Wandering through San Francisco Japantown on Sunday, we came across a large display of the following item in a shop:

Simply put, Japanese women tend to have flat asses, and this bit of padded gear is designed to mask that little genetic quirk. The product name is literally “Ass Up”, and the box promises a beautiful hip line through increased volume. Interestingly, the pictures at Amazon include a fully translated box, with the name “Up Shape”; I guess they thought the English-speaking market wouldn’t be as receptive to the blunt approach.

Nude photographers tend to deal with the flat-ass problem by using wide-angle lenses up close to create perspective distortion. This tends to produce images ranging from the goofy to the grotesque, but they do it so often that it’s clear that Japanese men want cheek.