Hmm .. Japan thread eh? Well, I lived there for 7 years and speak the language fluently (no, not 'desu' and 'masu' and faggy stuff like that. srsly, you sound like a chick if you talk like that to everyone). Just a few observations about language - I won't go into porn censorship because that information is easier to find. The stuff here is not something you'll find on wikipedia, I presume:
SWEAR WORDS. They don't work in Japanese the same way they do in English. Most of you probably know words like 'kuso!' (pronounched k'sor - the 'u' sound in 'ku' is almost unvoiced - roughly 'shit!'); but they don't have the same strength as in English. To a native Japanese speaker, 'kuso' is more like saying 'gosh darnit gimminy!'. The strength of the curse is given by the intonation. You could say a quick, clipped little 'kuso!' to mean something like 'damn!', or a long, dragged out one to mean 'aww goddamnit to hell!'. I remember when I was in Japan for a short time I was watching Anpanman (kiddy tv show aimed at under 4s - hey, I was still learning the language!), and the bad guy Baikinman (literally 'germs guy' lol) got caught red-handed by the hero Anpanman. Baikinman turned around, checked his escape route (blocked!), and muttered 'kusoooo' in a defeated, 'awww nuts' kinda way. Although you will however hear people say 'kuso-jiji!' (shitty old man, often said by angry teens to their teachers) very abusively, you'll also hear mothers say to their children 'hana-kuso' (literally 'nose-shit' eg snot/mucus) in a very kind maternal way. (Try to imagine your mother saying 'Lets just wipe that nose shit off your face' lol)
The strongest word in Japanese is probably actually 'korra!' (roll your R's or you'll sound effeminate), which doesn't technically have a meaning. It's just a general expletive that could function for any number of English expletives. I speak Kansai Japanese, though, so this may seem different to some of you:
In English, you'd say "what the f*** did you just say?!", in Japanese "nanda to; korra?!", where 'nanda to' is like saying 'what did you say?' and 'korra' adds the aggression and promise of violence.
In English you'd say 'who the f*** do you think you're talking to, d***head?'; in Japanese you'd say 'dare ni mukatte yutton ja korra?!'; where 'dare ni mukatte yutton ja' is 'who are you talking to?' and 'korra' adds, again, all the strength.
You'll encounter other words like aho, boke, or *Asuka voice* baaaaka (moron/fool); of which probably 'baka' is the strongest to Osaka people but not to Tokyo people I think ('aho' is, in my experience, more often used affectionately - I remember my ex-gf - Osaka girl - got the shits at me and called me baka-uzo (yes, I use my handle name in real life too). If I did something funny/odd like put wasabi on an olive, she'd say 'uzo aho ya').
There are other words I won't go into now because they're considered highly offensive in English *and* Japanese, but the main thing to know is there are still differences in use for these 'words for female body parts'. In Japanese, it *only* refers to said body part. In English, you can use it like the Japanese would use 'baka'. If you learn these words and go to Japan and try calling someone 'crude word for vagina', they'll stare at you like you're a retard. Oh, they'll know you're *trying* to insult them, it's just you're failing at it.
EDIT: Oh btw, someone was talking about Shounen Jump. No, it's not for teens. Goddamnit Shounen means 'little boy'. What teenager is gonna buy a comic called 'little boy'? Imagine a 20 year old buying a copy of 'Sixteen' magazine?
It's aimed at under 10s - and this is made abundantly clear by the presence of extensive - almost 100% - furigana (furigana is the tiny little hiragana - or sometimes even katana in the case of Chinese names - placed next to Kanji so they're easier to understand - usually for children to be able to read without a dictionary, or for very difficult characters/historical names).
*YOUNG* Jump is aimed at teens - there is furigana only on very difficult/rare kanji, it frequently deals with sex and nudity and extreme levels of violence, and every issue has pictures of a *very* young lady doing those typical Japanese lolita-type things like eating ice-blocks, kicking water on the beach, or 'accidentally' showing her panties. Srsly, Young Jump would get you arrested in the more prudish West at customs, especially in Australia or Canada it seems.
EDIT EDIT: Oh, and someone else was saying Japan doesn't consider violence etc. to have a negative impact on kids. That ain't true. They have just as many quack psychologists telling everyone that films and video games are making kids killers - I remember a case when I was there in which a girl in primary school (in Kobe I think?) took a knife to school and calmly slashed open the throat of her class mate, killing her. All these quacks where blaming the Ryu ga Gotoku games ("Yakuza" on PS2 & PS3) and Battle Royale for it. It turned out these two girls had been fighting for years, and it had escalated onto online bullying and harassment, and eventually one just couldn't take it any more.
