Dakimakura, Japanese Love Hugging Pillows

A dakimakura (抱き枕) (from daki (抱き) "to embrace or cling" and makura (枕) "pillow") is a type of large pillow from Japan. The word is often translated in English simply as "hug pillow". In Japanese culture, dakimakura are no different from Western orthopedic body pillows, and are commonly used by Japanese youth as "security objects". However, from a western perspective, the word "dakimakura" is primarily used to indicate the popularized image of love pillows with graphic illustrations of female characters of a bishōjo style. In Japan, love pillows are a subset of dakimakura and a type of inflatable sex toy. They usually have life-size pictures of anime characters or porn actresses on them.
History
During the 1990s, dakimakura began to intertwine with otaku culture, leading to the production of pillow covers featuring printed images of Bishōjo from various anime or galge. Many of these early otaku dakimakura covers were released through Cospa, a character goods and apparel store which continues to release official dakimakura covers to this day.