Trailers for Yoshikazu Katô's YÔEN KUNOICHI-DEN: TSUBAME-HEN, Seiki Watanabe's TOKOROTEN GIRL, Shin'ya Nishimura's CREAM LEMON 4, Mikio Hirota's CREAM LEMON 5, Hirota's LOVE MARK, and Hirota's LOTO ★ SEX

Woohoooo Japanese pron. Can't you guys post more of this stuff in the future? :P

Don't encourage The Sodomizer

At least try and keep the main page safe for work. I'm getting tired of sifting through Gamorrahizer's posts. Don't you have your own site for this crap?

these actually look pretty well made, interesting too. the artworks, either generic or a little simplistic may not do their perception much good - they look a lot more creative in the trailers than the pictures / posters often suggest.

I'll second the comment for work-safe main pages. I'll also second the sentiment that my interest in Twitch as a whole as seriously decreased with the increase of Gomorrahizer postings. This site used to be so much more than just sexploitation cut and paste jobs. Maybe you should break him off into his own separate section?

Most of the sexploitation stuff is seriously crap. Take my word from personal experience; the posters ARE a lot better than the content of these so called "films."

Take the past postings for the Film, "Killer Pussy." I had the unfortunate chance to watch this stinker, and it was a soft-core mess. No amount of rhetoric can make me believe that these are artistic films.

I have no personal problem with these kinds of movies, and will admit they are an occasional guilty pleasure, however I cannot check this site out at work anymore for fear of getting accused of looking at smut.

I am sure someone will follow-up with this by saying, “no one is forcing you to look at this site, and if you do not like it leave,” .... I am afraid that I just might have to do so.

Uhm to Scoville and Monkeymonk, not to push any of your buttons, but there clearly states a line "VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED", so you can expect adult material, so you've been warned, I don't see the problem really.

Twitch as far as im concerned is still THE website to go to for all the news from the eastern front, be it horror, be it... well....(somewhat porn ) lol

The issue is that the images in the posters are generally not work friendly (in most environments), and most of the postings are for straight-up, soft-core movies.

If Twitch specializes in this genre, that is cool, but you are going to lose a lot of your readers.

The links with the ‘Viewer Discretion,” is not the issue. If you do not want to watch them don’t click on them, I agree.

I like Beer, and I like Wine - Not in the same glass - Not at the same time.

Same with fine international cinema and low down dirty flicks

well, youre always going to find a variety of stuff around here, no matter who is contributing - everyone has their individual freedom and the idea is not to collude and generate and specific kind of content - and remember that the gomorrahizer is probably the best researcher on japanese movies regularly contributing online and lots of the things he has provided info on have later appeared at festivals, on DVD and so on... he may feel theres some stuff a little more to his specific taste which might also be to other peoples taste - like with anything, you do it right and nobody says anything, you do it wrong and everyone speaks up - i personally dont mind what he does at all, i do feel the image chosen to go alongside the posts are misleading, as ive said above. i couldnt for a moment imagine anyone more capable of doing what he does in the very large majority of his work.

theres always going to be a pull from one direction to another in peoples minds, simply because each individual chooses what they do and its down to their efforts so... we're not an asian site, as many people believe, its just that it happens to be a very interesting are right now and many of us (myself and the gomorrahizer especially, X too when he was here) has long-standing personal interests which match up with current happenings.

for all those with complaints about content, fair enough, but please put efforts into contributing and add to the mix then see what goes into it and how it all seems to shift in your mind... its not a jibe, i just think theres more than one perspective, we could always do with more diversity, and especially with more writers who have the time and knowledge to inform each other.

While everybody's arguing, I just wanna say that the girl on the poster is extremely hot.

I agree with all the comments with having work-friendly pictures on the main page. I really want to support the site, but I'm getting sick of scrolling thru pictures of exploited women to get to the other articles.

I totally understand the push to keep the front page work safe, but it actually becomes a larger issue than it first appears ... some random, disorganized thoughts:

1. Our rationale for covering j-sploitation film in particular is, I think, well thought out and well considered. We do have limits drawn among the writing staff about what we do and do not cover - i.e. we are not now and never will be a porn site - but I don't see the j-sploitation coverage becoming off limits any time soon. I can recap why if need be ...

2. Who gets to decide what is and is not appropriate? We're not a site intended or written for kids and we never have been, so I feel no need to self-censor with a young audience in mind. Speaking as a parent it is MY responsibility to monitor what sort of media my child takes in, not some random webmasters.

