Niconico has suffered yet another major setback. The Japanese video hosting platform first halted MasterCard payments in November 2023, followed by the removal of VISA in May 2024. Then came the June 2024 ransomware attack on Kadokawa, which led to a massive data breach and left Niconico’s main services crippled for over a month.
Now, the consequences of global payment processors strong-arming foreign retailers into compliance have hit hard, Niconico has officially announced that its mature-oriented illustration platform, Niconico Shunga, will be shut down on January 29, 2025, at 2 PM JST.
As part of the Niconico ecosystem, Niconico Shunga centered around user-submitted illustrations, particularly in the style of shunga, traditional Japanese erotic art. This very theme has made it a target of VISA and MasterCard’s ongoing puritanical crusade against Japanese retailers and content creators.
This pressure has loomed over major Japanese retailers like Melonbooks, FANZA, Fantia, and DLsite, all of whom have opted to preserve their wares and cultural identity by cutting ties with Western credit card platforms. Meanwhile, others such as eroge distributor Denpasoft and retailer Toranoana have caved to these demands, purging so-called “problematic” content just to retain the ability to process payments through VISA and MasterCard.
Plain and simple, this is corporate censorship, the same kind of censorship that previously led to the shutdown of Manga Library Z, Ken Akamatsu’s preservation service for out-of-print manga and doujinshi, after it became unsustainable due to losing access to the world’s largest payment processors.
Most recently, VISA went out of its way to target the otaku dating platform Aellune, suspending its license without warning. Then, just a day later, they quietly reinstated the platform offering no explanation for either move.
All illustrations on Niconico Shunga will be permanently deleted, along with the removal of R-15 categories, which featured suggestive content. Additionally, Nico Nico Seiga will begin purging any images it deems explicit.
Niconico claims this decision is due to “the current social environment and international situation,” making it difficult to continue offering these services. While their official statement released yesterday was filled with vague handwaving, the pattern of financial censorship imposed by VISA and MasterCard speaks for itself.
VISA and MasterCard, alongside Western tourists who only recently got into Japanese anime insist that themes like loli and shota equate to actual child pornography. These payment giants essentially run a global monopoly, and while they’re private businesses with the legal right to operate as they see fit, they’ve been deliberately strong-arming specific countries into removing content they personally deem immoral or unethical.
Over the past few years, they’ve directly targeted Japanese manga, eroge, and self-published doujinshi, despite this material being perfectly legal not just in Japan but also in the U.S. the very country where these processors operate.
Niconico’s announcement comes just months after it stated plans to “review” its “scope of regulations” across its entire platform, caving to pressure over laws in overseas countries regarding so-called “sexual exploitation of children.”
Japan’s cultural identity is being systematically sanitized and erased, with Kadokawa tightening its monopoly over literature and animation through its newly announced partnership with Sony, which already controls the foreign distribution of anime.
This ensures that censorship occurs at the very source, shaping Japanese media to appease global markets. Meanwhile, foreign corporate overlords like VISA and MasterCard, operating in over 200 countries strongarm Japanese retailers into removing entirely legal material simply because they don’t like it, all while conveniently turning a blind eye to actual exploitation on platforms like OnlyFans.
Even the United Nations is sticking its nose in, once again demanding Japan “reform” its fictional media under the tired, baseless claims that it “sexualizes children” and “promotes violence against women.”
This relentless war against Japanese culture shows no sign of stopping. If anything, Japan itself is bending the knee, as major retailers cave to maintain their ties with VISA and MasterCard, while smaller platforms are being crushed entirely. Meanwhile, Blackstone, one of the world’s most notorious investment firms peddling ESG and DEI ideology is slithering in to seize control of Japan’s largest e-manga platform, and even the country’s most iconic and marketable cultural export, anime, is suffering from its own success, shackled by censorship demands for global distribution.
The only way Japan can even attempt to safeguard its sovereignty is by becoming the first nation to demand that payment processors like VISA and MasterCard, who together control well over 50% of transactions in the country be legally required to process payments for any and all legal commercial goods within Japan.
If Japan wants to push back against rampant Western overreach, it must enforce strict regulations ensuring that these predatory financial gatekeepers either facilitate all lawful transactions or be forced to pack up and leave the country entirely.
