Things that are legal in Japan:

  • kidnapping your children from your ex-spouse
  • taking your children to another country in defiance of a court order
  • possessing child pornography (outside of Kyoto or Nara)
  • insisting that job/housing/whatever applicants include a photo
  • turning down said applicants for being female/foreign/too old/”different”
  • charging new tenants thousands of dollars in non-refundable deposits

Things that are illegal in Japan

  • dancing in a bar or club after 1 AM
  • keeping your last name after you get married
  • renting a video game
  • modding a video game console (physically or via free software)
  • ripping a DVD or Blu-Ray
  • downloading copyrighted material from the internet

Those last two are criminal offenses as of today, meaning you could receive a jail sentence. So next time you’re considering using bittorrent, buy some kiddie porn instead! It’s safer.