The Japanese porn industry often walks a fine line between regular funlovin’ erotica featuring young ladies and outright child pornography, but during the past couple months authorities have moved to make the distinction clearer. Asian Sex Gazette has a report here.

Fans and producers of a lucrative fad called “lolicon” got a wake up call with the arrest of a publisher last month. “Lolicon” is a slang portmanteau of the phrase “Lolita complex”, or “Lolita icon”. The industry produces photo books and magazines with teenage and preteen models sometimes as young as eight years old. The format is usually “near nudity” or “implied nudity”, but a recent photo set featuring a 14-year-old girl went too far.

“The girl’s swimsuit was deliberately made to be see-through. It was so tight-fitting you could make out the shape of her genitalia and she’d been posed in such risque positions that the Metropolitan Police Department decided to arrest the maker for breaking the law banning child pornography, even though the girl hadn’t actually exposed her bust or between her legs,” a reporter told Weekly Playboy.

The arrest was the first time somebody had been picked up for breaking the Child Pornography Law without proliferating images featuring nudity. Eventually, though, the charge had to be downgraded to a violation of the Child Welfare Law, but the effect of the arrest reached far.

The arrest has reportedly sent the industry into chaos.

“Ever since the arrest, makers of products featuring teens in erotic poses have been in a state of panic. If material is judged to be overly obscene, people can be arrested for breaking the Child Pornography Law, even if the model is dressed in a swimsuit,” says an employee of a medium-sized DVD manufacturer producing material featuring models under 15 years old. “DVD shops and wholesalers are now on their guard and have stopped taking materials featuring models under 15, even if the product looks like being a surefire seller.”

Furi Nakamura, a journalist who specializes in covering the under-15 market, says there is a definite mood of self-restraint spreading among purveyors of photo collections and DVDs using child cheesecake.

“Situations are going to become crucial,” the under-15 expert tells Weekly Playboy. “By that, I mean the situations where models are presented. Say, for example, a young model is decked out in an extremely skimpy bikini, the maker won’t get in trouble if the photos are taken in an appropriate situation, like a pool or the beach. It’s when you get the young models lying around on a bed, making provocative poses and stuff, that you’re going to have the real problems — even if they’re wearing standard school-issue swimsuits, which aren’t revealing at all. The key is going to be how natural producers will be able to make their images appear.”