Help with an academic/journal article on tentacle-erotica!

So, I have to submit this article pretty soon, and I am wondering if maybe some of you guys would be able to read through it and give me some constructive advice and corrections. I hope you can, so, I have posted the full text below. Thanks!



In 1814, Hokusai Katshushika published the book Young Pines, which contained various shunga (erotic Japanese paintings in the ukiyo-e style), however, one would outlast all of the others. The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife from Young Pines has impacted every generation of Japanese art to succeed it, with its style and subject matter being reworked by swathes of artists. The implications of The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife have been drastic, as it departs sharply from almost every other work of the time, and would give birth to a new genre within Japanese art.

One of the biggest challenges facing those who look upon Hokusai’s work in the present is that there is not a current parallel to liken the manner that the book, Young Pines, which contained The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, was released in. Hokusai was an artist of the ukiyo-e style (tr. floating world), and many ukiyo-e artists would draw extensively more than their counterparts throughout the world, with many of their works being collected in bound volumes. The artists would carve woodblocks so that they could be reproduced, and the rising middle-class of Japan would buy these for their personal use, as the mass-produced artbooks were not excessively expensive.

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife is a six-and-a-half by eight-and-three-fourths inch woodblock cut. It is done with several paints, and there was black paint used on the blank part of the picture to write a dialogue of the woman being pleasured by the octopi during sexual intercourse. It appeared in the bound book, Young Pines, and is a retelling of legend of Princess Tamatori, a story that would be recognized by Japanese viewers at the time. The work is meant to be viewed alongside the other prints that accompanied it, as the rest depict consensual intercourse, and the writing on the panel also suggest it is depicting consensual intercourse between the pearl diver and the octopi. Even in his time, Hokusai saw others using similar themes, with his peer Yanagawa Shigenobu making a woodcut that featured an octopus pleasuring a woman.

Yet, as Japan entered the Meiji era, much of what ukiyo-e had pioneered was beginning to be lost. The form of ukiyo-e had traveled many years to reach acceptance, as it was originally dismissed as childish, but, during the Meiji Restoration, many un-Western things were purged, such as octopi fondling women. Still, ukiyo-e would survive on in the new genre of “manga”, a term Hokusai had coined, which consisted of mainly black and white drawings with a narrative. These were much like the idea of Western comic books, however, manga contained a more consistent narrative, based more heavily on non-fantasy subjects, a polar opposite of the American-born, Western comic tradition.

However, although Hokusai’s stylistic influence appeared to be surviving, it seemed as though his subject matter would not. Largely at the urging of American influence during writing of the Constitution of Japan, Article 175 stated that no work that was decidedly obscene would be allowed to be released. By most definitions, sexual acts with octopi were in violation, and it seemed very likely that Hokusai’s image would be the only of its type.

Shortly after World War II, young Japanese artists began to continue in the ukiyo-e style, due to its accessibility and popularity. The most noteworthy to gain success was Yasuji Kitazawa, who drew in the manga style, and began to target his stories towards children. One of his series, Chame and Dekobo, gained widespread recognition in the large cities of Japan with children, and began to sell quite well. At the apex of the series’, playing cards with the likeness of the two titular characters were widely sold in Japan. During this time period, Kitazawa published a magazine, Tokyo Puck, which mirrored American magazines with comics targeted at a younger audience and regular publication. Tokyo Puck’s mainstream sales mirrored what would later become a deluge of weekly manga magazines released in Japan, later to be collected in books like Hokusai’s, a tradition that continues to this day.

Coming slightly after the height of Kitazawa, a twenty-year old girl named Machiko Hasegawa, who drew a story aimed at an even broader audience than Kitazawa’s clientele of children, as she wrote for both young women and children. Her series, Sazae-san, concerned the everyday life of a housewife, and it would go on to be adapted into virtually everything a commercial work of art could be, including the world’s longest-running fictional television show.

