Henmaru Machino (町野変丸 ''Machino Henmaru'', sometimes given as 'Hanmaru', born 1969,

Aomori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori (city), Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is border ...

) is a Japanese artist, described as the Magritte of the eromanga world, whose works prominently feature themes of bestiality, dysmorphia,

hermaphrodism A hermaphrodite () is a sexual reproduction, sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are Gonochorism, gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphr ...

, and body transformation, as well as dozens of other sexual paraphilia. Most of his work has emerged within a paradigm of

hentai Hentai () is a style of Pornography in Japan, Japanese pornographic anime and manga. In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exist in a variety of media, including artwork and video games (commonly known as ''eroge''). The developme ...

manga 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 history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

and images, but some has appeared in galleries; several of his pieces were part of

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between High art, high and low arts. His wo ...

's traveling ''

Superflat Superflat is a postmodern art movement, founded by Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, which is influenced by manga and anime. However, superflat does not have an explicit definition because Takashi Murakami does not want to limit ...

'' exhibition. Machino started his career through submitting illustration work to the hentai magazine ''Manga Hot Milk''. While Machino's work defies any easy categorization, it could be said to fall within the Japanese EroGuro (Erotic Grotesque) school, still somewhat loosely defined, which dates back to

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

-influenced, Showa-era

Decadence Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...

. Some assert that it is pornography of the most extreme variety, and nothing more. While porn-or-art debates have been occurring around a wide variety of works for centuries across the globe, the debates surrounding Machino are unique in that his subject matter is at the far fringes of human sexual experience, and even beyond it, in that much of what he draws could never occur in the real world. While many EroGuro artists create works that could have real-world analogues ( S&M,

mutilation Mutilation or maiming (from the ) is Bodily harm, severe damage to the body that has a subsequent harmful effect on an individual's quality of life. In the modern era, the term has an overwhelmingly negative connotation, referring to alteratio ...

, etc.), Machino's images of, for example, girls with dozens of phalli sprouting from each of the dozens of breasts that cover their body, are not something any viewer of his work could ever see in life, and thus the issue of "what is pornography?" strongly preempts the issue of "art or pornography?" in some of his work.

Partial list of works

* - Mediax/MD Comics, 1994. * SM Chokyoshi Hitomi - Unlicensed game for Super Famicom. * - Issui Sha/Izumi Comics, 1994. * - East Press, 1996. * ''Hōtō ni Atta Eroi Hanashi'' - Sanwa Shuppan, 1996. * - Ohta Shuppan/Ohta Comics, 1996. * - Issui Sha/Izumi Comics, 1997 * - Issui Sha/Izumi Comics, 1998. * - Ohta Shuppan/Ohta Comics, 1998. * - Kubo Shoten/World Comics, 1998. * - Sanwa Shuppan, 1998. * ''Nuruemon'' - Issui Sha/Izumi Comics, 1998. * ''Kenzen Hentai Shōjo'' - Kubo Shoten/World Comics Special, 2002. * - Sanwa Shuppan, 1997 * - East Press, 1999 * - Issui Sha/Izumi Comics, 199?

References

External links

Machino works list
(Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Machino, Henmaru Living people Machino Henmaru Machino Henmaru Ero guro Hentai creators