He is Japan's answer to Superman, except he rides a turbo-charged motorbike and has the face of a beetle. I must confess I am rather partial to the Masked Rider, having grown up on a heavy diet of the TV series in the 1970s with the superhero doing battle with baddies.

But the TV series - and the numerous movies it spawned - got progressively more violent. The programmers at Cable TV seemed to be blissfully unaware of this development. The TV station got a slap on the wrist from the Broadcasting Authority this week for showing the most recent movie Masked Rider - The Next on its children's channel. The movie was classified IIB when it came out in 2008, meaning it's not suitable for children. It featured, among other scenes, according to the Broadcasting Authority, a decapitated man and his headless torso.

The more interesting scenes were buried in a footnote in the authority's report: 'There were portrayals of a teenage female student trying to embarrass a male teacher by standing on a desk and flipping her dress in front of him and the rest of the class teasing the teacher as a virgin; a female rider caressing her chest seductively in front of her enemy, saying that fighting with him would bring her an orgasm.'