The popularity that Kitazawa and Hasegawa gained was very domestic in scope, and although they continued manga as Hokusai envisioned it, that is, simplistic, the manga author Osamu Tezuka came along, and infused copious amount of the ukiyo-e style whilst drawing far more detailed settings and characters. Tezuka’s most popular work was and is, Iron Arm Atom, which deals with a robotic humanoid. Yet, it is not so much the manga that has had the most influence, rather it is the television series of it he oversaw. He and his animators made a series with lucid motion and set it against a backdrop, using a technique of overlaying different static layers and cells to compose each image. Tezuka and his studio would not re-draw each background for every screen, they would create a background and then layer the cells on top of it to achieve the motion. With this innovation and the introduction of television extending manga into a new, perpendicular art-form called anime, manga became a formalized genre, and both were seen to inherit the ukiyo-e style from Hokusai and his contemporaries.

With recognition came the ability to experiment, and manga authors soon began dwelling on themes that were not child-centric. Hasegawa began to draw a series that dealt with problems women faced, and other manga authors, such as Yoshiro Tatsumi and Gen Fukuzawa, began to explore dark facets of human nature, with Fukuzawa drawing Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, that showed children dying of maggot infestations after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then, even the legendary Tezuka decided to begin writing about taboo topics, and published Ayako, a story of an aristocratic family, with the main relationship being incestuous. He followed up with Apollo’s Song, a dive into the Post-World War II psyche, and youthful sexual frustration. But, in a Japan where mental diseases were ignored, his mentally disturbed main character who was incessantly in love with his caretaker disturbed and intrigued audiences, with some estimating that Apollo’s Song was so heavily read by children that it spurred the introduction of sexual education into Japanese schooling.

As time passed, authors began more and more to write sexual stories, ranging from erotic to pornographic, all using elements of the ukiyo-e style. Although this was occurring, manga and anime continued to discuss mature subjects and gain popularity, and just as the West was gaining interest in artists like Hokusai at the end of the 20th century, it appeared that Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife had resurfaced.

Toshio Maeda, a longtime manga author was hired by Wani Magazine to write a new manga series, due to his detailed drawing skills and his passionate storylines that elevated his works beyond what many saw as sleazy counterparts. Maeda drew The Wandering Kid: The Legend of the Super God, which was serialized by Wani through 1990 beginning in 1986. The series featured an alternate world with fantastical, angelic like girls, a contrast to Maeda’s previous works, along with a newfound sense of sardonic humor. But, it was not until a year after its initial serialization that the tentacle began to show.

The manga form of The Wandering Kid: The Legend of the Super God was only somewhat popular, until Hideki Takayama was hired to make a direct-to-video adaptation in the anime form. Takayama altered the story heavily, and it became laced with horror, rape, and violence, all things that had not been shown in mainstream anime or manga. Yet, there was the notable inclusion of a scene where a tentacle monster raped a female character, recalling the minds of many to Hokusai’s image, and making it seem as though Hokusai’s work may not have been an isolated idea. Maeda remarked of Takayama’s adaptation, “repugnant, cruel and sadistic…”.

After The Wandering Kid: The Legend of the Super God caused commotion and subsequently sales, Maeda and Takayama both took note. Afterwards, Takayama incorporated more elements of octopus-like appendages molesting and fornicating with female characters into his continued anime adaptation of The Wandering Kid. Maeda, inspired by the success of the alternate vision of his work, went on to pen Demon Beast Invasion, a post-apocalyptic, erotic serialized work that contained tentacle-based intercourse and more violence than his previous works. Maeda continued down this path with the even more popular work, La Blue Girl: Lewd Beast Academy, which received multiple video series and several video game adaptations.

Overall, tentacle based intercourse in anime and manga skyrocketed throughout the close of the 20th century. It became incorporated into nearly every facet of anime and manga, with many shows even parodying it, such as the anime film Akiba Girls. Even today, the genre continues with popular films such as Tentacles and Witches, along with its continued saturation in the general anime and manga community with 15 Bishoujo Hetteroiskoi containing a scene with a plant molesting a girl with tentacle-like protrusions.