3. Why are people objecting to this while the poster for This Film Is Not Yet Rated - which shows every bit as much skin - goes by without a blink? I'm serious, this is an important issue, I think.

4. One of the great strengths of Twitch is that we have a very diverse range of writers and I would greatly prefer not to appoint myself some sort of morality cop.

5. I do not personally buy in to any system of thought that demonizes the human body and while I understand people's concerns I'm not ever going to put myself into a position where I say 'We won't show that because it has a visible breast.' There needs to be something more to the argument than that.

6. Assuming that we are able to come to some sort of agreement as to what consitutes a 'safe' content line - a major assumption - and also taking as a given that we intend to continue covering the same sort of material that we currently do, how do we then handle images that go beyond that 'safe' line while also providing adequate coverage to everything?

Seriously, I value discussion on these issues. I'm not a great believer in consensus - I don't generally think that it's possible - but if we can come up with some sort of alternate system that works and everybody can live with we'll happily look at it. In the meantime, for those who want to read the site at work but are concerned about the occassional image coming through, can I suggest using a decent RSS feeder to do so? That would give you the flexibility to filter anything you found objectionable.

Some sites have a filtering system going on where you simply push a button and all the stuff that's for 18 and up becomes visible.
I don't know if that kind of thing costs money (probably does) but that might be the solution. But that also means that people who usualy read the site at work might miss allot of information.

A good suggestion Swarez ... it should be possible to set up a site template that simply filters out everything with the 'exploitation' tag for people who don't want that content. Shouldn't be that difficult to implement ...

slippery slope...?

What about, for example, this recent Twitch article of mine on Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr's One to Another (Chacun sa nuit)? It wasn't posted under the "Exploitation" category.

BTW, according to StatCounter, the number of unique visitors to Twitch yesterday increased by approximately 57% over the day before, and was more than double the average for the last 30 days.

thats one thing that doesnt ever hold up - that people come by and complain or mention discomfort over something and say "you'll lose a lot of readers over this..." - because the last time i remember that being said before in this post was some time back and the readerships gone up a hell of a lot since then, plus how can any one person truly rpedetermine all other peoples interest. logically, we write about what we choose and hope others will join and do the same, everyone can chose to read as they want, not return if they wish, wait till theyre away and in private (at home) to read and so on... its when sites predetermine their approach, adjust it or shift according to complaints that the beginning of a process that leads to a more uncomfortable place begins - the one where theres no true opinion to be found and the individuals writing lose their own identitiy, which is something thats not up for grabs. people perhaps arent used to websites that consider freedom, individuality, individual responsibility and all those things it relates to as of upmost importance.

Since I've been one of the critical ones I'll restate my stance:

I have absolutely no problem with Twitch covering the films that they cover. I do have a slight problem with nudity on the main page only because I like to read the site at work and this makes it difficult due to policies that are out of my control.

My main gripe with The Gomorrahizer's posts is that they are consistently poor quality. He seems to think that quantity = quality when in reality the quality of his posts are far below that of the other writers. I'll try to make some constructive comments that he can take or leave:

1) My biggest problem is the lazy cut and paste style of his posts. All the other writers on the site actually write stuff. Reading nothing but walls of type that consist of nothing more than press releases gets very tedious after a while. This leads directly to my second complaint . . .

2) They are way too long and way too repetitive. Do we really need 15+ links (I'm mainly think of links to unrelated films and all the past articles) and a list of every actor appearing in *every* post. This wouldn't be a problem except that you seemingly update your your info on a film every couple of weeks and then include all this extraneous info over and over again.

I think Twitch is a probably the best site on the Internet for covering foreign films of *all* types and I hope you keep focused on what really makes this site great.

I for one appreciate the detailed lists of actors/actresses in these exploitation films. You won't find that info anywhere else because nobody else would ever bother to translate those names into English. The endless "updates" and "recaps" do get tedious, though.

Logboy, I don't think allowing filtering tools for readers is a slippery slope situation at all. It's just allowing people to customize how they access the site. I'm not talking about changing what we cover, just adding more functionality to the category tags to allow readers to tailor the site to their particular tastes and needs.

Gom, yeah, I know there are lots of posts that would slip through regardless - I've already mention This Film Is Not Yet Rated but 4 and Battle in Heaven both come to mind as well as things that I've posted - but for some reason nobody ever complains about non-work safe 'arthouse' postings. Which I find a double standard and a bit irritating, perhaps, but such is life.

And yeah, I don't buy the 'we're losing readers' argument either ... yesterday's numbers were an aberration thanks to the huge number of people searching for those Gillian Chung pictures Mack's been writing about, but we are consistently trending upward.

