Officials hope the ban will "avoid giving a bad impression" to foreigners
Japan is banning porn from convenience stores in preparation of the Tokyo Olympics and Rugby World Cup.
Channel News Asia reports that pornography will be banned from Japanese convenience stores ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
7-Eleven said it will phase out their “adult” magazines by the end of August, just before the Rugby Wold Cup kicks off in September.
Officials said the move is aimed at “avoiding giving a bad impression” to visitors from around the world.
Japanese convenience store franchise Lawson stopped selling adult magazines in Okinawa in November 2017 and will carry the ban in all of its 14,000 stores across the countries
Competitors Ministop and FamilyMart followed suit too. The former banned adult magazines in 2017 and the latter banned them in 2,000 of its 16,000 stores in Japan.
Industry experts believe adult magazines make up under 1% of total sales across 7-Eleven’s 20,000 stores.
“We knew those sporting events are coming in the future, and those were among factors that we considered,” a 7-Eleven company spokesman said.
“The way people use 7-Eleven has changed over the years,” the spokesman added. “We can sell other merchandise at the newly available space.”