Harenchi Gakuen

Based on Go Nagai's ground-breaking comic strip, Harenchi Gakuen incorporated a great deal of panchira (panty shots) and sukarto meguri (skirt flipping), with most of the lead actresses revealing their underwear at one point or another. The film even concluded with a Benny Hill-style chase scene, complete with attractive young starlets losing their clothes to a runaway bus:

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is in the air. 

More chaos ensues when the girls chase after the driver, demanding the return of their clothing (along with their dignity, one supposes), ably assisted by the local constable and various other aggrieved parties:

 

 

 

Insert "Yakety Sax" theme here.

According to Wikipedia and other sources, the original manga was highly controversial for its time (mainly due to its breaking of innumerable social taboos), though by 1970, the furor seemed to have died down to a dull roar. The film was successful enough to warrant three sequels, all of which employed the same basic formula.

Teabagging

According to our good friend Tisa, the time honored art of  "茶巾スカート" has a long and venerable history dating back (at least) to the 1960s. More recent examples may be found on youtube (if you're incredibly lucky):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4KnPfKNfM

Not sure of the exact details, but the girls seem to be playing a game of penalties. Every time they a mistake, their skirts are drawn up a little higher, after which they're subjected to further indignities. Evidently, contests of this nature were quite popular back in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, all things must eventually pass, and "Tea Cloth Skirt" (aka "Teabagging") appears to have disappeared from the airwaves over the past two decades.

 

Click on the "start" arrow to begin. You may need to click more than once.

Let's talk about cultural dissonance...

Back in the 1960s, the Chirrol Chocolate company produced an animated commercial meant to appeal to children. It featured three bishojo characters singing "ふりふりフレーク、チロルチョコ～," which (liberally translated) means something like "shakey-shakey-shakey, Chirrol Chocolate-ah!" The cartoon ended with the girls raising their skirts to reveal their underwear. Most people found it cute and funny; apparently, kids used to sing it on the way to school. Kawaii desu, no big deal.

Fast forward thirty year or so, and the company decides to remake the ad in 1994. Social values have changed, agendas are being pushed, and suddenly, we have thousands of moral guardians mounting a letter-writing campaign to the government, demanding that the "obscene commercial" be banned until the end of time. Apparently, the local P & T association had leapt onto the PC bandwagon that the West had been pushing for the past few decades.

You'd think that the average Japanese politician would have more important things to deal with than a harmless TV commercial, but naturally, the Puritan Brigade got their way as they always do. The advertisement was censored, all copies of the print destroyed, and a valuable piece of popular culture was lost to history. Apparently, nobody and nothing is safe from these self-righteous killjoys, regardless of where they happen to live.

Unraveling

 Ever just had one of those days...?

Doujinshi

Yes, here it is: the image that caused so much trouble. 

Some time in the late 2000s (not sure of the exact date, it's been a while), we noticed that WP was missing an illustration for their Doujinshi article. For those of us whose lives don't revolve around bras, knickers and popular culture, "doujinshi" is the Japanese term for amateur comics (the word has other uses too, but that's the most commonly understood definition in the West), many of which were being translated into English at the time... 

Read the rest of this article at our Patreon Account.

Miniskirt Police

All right: episodes of the classic 90s Japanese comedy Miniskirt Police (ミニスカポリス) are a little difficult to locate in the present day, but we managed to track down a few VHS transfers on YouTube, Niconico and similar online venues. "Minisuka" has an almost legendary status in its country of origin, the kind of show which defies description even in its native language. 

The basic premise seems to involve two bumbling police constables enticing pretty young starlets out of their clothing (there's also something about a deranged stage magician, but we haven't quite figured that part out yet).

Most of the humor revolved around scantily-clad models being humiliated in their lingerie (kind of like Naughty and Funny except without the hidden cameras). Scripts usually required at least one girl to be stripped down to her bra and knickers by the end of each episode, sometimes more depending on whether the eponymous WPCs were taking part in the festivities.