Yet, although Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife was the first work of octopus pornography, it can be seen that his work may have not resurfaced so much as Western artists in a stand-alone complex created it, inspiring modern Japanese artists. The first instances of tentacle intercourse in the 20th century, were however, decidedly Western, specifically, American. Numerous American horror films, including the popular The Evil Dead, had scenes in which monsters would brutally rape females to the point of killing them.

Although American films with octopus-based sequences of intercourse may predate their Japanese counterparts, the Japanese pieces were notably different, as they were animated, as opposed to the †˜live-action’ American cinema. Noteworthy, however, is that Japan now produces pornography with of a narrative that is filmed with actors and contains tentacles replacing what would traditionally be the role of the phallus.

Why octopus-centered erotica and pornography? Takayama most accurately and succinctly explained the reasoning in an interview, responding to a question of why he chose to include tentacle rape scenes, “There is nothing that arouses a stronger response in human beings than either sex or violence. A mixture of the two is very powerful indeed.” Then again, there is more meaning also in Maeda’s response to an interviewer, “At that time [pre-The Wandering Kid: The Legend of the Super God], it was illegal to create a sensual scene in bed. I thought I should do something to avoid drawing such a normal sensual scene. So I just created a creature. (His tentacle) is not a (penis) as a pretext. I could say, as an excuse, this is not a (penis), this is just a part of the creature…Drawing intercourse was, and is, illegal in Japan. That is our big headache: to create such a sensual scene. We are always using any type of trick.”

Yet, the central reason the tentacle has gained a large audience is due to its psychological and societal implications Although Maeda and others would use the tentacle, Takayama’s original use did intend to use the tentacle as a means to avoid censorship. The first American film to make use of the tentacle rape style was credited with the depiction of the Freudian ideal of the id, which is an idea running parallel in the Japanese works. The tentacle in every Japanese work is meant to directly portray the male phallus, and is often attached to a sentient life-form that can engage in dialogue with the female being assaulted.

Furthermore, the use of a metaphor for the male phallus conjures the ability for the viewer of the work to imagine their phallus as the monster’s, which is the exact concept of modern Western “point-of-view” pornography, as it creates a larger mental link between the viewer and what is occurring on the screen or in the book. However, tentacle erotica is notably a sharp departure from regular pornography, as if the tentacle was actually replaced with the male genitalia it represents, it would constitute grotesque rape, and something that the average person could not imagine themselves in. Yet, modern Japanese tentacle erotica is focused on the pleasure of the person committing the atrocity, with many works reaching a seeming resolution by having the female victim undergo a psychotic break and begin to enjoy the brutal assault, justifying the horrific actions, as the ending of the piece shows mutually content parties, albeit one being deranged.

Despite the hundreds of years between Hokusai and modern artists like Maeda, there are present similarities and differences in the artistic styling of their works. Of course, the most noteworthy similarity is the inheritance of the octopus having sexual encounters with females, but, just as important is the inheritance of ukiyo-e into manga by the Japanese art community. Ukiyo-e has now resurfaced with modern artists in different schools, and manga’s integration into even sculptures, such as by Murasaki, who believes that manga is creating even separate artistic schools, with Murasaki aligning with the “superflat” (Darling). Markedly different, though, is the idea of tentacles and bodily fluids littering a piece, a world apart from Hokusai, as Japan before the Meiji era did not necessarily view nudity as sexually stimulating. Through Westernization, attitudes toward nudity have become more conservative, and this is reflected in the emphasis on the erotic element of bodily fluids and genitalia, something ukiyo-e artists never did. In terms of technique, the prints have a descendant in the tentacle works of today, with Hokusai’s writing on the blank space of the woodblock having been replaced by dialogue in anime, but literally mirrored in manga, which still uses blank space for speech bubbles.

