So your girlfriend’s into Hello, Kitty, which is about as amazing and unique as, say, porn on the Internet.

But she if she brings this little number home than you might has well put your balls in the purse you’re holding for her while she’s shopping.

Really, is there anything more to say after something like this?

Oh yeah: The horror. The horror.

Wednesday Morning Nerdy Sexiness

In the same way the American porn scene is a shadow to the mainstream entertainment industry when it comes to ideas (see: Columbia Pictures’ “The Da Vinci Code” and Hustler Video’s “The Da Vinci Load”), so goes the Japanese animation industry.

Much of the output of illustrated purple-haired hotties, tentacle sex and outrageously-sized bazooms is related to the more acceptable and popular cartoons revolving around giant robots, schoolgirls with magic powers and angst-y teens. Whether it’s Dōjinshi that’s based on mainstream series or pros who pen the X-rated stuff on the side, porn-related anime is joined at the hip with its more acceptable counterparts.

With the rise of anime in popular culture, one would expect all fortunes are rising. However, AltJapan reports that this is not the case. About a quarter of the anime industry works significantly below the poverty line, it’s spread increasingly thin and studios are often losing money.

Scary stuff, and hopefully something the anime industry can turn around.

State of the Anime Industry 2009

Like Pocari Sweat and Pocky, the Japanese are in love with words that sound like English, but isn’t. In this case, it’s Please Muscat, a variety show that once again proves that there isn’t much you can do to shock a culture that brought us animated tentacle sex and used panty vending machines.

See, while America as a nation is about as comfortable about sex as a Wall Street CEO at a congressional hearing, the Japanese have AV idols like Maria Ozawa, Sora Aoi and Asami Yumo on a national TV program singing pop tunes and doing comedy skits. All of it, so far as I can tell, with their clothes on.

You want to talk about porn going mainstream? There you go.

Considering that we live in a county where religious nutjobs are so obsessed with sex that they’ll make claims like anal sex maintains virginity, the acceptance of X-rated entertainment in Japan — even with its own regimentation and societal hang ups — is refreshing.

JAV stars Maria Ozawa and Sora Aoi host Osaka TV Variety show