And seriosuly, people, keep the feedback coming - particularly the detailed comments on what specifically you like and what you don't and how you use the site. It's good for us to hear how people are using things, what they find useful and what could be streamlined ... it's easy for us to forget that different people use the site significantly differently than what we do ourselves. And I think we've all got thick enough skins to take a bit of criticism.

I can't download the 'Yoen-Kunoichi-den: Tsubame-hen' trailer onto my mp3 player. Could you fix this please?

I don't think its a double standard if people don't object to the arthouse fare such as This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Battle in Heaven. Firstly these are films that for some reason, be it a good one or not, have attracted the attention of international festivals and distributors, and stimulated debate amongst those who have seen them. At least you can argue whether they are art or arse. Secondly, it is interesting getting the Twitch writers' spin on them among all the other voices in the crowd.

Clearly I have my own personal interests in pink film, so am not too prudish about the images etc. I can see Todd and Logboy's argument, because we get it all the time at Midnight Eye - if you put sexy stuff on the site, you get a whole load more readers. We've never actually had any criticsm when we've done pink specials, but I wonder how many of these new readers stick around though? It's a rhetorical question to which I have no real answer. My own argument is at least some of them might discover Ozu or Imamura when tempted by reviews of films like Lolita Vibrator Torture

I don't work in an office, so the nudity on the main page does not effect me. However, I can see how it can be a problem for quite a few readers.

But ultimatley I have to agree with MonkeyMonk - the "cut and paste" style of these posts, with no effort at looking more closely and writing more critically about the films, is not really up to the quality of the rest of the site.

Also, I don't think any of these films in this particualy posting which has inspired the debate have "legs", as Variety would put it. That is, they are cheaply made and basically aimed straight at the domestic rental market. Even if any potential festival programmers or distributors wanted to introduce then to overseas audiences, there won't be subbed prints available.

Sure, you can argue that this is the only place where they will be covered, but even a cursory glance at the porn market in Japan (you can label it "J-sploitation" if you wish, but I've noticed a number of "AV" hardcore porn titles cropping up in Gomorrahizer's posts) will reveal its pretty damn huge. There's around 100 pink films released theatrically every year, at least the same amount again straight-to-DVD softcore and considerably more than this of hardcore titles. Are you going to cover all of these? Of course you aren't. The field is virtually endless. There are some gems turned out by the industry every year, but in fairness, not that many.

A bit more judiciousness on what is posted here of this nature would certainly help stave off the criticism. For example, some sort of explanation as to why these are being posted, why the films are important and good, and at least some indication that the writer, even if he hasnt seen them at least plans to. All this, rather than merely linking to the domestic rental distributor's website as is the case here. (Logboy, "gomorrahizer is probably the best researcher on japanese movies regularly contributing online" is an outrageous statement).

Todd, you are running a brilliant resource here, and I am sure you are aware how useful it is to fellow journalists, film programmers, researchers as well as film fans. My own personal view, so please don't take it as too harsh a criticism, is that posts like these serve to water down the site's usefulness - especially when continuously re-posted as updates and recaps - just because most of the films in question are, as someone so rightly put it, crap.

Since I helped start this whole thing, I suppose I should elaborate on my feelings as well:

I love this site, and have been frequenting it for a long time now.

My main complaint was the nudity on the front page. I know that other's feel differently about it, but I just wanted to voice that for my own sake. I feel the same way about nudity in other people's posts, it just came out in this one because he's more prone to post it.

I also must agree that there is a big difference between Gamorrahizer's posts and the others. The "cut and paste" examples above summerize my feelings exactly.

I filter past articles all the time that don't interest me, yet they also don't annoy me the way his do. I'm not asking that everything falls within my taste. I also don't like the flood of 5 of his very long posts all of a sudden filling the main page, pushing everything else out of the way. IT seems as though Twitch has been overtaken by a different identity when he goes on a posting spree. Twitch's integrity is compromised by one person. That's not what a collaborative effort should feel like, and it cheapens the work of the others involved.

Like I posted earlier, he has his own site where he can do his own thing. People who do enjoy his posts can always support that.

I realize that this is not a democracy, but I would also hope that you would be open to honest, well meaning feedback.

Hey Jasper ... a lot of good points, well made in there and you know that I've always valued your opinions ...

I brought up This Film, Battle in Heaven and 4 not to suggest that they are somehow equivalent to the j-sploitation stuff in style or approach - they're clearly not - but because the initial comments were about the near nudity on this poster image while each of those three films have posters as explicit, if not more, that haven't ruffled feathers at all. It's something I've seen really consistently and I just find it odd, much like how I find it strange when the people who scream bloody murder over a well intentioned US remake of an Asian film are completely silent when Asians butcher their own classics ...

