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J.T. Quigley · 11 Dec 2014 · 8 min read

The death and digital

resurrection of Japan’s used
panty vending machine

I’m standing on a street corner in Tokyo’s

Akihabara district, half blinded by the neon
glow radiating from three tall buildings directly
in front of me – a sex shop, an arcade, and a
big-box electronics retailer. Not far down the
road, a group of three foreign guys is chatting
about something. It’s Akihabara – ground zero
for otaku culture – so I can only imagine that
they’re discussing J-pop idols or anime. I stroll
up to them and ask if they mind answering
what might be, anywhere else on the planet, a
very strange question:

“Have you ever heard about the used panty

vending machines?”

Instead of shaking their heads in disgust or

trying to flag down a police officer, the trio lets
out a chuckle. The guy to my right points a
finger over my head, back at the sprawling sex
shop that’s now behind me. “There’s one right
up there, on the sixth floor,” he says in a thick
German accent, beaming like a kid on
Christmas morning. Then he pauses for a
moment of contemplation, slides his wire-
framed glasses higher up on his face, and adds:
“But I don’t know if they’re really used or not.”

The guy on my left also raises a finger above my

head, pointing to a decrepit building under the
train tracks. “I know they used to sell them over
there, but just hanging on the wall – not sure if
they have a vending machine.”

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The guy in the middle, who’s gone from giggling

to looking a bit uneasy at this point, chimes in:
“I’ve still never seen one in person, but panty
vending machines are one of the first things I
heard about Japan.”

Vending machines everywhere

It’s not difficult to figure out how the Japanese

panty vending machine became a cultural
phenomenon. The legend exists at the
intersection of sex and technology in a country
known in the west for weird pornography and
Sony.

“Similarly with ‘tentacle rape,’ [westerners]

seem to have this concept of ‘Japan has the
most perverse, crazy imagination, and this is
proof of it,’” La Carmina, Japanese pop culture
expert, TV host, and blogger, tells Tech in Asia .
“The idea of dirty panty machines is something
so over-the-top, you wouldn’t find it in any
other country, not even Las Vegas.”

While the humble vending machine might not

be the finest example of high-tech Japan, it’s
certainly one of the most visible. According to
the latest figures from the Japan Vending
Machine Manufacturers Association (JVMA),
there are more than 3.8 million “automatic
sales” machines across the country (not
including “automatic service” machines, like
change dispensers and coin lockers).

That’s roughly one vending machine for every

33 citizens. In a year, these machines earn
about 5 trillion yen – an astronomical US$46
billion. That’s slightly less than what Google
makes in a year.

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The vast majority of these machines, about 2.6

million, spit out beverages: everything from
green tea and canned coffee to beer and sake. In
the “other” category, JVMA counts 141,000
vending machines that offer “newspapers,
hygiene products, toys, etc.”

Super used kakou

Not counted in the above figure are Japan’s
equally ubiquitous gachapon machines – the
kind that dispense toys in plastic capsules after
turning a crank. The term, like so many others
in the Japanese language, comes from the
combination of two onomatopoeic words:
gacha, the sound the crank makes, and pon, the
sound the capsule makes when it lands at the
bottom of the machine. Gashapon, spelled with
an “s,” is actually trademarked by Japanese toy
maker Bandai.

When foreigners gush about finding a used

panty vending machine, they’re usually
referring to a gachapon machine. While many
of the machines advertise the contents as used,
anyone who can read Japanese knows that this
isn’t the case. Take the following photo,
advertising used OL (office lady) panties, for
example:

Above the price (￥500) are the words “スー

パーUSED加⼯” (super used kakou). Kakou, in
this case, means that the panties were
manufactured to appear used – kind of like the
Abercrombie jeans that are sold with holes and
frayed edges straight from the factory. The
addition of those two kanji characters makes it
instantly apparent to a native speaker that the
panties are not, in fact, used. Perhaps an
enterprising gachapon machine salesperson
realized that they could trick non-Japanese into
believing the urban legend by slapping a single
English word on the sign.

Down in the basement

After snaking through a maze of adult videos,
vibrators, and sex dolls (some lifelike, some
more like giant anime characters), I found
myself on the sixth floor of the gargantuan sex
shop that, according to my German
acquaintance on the street, had a real used
panty vending machine. What I found, instead,
was a plethora of brand new, vacuum-sealed
underwear and “cosplay” outfits. I approached
the cash register and inquired directly with the
staff – a normal looking guy in his 30’s wearing
an apron and a name tag. I wondered if he got
lost on his way to the coffee shop and ended up
selling sex toys instead of lattes.

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“So many foreign customers ask me about

buying used panties,” said the clerk, who agreed
to talk with Tech in Asia on the condition that
his name and company not be specified. “We
used to have a gachapon machine that sold new
panties, but the sign said ‘used.’ There was a
disclaimer at the bottom saying they they
weren’t really used – but it was written in
Japanese, so maybe they took the sign literally.”

