is an artistic genre that puts its focus on

eroticism Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, ...

, sexual corruption, and decadence.Silverberg, Miriam Rom. "By Way of a Preface: Defining ''Erotic Grotesque Nonsense''". Galley copy of the preface for ''Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times''. December 12, 2005. As a term, it is used to denote something that is both erotic and grotesque. The term itself is an example of , a Japanese combination of English words or abbreviated words: from ''erotic'' and from ''grotesque''. The "grotesqueness" implied in the term refers to things that are malformed, unnatural, or horrific. Items that are pornographic and bloody are not necessarily , and vice versa. The term is often mistaken by Western audiences to mean "

gore Gore may refer to: Places Australia * Gore, Queensland * Gore Creek (New South Wales) * Gore Island (Queensland) Canada * Gore, Nova Scotia, a rural community * Gore, Quebec, a township municipality * Gore Bay, Ontario, a township on Manito ...

" – depictions of horror, blood, and guts.

History

art experienced a boom when , a

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...

characterized as a "prewar, bourgeois cultural phenomenon that devoted itself to explorations of the deviant, the bizarre, and the ridiculous", manifested in the popular culture of Taishō Tokyo during the 1920s. Writer Ian Buruma describes the social atmosphere of the time as "a skittish, sometimes nihilistic hedonism that brings

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

Berlin to mind." Its roots go back to artists such as

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi Tsukioka Yoshitoshi ( ja, 月岡芳年; also named Taiso Yoshitoshi ; 30 April 1839 – 9 June 1892) was a Japanese printmaker. Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric. (2005)"Tsukoka Kōgyō"in ''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 1000. Yoshitoshi h ...

, who, besides erotic

shunga is a type of Japanese erotic art typically executed as a kind of ukiyo-e, often in woodblock print format. While rare, there are also extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word ''shunga' ...

, also produced woodblock prints showing decapitations and acts of violence from Japanese history.

Ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk ta ...

artists such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi presented similar themes with bondage,

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

and erotic

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

. 's first distinct appearance began in 1920s and 1930s Japanese literature. The Sada Abe Incident of 1936, where a woman strangled her lover to death and castrated his corpse, struck a chord with the ' movement but shortly led to the censorship of related media. Other similar activities and movements were generally suppressed in Japan during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, but re-emerged in the postwar period, especially in

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

and

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

.McLelland, Mark
'''Hentai'''"">"A Short History of '''Hentai'''"
. Over time, the movement's influence expanded into parts of Japanese

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

, art, manga, and eventually into film and music.

Later influences

is also an element of many Japanese horror films and pink films, particularly of the 1960s and 1970s. Examples include

Teruo Ishii was a Japanese film director best known in the West for his early films in the ''Super Giant'' series, and for his films in the ''ero guro'' ("erotic-grotesque") subgenre of '' pinku eiga'' such as '' Shogun's Joy of Torture'' (1968). He also dir ...

's ''

Shogun's Joy of Torture is a 1968 Japanese ''ero guro'' film directed by Teruo Ishii and distributed by Toei. The film, which can be classified as belonging to a subgenre of pink films, is considered a precursor to Toei's ventures into the "pinky violent" style of f ...

'' (1968) and ''

Horrors of Malformed Men is a 1969 Japanese horror film directed by Teruo Ishii, who also co-wrote the film. It is based on the novels and by Edogawa Rampo. Plot Hirosuke (Teruo Yoshida), a medical student with almost no recollection of his past, is trapped in an as ...

'' (1969) and

Yasuzo Masumura was a Japanese film director. Biography Masumura was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi. After dropping out of a law course at the University of Tokyo he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei Film studio, later returning to university to study ph ...

's ''

Blind Beast , aka ''Moju the Blind Beast'' is a 1969 Japanese film directed by Yasuzo Masumura. It is based on a novel by Edogawa Rampo. Plot Young aspiring model Aki Shima is kidnapped by a mysterious blind man and taken to his home in a warehouse, which ...

'' (1969), the latter two based on the works of Edogawa Ranpo. A more recent example of in cinema is Sion Sono's ''

Strange Circus is a 2005 Japanese horror drama film written and directed by Sion Sono. A narrated fiction presents the story of school principal Ozawa Gozo, who rapes his daughter, Mitsuko, after she sees her parents having sex. Her mother Sayuri witnesses th ...

