Adult magazines at FamilyMart stores in the city of Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, are being covered up in line with a program to protect the young from sexually explicit materials, a move that has drawn protests from the publishing industry.
The Sakai Municipal Government on March 16 reached an agreement with the convenience store chain to wrap green plastic around magazines that are deemed "harmful" to youths under 18 years old based on Osaka's prefectural ordinance, and only at a limited number of stores.
Among the regulated materials are books, magazines, CDs, game software and other visual materials that contain sexually explicit or offensive content.