At some point in the past six months,

management had made the decision to move
the machine to the basement – but it had
already done its job of perpetuating the myth to
the foreign visitors who managed to catch a
glimpse. Did the real thing ever exist?

“They did exist in the back alleys of Akihabara,

about 10 or 15 years ago,” the clerk continued.
“But the law is strict now. Some shops around
here sold used panties – not necessarily in
vending machines – but the police cracked
down on them. They didn’t arrest the shop
owners, but told them to stop underage
students from selling their stuff. Sometimes
girls with fake IDs would try to sell panties or
used school uniforms, so the police told the
shops to be careful.”

Child abuse?
Japan lags behind other countries when it
comes to cracking down on sexualized images
of children. While possession of child
pornography is a serious felony in most parts of
the developed world, Japan didn’t criminalize
the practice until June this year. The new law
exempts sexually explicit depictions of children
in anime, manga, and videogames – for fear
that banning such material would violate the
constitutional right to free speech. Those in
possession of real kiddie porn have even been
given a one-year grace period to discard it
before the law starts being enforced. If found
guilty after that, they face a maximum of one
year in prison – a slap on the wrist compared to
sentences in the US, where the same offense
carries a minimum of five years behind bars.

Similar so-called “child protection” laws likely

contributed to the demise of the modern panty
vending machine – though the sale of used
underwear by minors does not fall under the
national child porn regulations. In the case of
soiled schoolgirl skivvies, enforcement is up to
local authorities. Shops in Akihabara, under the
jurisdiction of Tokyo, have to abide by the
“Regulations Concerning the Sound Upbringing
of Tokyo Youth,” a law that passed in 2004.

Section 15, “Prohibitions on the Purchase of

Used Underwear” (which also extends to the
sale of saliva and other bodily fluids), bans the
purchase of soiled undergarments from
individuals under the age of 18 as well as
solicitation for such items. Section 24 imposes a
500,000 yen (US$4,600) maximum fine on
buyers found in violation of Section 15. Under
Section 26, shops attempting to illegally sell
such items can be fined up to an additional
200,000 yen (US$1,800) if police discover
them during a search. Neither violation carries
jail time.

According to Tokyo Reporter, businesses

dealing with joshi kosei (highschool girl) items
– used panties, socks, and school uniforms –
have taken a heavy hit in recent months due to
the struggling economy and intensifying police
scrutiny. With the upcoming 2020 Tokyo
Olympics, one can expect (or at least hope) that
the Japanese police will crack down on the
illegal sale of dirty panties or risk soiling its
largely positive image abroad.

Dirty ecommerce
While panty vending and gacha machines have
largely disappeared from the Japanese
landscape, that’s not to say a pervert can’t find
used panties. It’s actually disturbingly easy.
Like many other commodities, their
distribution has moved online.

A search for “使⽤済み下着” (shiyou-zumi

shitagi), the technical term for “used
underwear” in Japanese, returns 683,000
results on Yahoo Japan (the country’s most
popular search engine). One site, based in
Osaka, offers photo profiles – like some kind of
perverted social network – complete with the
purported age, occupation, and measurements
of each woman who is selling her
undergarments.

“I’m a 25-year-old beauty advisor,” reads the

profile of the site’s number-one seller. “Check
my gallery to see what clothes I have to offer.
I’ll wear each item for three days before sending
it to you. I’ll include a photo, but please don’t
request a specific pose!” Her online shop
includes everything, from used panties and bras
(3,000 yen each, or US$28) to an erotic photo
album (10,000 yen, or US$93). But that’s just
the tip of the iceberg.

Warning! Skip the following sentence if

you want to keep that last smidgen of
your faith in humanity. For customers who
purchase used clothing items, the site’s
number-one seller offers some disgusting add-
ons: a vial of spit for 2,000 yen (US$18.50), a
500ml bottle of urine for 3,000 yen (US$28),
and feces – shipped in a pink tupperware
container – for the same price as the “number
one.”

A recruitment page makes it clear that sellers

must be at least 18 years old, with a valid photo
ID, and no longer in high school. When it
comes down to business, the site acts as an
intermediary, with sellers setting their own
prices and shipping to customers directly.
Sellers are provided with company shipping
labels in order to protect their identities, and
the site handles payments – all for a 20 percent
cut. Exchanging of personal information
between sellers and customers is forbidden and
all correspondence is done through the site
itself.

Is someone, somewhere in Japan selling used

panties out of a vending machine? I wish I
could tell you that the answer is no, but the
honest truth is, well, maybe. One thing is for
sure, though – the urban legend is certainly
more popular than the machines ever were.

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Editing by Steven Millward and Terence Lee, Akihabra

night image by x@ray, “used” panty gachapon machine
image by La Carmina, Akihabara school girl image by
John Gillespie

(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency.

More information here.)

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Community Writer
J.T. Quigley
J.T. is the former Japan editor at Tech in
Asia. He's a big fan of Indian food,
snowboarding, and indie rock.

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