Two people -- the cartoonist and the chief editor of the comic book -- have been fined 500,000 yen (4,700 dollars) each. Japan apologized again on Monday for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, a day after comments by a cabinet minister drew an angry reaction in South Korea. In a bid to narrow the gap over history, the two governments launched a joint study four years ago, but a report on its results issued on Friday showed the two sides were sharply at odds on many subjects, including the sex slaves issue.

It was the first Japanese court trial in which a comic book stood accused of being obscene and the first in 20 years dealing with printed pornography, despite the presence of a huge amount of pornographic cartoons, photographs and videos on bookstands and on the Internet in Japan Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. In April 2002, Kishi sold some 20,500 copies of the 144-page book, entitled "Misshitsu (Honey Room)" and marketed as for adults only. The Tokyo District Court found Monotori Kishi, a 54-year-old publisher, guilty of distributing obscene printed material and handed him a one-year prison term suspended for three years.

A man walks past advertisements for comic books and compact discs on the street in Tokyo. The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, 成人影片 which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday. Eminent academics and critics had testified that it was not a matter for the state to judge obscenity and restricting expression was unconstitutional.

Four Japanese basketball players have been sent home from the Asian Games for allegedly paying prostitutes for 成人片 sex, the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) said on Monday. The penal code article itself does not clearly define obscenity but the legal precedent was set by a 1957 Supreme Court ruling over a Japanese translation of D.H. But the term "comfort women" is set to disappear from many government-approved history textbooks for junior high schools from next year, Japanese media have reported.