In Japan, pornography has unique characteristics that readily distinguish it from western pornography. Pornographic films are known as "adult videos" (AV) in Japan, so Japanese adult videos (JAV) refers to the Japanese Adult Video industry. Animated films are referred to as hentai in English, but in Japan the terms "adult anime" and "erotic animation" (or ero anime) are used. In addition to pornographic videos and magazines featuring live actors, there are now categories of pornographic manga and anime (i.e., hentai), and pornographic computer games (eroge; for both PC and game consoles).

Reflecting Japan's views on sexuality and culture, Japanese pornography delves into a wide spectrum of heterosexual, homosexual, and transgender sexual acts in addition to unique fetishes and paraphilias. Starting with erotic stories and wood block prints from before the 20th century, Japanese pornography evolved into distinct subcategories. Partly under attempts to circumvent Japanese laws regarding censorship, but also to cater to particular fetishes, actors and producers often feature subject matter that in western pornography had historically been unseen or rarely depicted, and even now is less frequently featured; bukkake (group ejaculation), gokkun (consuming semen), omorashi (needing to urinate), and tentacle erotica are a few uniquely Japanese genres of erotica. Lolicon (young girls), shotacon (young boys), and their contribution to the controversy regarding the regulation of cartoon pornography depicting minors has been a major issue concerning child protection, free speech, and public morality both inside and outside Japan.

The Penal Code of Japan from the early 20th century has provisions against indecent material, so any lawfully produced pornography must censor the genitals of actors and actresses; this type of censorship also extends to the graphics of hentai manga, video games, and anime. Up until the mid-1990s, any depiction of pubic hair was also censored. Anuses are only censored at contact or penetration.

Shunga or pornographic wood-block pictures were printed with all imaginable situations. The actual uses of shunga in the period are still debated, but probably resembled modern uses of pornographic materials, including masturbation and shared viewing with a lover. Several notable woodblock artists to produce this and their creations were Hokusai's The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, Lesbian and Two Lovers as well as Kitagawa Utamaro's Client Lubricating a Prostitute. One of the most well-known collection of Shunga can be seen in Kunisada's 1850 work A Bedside Guide to the Colours of Love in Spring.

After the Meiji Restoration in the second half of the 19th century, the publication of pornographic materials declined under government pressure.

In the late Taishō era and early Shōwa era, an artistic movement called Eroguronansensu, literally "erotic-grotesque-nonsense", occurred influenced by decadent works of Europe. Open sexual expressions were permitted in novels and manga but a strict control was applied on photographs and films. After World War II, the law against 'obscenity', Article 175, was the only official censorship law that remained in force. During the Allied occupation of Japan, which lasted until 1952, all forms of sexually explicit material were prohibited in the country. American forces occupying Japan imposed Western ideas of morality and law. The Japanese public slowly came to adopt some of these ideas and practices. Negative views about pornography that were foreign to Japanese culture were accepted and applied to visual depictions as they were the ones most likely recognized and thereby criticized by Westerners. As a result, once the occupation forces left, the Japanese government kept the ban on sexually explicit material in place until the late 1980s; images or depictions of frontal nudity were banned, as well as pictures of pubic hair or genitals. No sex act could be depicted graphically. Sex work was outlawed in Japan in 1958.

Influenced by magazines such as Playboy, pornographic magazines were printed soon after World War II. Playboy's articles being about American lifestyle, women being mostly non-Asian, interviews being with people largely unknown in Japan, and fashion and sport being American spawned a fashion for a genre known as yōmono (literally "Western things").

In the early 1960s, several movie studios began producing "pink films". With censorship laws prohibiting genitals from being seen but otherwise free to express anything, these movies quickly diversified to cover all genres, including rape and bondage. Throughout the 1960s, the "pink films" were mainly produced by low-budget, independent filmmakers such as Kōji Wakamatsu. In 1971, the major studio Nikkatsu entered the pink film genre. Starting in 1971, homosexually-oriented magazines began to appear, including Barazoku. Homosexual magazines tend to feature particular body types, such as Badi (younger adult males), Samson, (chubby men) and G-men, (muscular men).