And no, we have no intention of covering the Japanese porn industry in any sort of depth. Or at all, really. I just see a difference between pinku film and full on porn and see value in covering the first. It is, admittedly a slippery line to hold, though. And it's hard to tell from a distance which films are going to be worthwhile because the simple fact is most of us will never have the chance to see any of them in their entirety, so it's kind of a crap shoot. You latch on to the stuff that appears better than the norm and seems to hold promise and hope that a certain degree of it sticks. I remember we got some similar criticism to this when we covered Horny Home Tutor and that film ended up expanding into The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai, which very definitely did end up having legs, travelling to a lot of international festivals and generating a fair amount of positive response.

I hesititate to put words in Gom's mouth but when it comes to matters of style, think about it this way. Gom - as anyone who has visited his site will know - has serious, well founded, well informed, and well thought out issues with censorship. The problem with arguing against censorship, however, is that it can put you in bed with some rather unsavory types whose work you may not want to endorse personally while also wanting to argue for its right to exist. So rather than personally 'endorse' something with a seal of approval, it can be better to simply acknowledge that it exists and let people, most of whom around here are reasonably well thought out adults, work out their own responses.

For the me the nutidy is not a problem, I read this site at school and here in Iceland we don't enforce this prudism that most American companies uphold in fear of being sued.

I think Gom should pick and chose his articles with more scrutiny cause right now it looks like he throws up everything that is passed along to him by some low budget DTV exploitation productions that are of no interest to most of the readers on this site. His posts are usualy not commented on and if they are they are mostly there to say how awful said film looks, but not always mind you. There are many articles for far more interesting stuff that don't get any feedback but I'd say 90% of his stuff is seemingly ignored by the readers. This is by far the most commented on article and it's not ever in praise for the film or about it.
I feel that he should look in to the films more deeply to see if there is anything worthwhile to be seen from them and then write about them himself, not copy and paste what's written on the site.
If he is so knowledgeable about this genre then he should be able to tell what's good and what's not or if the writer/director/star has done anything worthwhile in the past. He should ditch this "template" writing cause right now I don't even bother reading them. I just pass right past them because I can't stand reading "Here's a synopsis for "Yadayada" from the official website" for the millionth time.

"This is by far the most commented on article and it's not ever in praise for the film or about it."

That's supposed to be "It's not even in praise"

Monkey Monk wrote above: "My biggest problem is the lazy cut and paste style of his posts... nothing but walls of type that consist of nothing more than press releases...." That isn't a "constructive comment"; it's a cheap insult - and it's false. Consider, for example, my most recent Twitch article (which was posted before he posted the comment of his/hers in question), on the U.S. DVD release of the 13-episode horror-comedy TV series The Great Horror Family (Kaiki daikazoku). Here (PDF file) is Bandai Entertainment's retailer newsletter (i.e., "press release") for that release. With regard to the cast and crew of the series, the newsletter merely states the following: "From the Director of the Grudge, and the upcoming sequel the Grudge 2, Takashi Shimizu!" Compare this to the cast and crew info in my article (links omitted): "The Great Horror Family was directed by Takashi Shimizu (episodes 11-13), Keisuke Toyoshima (episodes 1, 2, 7, & 8), Yûdai Yamaguchi (episodes 3, 4, 9, & 10), and Kenji Murakami (episodes 5 & 6). It starred Issei Takahashi, Asuka Shibuya, Moro Morooka, Shigeru Muroi, Shunji Fujimura, and Tomiko Ishii. It featured appearances by Yoshiyuki Morishita (episodes 1 & 2), Nao Oikawa (episodes 2-4 & 6-13), Kyôko Tôyama (episodes 4 & 7), Kanji Tsuda (episodes 5 & 10-13), Takamasa Suga (episodes 5 & 10-13), Miho Ôhashi (episode 6), Yutaka Matsushige (episode 8), Ayano Yamamoto (episode 9), Itsuji Itao (episode 9), and Tak Sakaguchi (Sakaguchi Taku - episode 9)." I compiled this information, transliterated the names into roman script, and then verified my readings of them - so as to avoid, for example, erroneously listing Takamasa Suga as "Takakuni Suga" (see "Suga Takakuni" on the Japanese Horror Movies Database) and Itsuji Itao as "Sôro Itao" (see "Itao Souro" on the Japanese Horror Movies Database). My compilation, transliteration, and verification of the info that I provided wasn't a "cut and paste" job, nor was I being "lazy" in providing this info. (This isn't the first time here at Twitch that I've encountered such contempt for non-creative work.) If you, reader, are not interested in knowing, for example, that Tak Sakaguchi was in this series - let alone that he was in the 9th episode of it - that's fine, but there may be other Twitch readers who are interested in such "extraneous info".

