Japanese Condom Maker Creates Fantasy Anime About Safe Sex

Japan’s leading condom manufacturer just found the most Japanese way to promote safe sex.

Okamoto tapped into one of the country’s most famous pop culture exports – anime. The series Condom Battler Goro was released on YouTube on June 11 and now has four episodes. It’s got all the features of a typical anime and looks a lot like Dragon Ball.

It all starts with Goro, a 24-year-old man who finds a mythical condom in a stone. He pulls the condom out and his body is suddenly covered in a condom suit of armour. His mortal enemy is Rambo, a condom hunter that has the tips of broken condoms for a helmet and shoulder pads. In the first 56-second episode, Goro wins the fight with the help of his two friends Miku and Hayato.

In another episode, Goro and his friends go on a “survival challenge” to the deep woods, a forest of sexually transmitted diseases. While people around him are infected, Goro stays safe in his condom suit.

The two other episodes feature a condom tournament and a fight with the "Big Boss." Spoiler alert: Big Boss turns out to be Goro’s long-lost father. He was also a condom master, like Goro, but didn't use protection when Goro was conceived.

"It is difficult to say with confidence that Japanese people are fully aware of how to use condoms properly, and we recognise that Japanese people do not like to touch on sex education. Therefore, we made an animation to educate Japanese people about safe sex, with a hint of humour," Okamoto said on its website.

Netizens appreciate the creative approach to sex-ed.

“Primary and secondary kids should watch this to understand the importance of contraception,” one Twitter user said.

“I didn’t know anime like this existed! I heard that amid the coronavirus, children aren’t able to talk to parents about unwanted pregnancies… So I think this is a really good step to teach Japanese children about safe sex.”

“This is mad funny. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages.”

Sex is a taboo topic in Japan and sex education remains limited in the country's schools, mostly focusing on the scientific side of reproduction but not specifics like condom use.

An online survey by the Nippon Foundation found that about 40 percent of teenagers in 2018 thought sex-ed in school was “useless."

Find Miran on Instagram.