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.