Monkey Monk also wrote above: "This site used to be so much more than just sexploitation cut and paste jobs." Similarly, MisterVTR wrote above: "The issue is that the images in the posters are generally not work friendly (in most environments), and most of the postings are for straight-up, soft-core movies." I'll grant that the above article of mine was at least in part on "straight-up, soft-core movies", and that so was the one of mine which immediately preceded it, on Yoshiyuki Okazaki's I Spit on Your Remains (Akuma no ejiki: sâdo baiburêshon). The 10 articles of mine that preceded those 2, however, were on the following movies: Joe Knee's Cult, Hadi Hajaig's Puritan, Demián Rugna's The Last Gateway, Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr's One to Another (Chacun sa nuit), Takahisa Zeze's Sanctuary (Mrs.), Xavier Gens' Frontières, Sergio Esquenazi's Visitante de invierno, Ivan Zuccon's NyMpha, Shion Sono's Into a Dream (Yume no naka e), and Kei Fujiwara's Id (Ido). Which of these are "straight-up, soft-core movies"? Even allowing that both Arnold and Barr's One to Another - which is scheduled to have its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) - and Zeze's Sanctuary - which had its world première at the Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) - are such, that's only 4 out of 12, or 1/3. Besides, the 12 articles of mine that preceded those 12 were on the following movies: Christopher Hutson's Butcher House, Konrad Niewolski's Palimpsest, Giles Daoust's The Room, Shin'ya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective (Akumu Tantei), Kenta Fukasaku's Yo-Yo Girl Cop (Sukeban Deka: kôdo nêmu = Asamiya Saki), Ivan Boekmans and Guy Lee Thys' Suspect, Jun'ya Satô's Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato), Kiyoshi Sasabe's Sea Without Exit (Deguchi no nai umi), D.J. Evans' Daddy's Girl, G. Cameron Romero's The Screening, Kirati Nak-intanond and Sirawat Nak-intanond's Secret Room No. 7, and Vadim Shmelev's Beautiful (Krasivaya). Which of these are "straight-up, soft-core movies"? If Boekmans and Thys' Suspect - which recently was screened at the World Film Festival (WFF) in Montréal - is such, then given that the sexual situations in it appear to primarily involve a 15-year-old character, is it more specifically "straight-up, soft-core" child porn?

Jasper wrote above: "Also, I don't think any of these films in this particualy posting which has inspired the debate have 'legs', as Variety would put it. That is, they are cheaply made and basically aimed straight at the domestic rental market. Even if any potential festival programmers or distributors wanted to introduce then to overseas audiences, there won't be subbed prints available." He wrote the following here on Twitch back on March 2nd, in reply to an article of mine on Hideo Jôjô's Cream Lemon: After the Dream (Kurîmu remon: yume no ato ni) - a.k.a. "Cream Lemon 3": "Are you on the payroll for this company [FullMedia K.K.] Gomorrahizer? I never even heard of them before all your posts to Twitch... :)" 5 of the 6 movies listed in the above article of mine are from AMG Entertainment K.K. (FullMedia K.K. prior to March 15th) - the exception being the first one. Mikio Hirota's Love Mark (Ai no shirushi) was the 9th movie to have been released under AMG Entertainment's FullMotion label; his Loto ★ Sex (Roto sekkusu) is scheduled to be the 10th. Tôru Kamei's Question (Kuesuchon), Ryûichi Honda's Watermelon (Wôtâmeron), and Honda's My Wife's Shell (Dappi waifu - peau de mon épouse) were the 1st, 3rd, and 4th movies to be released under it, respectively; they subsequently have been screened at various foreign (i.e., outside-of-Japan) film festivals, including the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, and Cineasia Filmfestival Köln. Kamei's Double Suicide Elegy (Shinjû erejî) and his Paradise (Rakuen: nagasarete) - both likewise from AMG Entertainment - have also been screened at various foreign film festivals.

And a hearty amen to that. While Gom generally chooses not to offer much commentary anybody who accuses him of laziness is WAY off mark. His researching is quite rigorous. And he finds LOTS of stuff that would otherwise slip through the cracks ... Gom's a very valued member of the group.