Boy meets girl. They fall in love. What happens after that ... well, it depends on the individuals, the mores of their generation and the availability of a few square meters of private space.

Back in 1968, a year after I arrived in Japan, I saw a movie that stunned me. It was Susumu Hani's "Hatsukoi Jigokuhen (Nanami: The Inferno of First Love)," which the director co-scripted with radical playwright Shuji Terayama. Though it was the swinging sixties, even in Japan, this movie about teenage love shocked the public and outraged the country's self-styled protectors of morals.

Shun, shy and inhibited, meets cute little nude model Nanami. Before long they are in a shabby love hotel and Nanami is disrobing in front of him. Fully naked, she sweetly says "Do whatever you want with me."