LOS ANGELES – In what is believed to be the first punitive action of its kind, Cal/OSHA has cited a leading Hentai studio for violations of the state’s blood-borne pathogen regulations even though the studio employs no human performers.
“This complaint from these Ocean people, it no make sense,” said Hidehiko Ikegami, a spokesman for Aishimasu Shokushu Inc. “The cartoon, she has no blood but what we draw on her. How can get or give the dishonor of germ which make penis ache during urination, much less cause to contract the Eizu?”
The regulatory agency thus far has rejected the studio’s pleas to reconsider the fine, which stemmed from a complaint filed by Californians With Nothing Better to Do (CNBD), a grassroots movement voluntarily overseeing a variety of regulated activities and products in the state. The group’s oversight thus far has ranged from adult film production and horse racing to the certification of organic hemorrhoid creams.
Matthew Steiner, executive director for CNBD, said his volunteers are “proud to help California become a safer, cleaner, nicer, family-friendlier place to live and work.”
“It’s not easy spending your free time watching hour after hour of adult video footage and looking for evidence of violations, especially once you’ve run out of tissue or your boss has come back from lunch,” Steiner said. “But just knowing our efforts can slightly hasten the demise of smaller porn studios through the proverbial ‘death by a thousand cuts’ makes it all worthwhile.”
While Ikegami said he thinks it improper for Cal/OSHA to respond to complaints made by people who had never even set foot in his company’s offices, a representative of the agency said the CNBD’s complaint was deemed to be valid following a review of the Aishmasu title Alien Beast Invasion 3: Obihiro Prison Orgy Party.
“Even though this complaint was not filed by one of the employee-cartoons working at Aishimasu, our review of the production in question and the facilities in which it was made left no doubt as to the severe nature of the violations,” said Kristie Fryer, a Cal/OSHA spokesperson. “How they ever fit that poor giant squid onto their minuscule excuse for a ‘sound stage’ in the first place is beyond me, let alone how it managed to maneuver sufficiently to menace or entice the young female lead.”
In addition to failing to require its human, alien, squid, quasi-elephant and unidentified subterranean monster performers to use condoms, Aishimasu also was cited for failing to protect its employees from a variety of other workplace hazards.
“On or before June 15, 2015, Aishimasu Shokushu Inc. of [address redacted] had failed to write, establish, implement and/or maintain an effective Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP),” the complaint states, asserting employees were “exposed to workplace hazards including, but not limited to, sexually transmitted diseases, electrical hazards, giant squid attack, alien abduction, invasive probing (anal, vaginal and otherwise), vicious elderly Japanese headmasters, ‘cum-drunkeness’ and tennis elbow.”
While Ikegami conceded his artists “may have fail drawing on condom to every single little penis,” he firmly denied any employees were ever at risk of being attacked by squids, aliens, Cthulu or anyone bearing an axe or sword.
“The employee, he draw alien, he draw axe, he draw alien with axe,” Ikegami said, “so why ever he going draw alien with axe who then kill coworker or his self? This also make total nonsense, like something California bureaucrat man simple withdraw from anus not thinking.”
While she said she could understand Ikegami’s confusion and frustration, Fryer said it is “important to remember just because a performer is fictional doesn’t mean he, she or it doesn’t have rights under California and federal law.”
“Especially with respect to so-called ‘monsters,’ it’s easy for people to view them as second-class citizens,” Fryer said. “But when a monster walks onto your film set in California, unless he’s showing up uninvited to destroy said film set, he’s no longer just a force of destruction and mayhem. He’s now your employee as well — and you will treat him as such or taste the punitive, fining wrath of Cal/OSHA.”
