A male employee in his 50s from Kumamoto has been suspended for four months for watching porn at work. According to prefecture officials, the man spent a total of 93 hours browsing adult and manga websites on an office computer while on duty between January 2024 and July 2025. He also allegedly brought adult videos and other content from home on a USB memory stick.
Kumamoto Prefectural Government Office | Wikimedia
Employee Receives Stricter Penalty After 2018 Disciplinary Action
The case came to light after a colleague raised concerns, prompting the prefectural personnel division to investigate. The employee reportedly works in the Commerce, Industry and Labor Department. He previously received a disciplinary pay cut in 2018 for a similar incident involving browsing non-work-related websites during office hours. Prefecture officials said they imposed a stricter penalty this time, taking past behavior into account.
During questioning, the employee reportedly told prefectural officials that “there was work-related stress, a lack of ethical considerations, and a blurring of the lines between my personal and professional life.” His actions prompted a wave of comments on social media, with users expressing surprise at his behavior. It has also raised questions about workplace oversight and the use of office computers.
Previous Cases of Employees Being Disciplined for Watching Porn at Work
It’s not the first time a Japanese civil servant has been disciplined for watching porn at work. Between June 2007 and February 2008, a Kinokawa city government employee in Wakayama Prefecture was demoted for logging more than 780,000 hits on pornographic websites. The number was inflated because some sites counted multiple hits per click. None of his colleagues noticed his actions.
In 2018, Kobe University suspended an administrative worker for six months after discovering he had spent 1,220 hours looking at adult websites. An investigation was carried out after the university received an anonymous written tip-off. He said he viewed the sites “to relax between assignments.” However, computer-use logs showed he spent approximately 730 hours on porn sites when he was supposed to be working.
