Japan, the “Rorikon Taikoku”has a growing business of publications containing photo collections of under 15 year olds young females in a variety of suggestive poses — clad in dresses or bathing suits. The annual market for such products, which are completely legal and sold openly, is estimated in the neighborhood of 17 billion yen.

My own personal opinion is that girls under 15 SHOULD NEVER be dressed like that and posing so suggestively. I totally fine with gravure idols that are over 18, just not underaged kids.

In the second part of the article, they actually talked about photoshots sessions as well:

On May 27, a group of 25 males converged at an unspecified Osaka location to participate in a “Satsueikai” (photo shooting session), in which the models were all females of primary school age.

The arriving participants registered and each paid 8,000 yen. The session began from 10:30 a.m. at a large and mostly deserted public park, upon which the grinning cameramen assembled around the girls with whom they were most infatuated. They then began taking turns snapping away in a determined manner, without speaking to each other or to the girls.For those wishing to arrange for a one-on-one shooting at a later time, appointments could be arranged to meet the girls, at which time, a fee of 50,000 yen plus incidental expenses would be charged. Expenses would include transportation and meals, including costs for the girl’s accompanying parent.

The girls themselves showed remarkable composure, standing as images of unruffled innocence while as many as 10 strange men armed with cameras surrounded them and began snapping away.

This is such a disturbing article. The things parents will put their children through to get them on the path to fame.

Talking about fame, I did some more research and found that there are actually even ranking of the top 100 most favorite u-15 idols.

So what do you people think about these U-15 idols? Is it acceptable by your standards or in your country?