife, host clubs, and adult-business density.
Kanazuen
A Gifu-area entertainment district name appearing in national lists of regional kanrakugai.
Kanrakugai
An entertainment district; in adult-culture writing, often the nightlife and adult-business clusters of a city.
Kokubuncho
Sendai's central entertainment district, the Tohoku landmark in Japan's kanrakugai set.
Kyabakura
A cabaret-club style nightlife where hostesses drink and converse with customers; often discussed beside, not as, sexual-service fuzoku.
L
Love Hotel
Short-stay hotels designed for couples' privacy, a familiar part of Japanese urban sexual culture and media imagery.
M
Maker
Industry jargon for an AV production company or label group that commissions, packages, and releases titles.
Matsubara
A place-name appearing in Kansai adult-nightlife geography talk, distinct from mere residential uses of the same name.
Men's Esthe
A Japanese commercial term for men's aesthetic or massage-styled businesses; some uses are ordinary wellness language, others belong to adult-adjacent classification.
Mizu Shobai
Literally water trade: a traditional phrase for nightlife hospitality work, including bars and hostess clubs.
Mosaic
The common English name for the pixelation or blur applied to genitals in Japanese commercial adult video.
N
Nakasu
Fukuoka's riverside entertainment district, a Kyushu landmark in nightlife geography.
Name Disclosure
The revealing of a performer's legal name or private identity, often as harassment or scandal fuel.
Nishikawaguchi
A Saitama entertainment-district reference in the greater Tokyo nightlife map.
O
Obscenity
The legal and moral category under which Japanese law has long restricted sexual expression, especially under Article 175 debates.
Ogoto
A Shiga lakeside area whose name enters adult-culture geography as a regional entertainment-district reference.
P
Photobook
Bound photography collections, often tied to gravure, idol, or AV performer branding.
Pink Cinema
A broader English phrase for Japan's theatrical erotic film cultures, including pink film and related studio lines.
Pink Film
A theatrical softcore and exploitation cinema tradition in Japan, older than and distinct from home-video AV.
Pink Salon
A compact adult-nightlife category historically associated with small drink-and-contact style shops, often shortened in domestic speech.
Piracy
Unauthorized copying and sharing of adult media, a long structural pressure on Japanese AV economics and performer privacy.
Portrait Rights
The interest in controlling one's likeness — a key idea in Japanese debates about photos, videos, and unauthorized use.
R
Rental Shop
Video rental stores that historically made AV a browseable consumer product in Japanese neighborhoods.
Retirement
A performer's announced exit from AV work, often staged as a media event.
Revenge Porn Law
Common name for Japanese legal measures against non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
Roman Porno
Nikkatsu's influential 1970s–80s studio erotic film line, a landmark in Japanese theatrical adult cinema.
S
Sakae-cho
A Chiba-area entertainment district name used in regional kanrakugai talk.
Scandal
A media storm around adult-industry figures involving crime allegations, leaks, relationships, or broken taboos.
Second Career
Work pursued after or beside AV performance — YouTube, acting, nightlife, ordinary jobs — under stigma pressure.
Snack Bar
A small Japanese drinking spot, often mama-led, that can be ordinary neighborhood nightlife rather than sexual-service fuzoku.
Soapland
A historically specific Japanese term for a category of bathing-related adult business — a word to explain, not a listing to follow.
Stage Name
A professional pseudonym used by performers to separate public persona from private civil identity.
Stigma
The social disgrace attached to adult-industry work and consumption in Japanese public life.
Streaming
On-demand digital delivery of adult video and related media, now a primary way Japanese catalogues reach viewers.
Susukino
Sapporo's major entertainment district, the northern counterpart in Japan's kanrakugai imagination.
T
Telephone Club
A historically prominent adult-business format based on arranged phone conversation, often discussed as a Heisei-era social phenomenon.
Tobita Shinchi
An Osaka entertainment area with a long historical association with brothel-quarter geography and its aftermath.
V
Voluntary Restraint
Industry or broadcaster self-limitation on sexual content to avoid legal trouble, advertiser flight, or public backlash.
Y
Yoshiwara
Edo's historic licensed quarter, later a Tokyo place-name still tied to adult-business geography and cultural memory.