The original series ran from 1996 to 2001, followed by a number of revivals between 2003 and 2006. The most recent update, launched in August 2013, is considerably less explicit and replaces the main cast with an all-girl pop group, following current trends in Japanese entertainment. 

Video Clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsDf_QAnYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDo-lVRBO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iHXgiQOdnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HvRGc99SPU

https://www.tokyomotion.net/video/2147907/ミニスカポリス

https://www.tokyomotion.net/video/1953080/ミニスカポリス-バトル

https://www.tokyomotion.net/video/2158884/ミニスカポリス

https://www.tokyomotion.net/video/1998883/ミニスカポリス-巨乳-色々-ぽろり有

Afternoon Delights?

More evidence that Japan is home to the most advanced civilization on the face of the planet: while Western kids were raised on a steady diet of Scooby Doo, Groovie Goolies and Everything's Archie, Japanese pre-teens were fed a healthy blend of panty shots and lingerie scenes via the popular media.

Chargeman Ken

 

Yes, it's all completely true: back in the late sixties, Japanese audiences were treated to scenes like this literally every day after school. Japanese Animation (anime, for the uninitiated) had a long history of fan service, particularly where young female characters were concerned. As the years wore on, the cartoons became increasingly more risque, leading to impromptu stripteases in shows like Cutie Honey (1973) and Majokko Megu Chan (1974). 

Majokko Megu-Chan

Sure beats the heck out of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, doesn't it? All kidding aside however, it's worth noting that live action panchira was extremely popular on Japanese TV, so the transition to anime was probably inevitable. Despite periodic outcries from P&T groups and child welfare advocates, the trend caught on and soon became a staple of the cartoon industry. In the space of thirty years, fan service went from this in 1970:

Mahou No Mako-Chan

 

...to this in 2000.

Gakko No Kaidan

Viewed as cute and harmless (if a little risque), shows like Gakko No Kaidan and Read Or Die were aimed at a young demographic, mainly adolescents and middle-schoolers. Most of the humor was family friendly; kids could laugh at the jokes while their parents smiled at the frequent innuendos.

 

Read Or Die

Hit Singles

Japanese idol band バンもん! (Panmon!) indulges in some gratuitous fan service on the cover of their hit single 雪降る夜にキスして ( "Kiss me on a Snowy Night").

It goes without saying that 'cheesecake' cover shots are not uncommon amongst all-girl bands; as far back as 1982, the Go-Gos established a precedent with their highly influential photo shoot for Rolling Stone magazine. In the present day, it has become almost obligatory for female musicians to model their lingerie before the camera.

Japanese Shows of the 1970s...

While we're on the subject of  dancing and whirling skirts, TISA and I came across an intriguing set of images (see below) during our travels around the web, apparently relating to an early Seventies variety show:

Anyway, we ran a couple of searches and managed to locate at least one online source. The photo(s) came from a Japanese twitter account devoted to fashions of the 1970s. The caption reads as follows:

ゴーゴーガールのスカートめくりゲームや水着濡らしゲームが人気だったという1971年放送の「夜の大作戦」って番組、観てみたい…

Speaking for myself, I couldn't make head nor tail of the translation, other than the program's title being  "Daily Daisakusen". Fortunately, TISA had considerably more success deciphering the message:

As you say, this scene was broadcast on a program called "夜の大作戦". This is a viewer participation game. Viewers vote for one of the five dancers in advance, then one of the dancers shows her pants via the breeze. A free gift was sent to the viewers who voted for the dancers who played パンチラ. 

The name of this segment was "ショークリメ". "ショー" of "ショークリメ" is "show". "クリメ" is an expression  that reads "turning up" in Japanese. This name seems not to be used outside this program.

I think our Japanese compatriots were way ahead of the curve in this instance: if memory serves correct, there were no game shows like this on UK TV back in the 1970s (though Spain and Italy might have mimicked the idea during the 80s). The "viewer participation" angle seems particularly ingenious from where I'm standing. Many thanks to TISA for solving this mystery.