The world’s most hated payment processor has returned to the spotlight. This time, however, neither Visa nor Mastercard has coerced another Japanese retailer into removing contentious erotica to conform to their global guidelines. Instead, Visa’s Japanese subsidiary, Visa Worldwide Japan Co., has made headlines for a different reason: holding a press briefing to outline its ambitious expansion strategies within the country.

The event, as reported by Impress Watch, highlighted Visa’s plans to further entrench itself in Japan’s evolving cashless economy, addressing both opportunities and challenges in the market.

During the Q&A session at the briefing, Visa Worldwide Japan’s president and representative director, Seetan Kitney, addressed a question about the increasing unavailability of Visa on sites offering adult content legally permissible in Japan.

Kitney explained that while Visa strives to facilitate legal and legitimate purchases whenever possible, there are instances where the company must restrict usage to “protect the brand.”

He elaborated that these are “complex decisions” influenced by both global and local policies and emphasized the importance of maintaining “sincerity and integrity” in their practices. Kitney’s remarks indicate that Visa has no plans to revise its current stance on the matter, reaffirming the company’s cautious approach to controversial content.

Visa has not provided detailed clarification on the “global and local policies” influencing its decision to restrict transactions for adult content, but the pattern of its actions reveals a consistent trend. Both Visa and Mastercard, which together hold a near-duopoly in global payment processing, have increasingly imposed restrictions on Japanese content platforms hosting adult material, citing brand protection and policy alignment as reasons.

In Japan, Visa leads the credit card market due to its widespread merchant acceptance and international appeal, closely followed by Mastercard with Japan’s very own JCB in third. However, these companies have drawn criticism for pressuring Japanese platforms to censor or remove adult content under threat of losing their merchant processing capabilities. High-profile examples include:

  • Melonbooks, a prominent doujinshi manga retailer, which lost the ability to process payments through Visa and Mastercard.
  • Manga Library Z, an archive of out-of-print manga, which shut down after losing essential payment processing options.
  • Denpasoft and Toranoana, which opted to censor content to comply with the processors’ demands.
  • DLSite, Japan’s largest digital doujinshi platform, and other services like FANZA, Fantia, and Niconico, which have ceased accepting Visa or Mastercard payments altogether.

This crackdown has sparked backlash, both domestically and internationally as payment platforms targeting merchants centered on self-published works and or fanart disproportionately impacts niche creators and jeopardizes artistic freedom.

Notable voices, like NieR: Automata creator Yoko Taro, have called out these practices as “dangerous,” warning that they threaten the freedom of expression by forcing content creators and platforms to conform to external moral standards.

The controversy underscores tensions between global corporate policies and Japan’s distinctive cultural and legal environment, with many viewing the payment processors’ actions as overreach under the guise of protecting brand integrity.

Because VISA and Mastercard specifically target Japanese retailers and creators for producing and distributing so-called “problematic” content, they’re waging a war against controversial themes like lolicon.

For those unaware, lolicon refers to characters that are short, cute, and designed to exude “moe” a sense of cuteness and innocence, distinct from “chibi” art styles which have exaggerated proportions. But here’s the kicker: Western puritans, who have wormed their way into the anime medium, can’t resist throwing tantrums over Japanese creations.

These obsessives label lolicon fans as pedophiles, equating such fictional characters to real life children, all in the name of censoring and banning what they personally dislike while dragging your name into the mud for being in association with such material.

VISA and Mastercard’s crusade doesn’t stop at lolis. They’ve targeted other types of erotica, as seen in DLSite’s failed attempts to appease these corporate overlords by tweaking genre tags, only to still have their license revoked. In the interview, the head of VISA Worldwide Japan outright admitted the company’s goal is to purge such content entirely.

They justify pressuring distributors and businesses into submission with the threat of revoked licenses, claiming Japanese consumers buying Japanese-made doujinshi somehow “damages their brand.” The hypocrisy is staggering when platforms like OnlyFans, exploiting real people, continue to operate without scrutiny.

The hypocrisy is hard to ignore. VISA’s policies allow explicit material involving real individuals to thrive on Western platforms, but fictional works from Japanese artists are somehow too “damaging” to the company’s reputation. This selective enforcement reeks of corporate double standards and raises uncomfortable questions about cultural imperialism.

Kitney’s remarks have drawn sharp criticism by the Japanese especially. Whether or not someone personally approves of certain content is irrelevant; the real issue is the overreach of corporations that wield financial power as a means of cultural censorship. By selectively banning the sale of legal media, VISA and Mastercard are effectively dictating what art and literature are permissible in a supposedly free market.

Whether or not you like this kind of media doesn’t matter. It’s legal in Japan and countless other nations, you could argue it’s morally debatable but then again so are other niche demographics like the furry fandom for instance which is far more sinister and harbors real-life criminals.

These policies also undermine Japan’s unique creative culture, which has long championed freedom of expression in art, literature, and media. By targeting an entire genre under the guise of “brand protection,” VISA are setting a dangerous precedent for global censorship. Small-time creators rely on its production and distribution to survive.

VISA and Mastercard, trusted payment processors are deliberately preventing Japanese consumers from using their own money at select stores because they refuse to erase these materials from their inventory. At its core, this isn’t just about lolicon or erotica, it’s about the principle of allowing people to engage with legal content without interference from overzealous corporations. VISA’s decision to act as judge, jury, and executioner on what qualifies as acceptable media is a chilling reminder of the unchecked power held by financial institutions.

And if this is what “protecting the brand” looks like, maybe the brand itself is the real problem because crushing the livelihood of doujinshi creators under the guise of “protecting the brand” is nothing short of vile corporate overreach and if you think that’s anything less than disgusting, you’re apart of the problem.