Since it launched here in September 2015, Netflix has built a long list of Japanese programming, from the hit reality series "Terrace House" to the manzai (comic duo) drama "Hibana: Spark." Mostly, though, it's the sort of fare you can find on network TV or in your local multiplex.

But "The Naked Director," which drops on Netflix on Aug. 8, challenges the taboos of local television so frontally that it's hard to imagine any network executive here giving it their hanko (stamp) of approval, even for the latest of late-night slots.

Based on Nobuhiro Motohashi's reportage about the career of pioneering adult video director Toru Muranishi (Takayuki Yamada), the series portrays the AV industry of the 1980s and early '90s with unabashed eroticism, including steamy bed scenes that show exactly why Muranishi's videos had customers lining up around the block.