'' (2005). There are modern artists, some of whom cite ' as an influence on their work. These artists explore the macabre intermingled with sexual overtones. Often the erotic element, even when not explicit, is merged with grotesque themes and features similar to the works of H. R. Giger. Others produce as a genre of Japanese pornography and

hentai Hentai is anime and manga pornography. A loanword from Japanese, the original term ( ) does not describe a genre of media, but rather an abnormal sexual desire or act, as an abbreviation of . In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exi ...

involving

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...

, disfiguration,

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

, mutilation,

urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excreted from the body through the urethra. Cellul ...

, enemas, or

feces Feces ( or faeces), known colloquially and in slang as poo and poop, are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a rela ...

. This genre of pornography is colloquially known among internet circles simply as "guro". Well-known manga artists include Suehiro Maruo,

Hajime Yamano is the Japanese word meaning . In the Japanese traditional martial arts such as karate, judo, aikido, Kūdō and kendo, it is a verbal command to "begin". Hajime is also a common Japanese given name for males. In the Amami Islands, Hajime (元) i ...

Jun Hayami Jun or JUN may refer to: People and anthroponymy * Jun (given name), a common Japanese given name * Jun (singer), a member of South Korean boy band U-KISS * Tomáš Jun, Czech footballer * A spelling of common Korean family name Jeon (Korean surn ...

, Go Nagai,

Shintaro Kago is a Japanese guro manga artist. He debuted in 1988 on the magazine ''COMIC BOX''. Style Shintaro Kago's style has been called "fashionable paranoia," although he has stated the term stems from Western media and he doesn't use it himself. He h ...

, Toshio Maeda, Henmaru Machino,

Yamamoto Takato Yamamoto (written: lit. "base of the mountain") is the 9th most common Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese politician *, Japanese World War II flying ace *, Japanese judoka *, Japanese manga artist and character ...

, Horihone Saizō, Katsuhisa Kigitsu, Uziga Waita, and

Rei Mikamoto is a Japanese horror manga artist who wrote and illustrated , , and . The last was adapted in 2010 as a feature movie as '' Big Tits Zombie''. Style Many of Rei's works involve themes of powerful (and sometimes psychotic) female casts that s ...

. The modern genre of

tentacle rape is a type of pornography most commonly found in Japan which integrates traditional pornography with elements of bestiality and a fantasy, horror, or science-fiction theme. It is found in some horror or hentai titles, with tentacled creat ...

began within the category of (although it has much older roots in Japanese art; see '' Girl Diver and Octopi'') but became so popular that it is now usually considered separately.

In music

Some visual kei bands have a concept or theme relating to , most notably

Cali Gari Cali Gari (stylized as cali≠gari) is a Japanese visual kei experimental rock band formed with the concept erotic grotesque.

.Bounce ''Di(s)ctionary Number 13—Visual Kei''
. Retrieved November 19, 2008. Western visual kei fans assumed their theme was a subgenre of visual kei and linked it with other similar bands. The 2014 Flying Lotus album '' You're Dead!'' prominently featured artwork from Japanese manga artist Shintaro Kago on the cover and inner sleeve, with further art being utilised in the accompanying live show. Much of the drawings featured men and women being disfigured and mutilated in unrealistic, hi-tech ways, with a significant amount of gore and nudity.

Notes

* Aguilar, Carlos (editor). ''Bizarre Sinema! Japanese Ero Gro & Pinku Eiga 1956–1979''. Firenze, Italy: Glittering Images, 2005. . * McLelland, Mark
'''Hentai'''"">"A Short History of '''Hentai'''"

PDF version
. ''Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context'', issue 12 (January 2006). . * Silverberg, Miriam Rom
Galley copy of the table of contents and preface for ''Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times''
December 12, 2005. * Silverberg, Miriam Rom
''Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times''
. Asia Pacific modern, 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. . {{Horror fiction Visual arts genres Arts in Japan Hentai Japanese pornography Visual kei Erotic horror Japanese sex terms

History

Later influences

In music

See also

Notes