When I first started this series, I knew that Japan would be the one country where I would have no issues finding hundreds of titles. In contrast to the countries we’ve gone through before (South Korea, India, Thailand), Japan is a behemoth when it comes to the sensual, the perverse, the erotic. They have famously their own Pinku Eega (pink movies) genre, where you can find anything from sexual violence, BDSM, erotic action-thrillers, and so much more.
Last year, I gave a short lecture on the history of Japan’s connection to, and abundance of, erotica in its mainstream arts, going as far back as the 1500s feudal era. The themes and popularity of the type of erotica shift throughout its history, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example of a big impact in recent history that influenced the styles and narratives. Japan does not shy away from extreme horror combined with its erotica, following the post-war principle of “Pink over Red”, meaning as long as all the gruesomeness and perversion stay on the screens and in Art, it is better than to have these fantasies enacted in media than in real life. From Erotic Thrillers to Ero Guro Nansensu and everything in between, I try to include as much as I can.
Going into the history, cultural movements and motivations, and the increasing extremity of erotic horror in Japan is a multipart series on their own, so for now we are focusing on some highlights for this series instead. Here are some of the titles I selected:
Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) – Teruo Ishii
Teruo Ishii is a legend when it comes to combining BDSM, the horrors of the human condition, and movable art. In Horrors of Malformed Men, he famously featured the Butoh dance legend Tatsumi Hijikata, co-founder of butoh, the post-war Japanese avant-garde dance form built on physical extremity and grotesque contortion. The writhing, malformed islanders were performed by a real dance troupe. And it is not just in this film that Ishii combines arts and genres; you can also find it in his other works such as Orgies of Edo, Shogun’s Joy of Torture, and The Blind Woman’s Curse.
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972)
While the 70s saw a peak in exploitation film and genre in the West, Japan was not far behind. The Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion films are infamous in style and subject matter. A woman is betrayed by those she loves and goes on an endless journey of revenge without any restraint. For fans of female-powered exploitation, this is a series you have to have seen at least once.
Nun in Rope Hell (1984) directed by Katsuhiko Fujii
In my complete lists (see the link at the end), you can find a large group of what I call the Rope Genre titles. These range from exploitation horror to thriller to noir, and all have either some form of Kinbaku or Shibari (Japanese arts of rope bondage) in the title and/or poster. The Nun in Rope film series are the ones I am most familiar with outside of the Ishii titles, and this sub-category does really deserve its own mention.
Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend (1989) directed by Hideki Takayama
And then we land on the Godfather of Hentai itself, an anime so specific it created its own genre and industry: Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend. This movie was the start of a new porn-genre which later also included even more extreme sub-genres such as Ero Guro Nansense (Erotic Grotesquery Nonsense). It has demons, monsters, gods, and humans all looking for the legendary Overfiend. This movie was also one of the first instances since the censure-law of genitalia in Japan, and therefore went creative and gave us the first instance of anime tentacle-porn and tentacles replacing genitalia as well.
The Mystery of Rampo (1994) – Kazuyoshi Okuyama
A lot of people are familiar with Marquis de Sade, but do you know his Japanese counterpart Edogawa Rampo? Rampo’s books were famously banned in Japan and some other countries, and there are several films in this full list that are inspired either by his stories or his life directly. Even though Rampo mostly wrote thrillers and mysteries, inspired by Western authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, his stories eventually evolved into the Ero Guro Nansense genre and became more and more sexualised after the 1930s. His books, his life, and the movies based on them are all worth diving into.
A Snake of June (2002) directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
From the same director who gave us Tetsuo: The Iron Man comes a more Noir Thriller in the form of A Snake of June. Erotic voyeurism, eerie atmospheres, and moody pacing take you along the ride of this cinema gem.
Strange Circus (2005) directed by Sion Sono and Antiporno (2016) directed by Sion Sono
Last but not least, from the mind that gave us the uncanny Suicide Club, and the weird Nicolas Cage/ Bill Moseley speaking Japamerican Prisoners of the Ghostland, comes a whole catalogue I could have added in this overview. Strange Circus is a morbid story of a novelist whose life becomes more crazy and perverse the more it unfolds on us, and Antiporno is a visual art piece that is part sexual liberation and female exploitation.
As I mentioned at the start, I could go on endlessly, but that would require a whole new series on its own. Start with these, and see what appeals.
My full list on Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/VaHgg