Thematically is where the works depart from each other the most, with tentacle rape being an antonym of Hokusai’s imagined scenario. Put succinctly, modern works, with almost no exceptions, portray the possessor of the tentacle being mentally different from a human, and that they are engaging in grotesque sexual acts, sometimes even mutilating the victim. Furthermore, if one compares The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife to a modern manga or anime, the tortured and contorted faces of female victims bare utterly no resemblance to the ecstasy and joy experienced by the pearl diver. It is almost dubious that some claim Hokusai has influenced them, with their works bearing heavier resemblance to American horror films with tentacle-rape. Yet, Hokusai remains their influence because of his existence as the sole precedent.

However, Hokusai’s themes are not necessarily lost on modern generations, with his idea of manga having imitated his shunga prints in terms of themes, including The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Manga for women is prevalent in Japanese society, with elements of it being quite erotic. But, the marked difference between the West and the East is that there is a decided abandonment of the Western virgin/whore dichotomy, and that ordinary women are shown as being in consensual, pleasurable relationships. This element is seemingly an evolution of Hokusai, with it being subversive in its own way, and possessing elements of the feminist philosophy of sex-positive feminism. This showing of female pleasure mirrors Hokusai’s themes the most directly, and even works for men that are erotic elevate female characters above the image of a promiscuous girl devoid of values, is prevalent in Western works.

Though, the question of who inherited Hokusai’s legacy remains a question for artists and critics. The ukiyo-e style has now given birth to the most popular art style in Japan, and the most commercially successful in the entire history of mankind. The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, put simply, is an image of a woman engaged in consensual sexual intercourse with two octopi. This notion of consent being the basis is lost on the modern artists with many using tentacle erotica and tentacle rape as synonyms. However, these works decidedly borrow Hokusai’s original idea, but, someone else has taken his themes. Manga and anime have grown to portray intricate stories, showing normal life in Japan and the sexual encounters that are part of it. The overriding idea of modern erotic manga and anime of mutual affection is unique in the world of pornography, but it can trace itself back to Hokusai.

No single style has directly continued the style of The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, rather, multiple Japanese artistic movements have taken pieces of it. Divorced from the other prints composing Young Pines, can be seen as a precursor to modern tentacle erotica, however, when viewed as consensual, it can be seen as having far broader impact. Hokusai’s ideal of a non-human creature performing action has been abandoned, with humanoid creatures replacing it to further a psychological connection between the work and the viewer. The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife has, and will continue to have, a pronounced impact on the entirety of Japanese art, with the artist that made it having created the foundation for modern Japanese art, and the work itself pioneering an entire genre.













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I can't believe you did this. This is really well done so far, but I'm currently writing an academic paper myself so I only skimmed it. My paper is due tomorrow so I hope I finish soon. Let me know when this is due and I'll go through it more thoroughly before then and quote my corrections if any.

This reminds me of a survey taken in my Sex Offenses class a week or two ago where the professor, in an effort to gather and bring to light unique sexual fetishes, gathered an anonymous survey. There were general selections like leather, S&M, hands, feet, etc. So, naturally, I stated my 2D fetish and literally wrote "I have an obsession I'm not really embarrassed about with a form of animated porn. It's called 'hentai,' look it up."

He made a PowerPoint of the results and a slide said "people in this class reported having a sexual fetish which included: high heels, hands, role playing, body type, and animated porn." and this picture was in the corner of the slide. It was probably really weird of me, but I had this intensly proud feeling repping the hentai fans.

Lol, thanks. I have until about Saturday, and don't worry about going too in-depth, any help at all is welcome. And I have made plenty of comments about 2D fetish...Except not anonymously.

I totally forgot to say good luck on your paper! GOOD LUCK!

Alright, finished off my literary narrative and read through this.

I'm happy to say I only made three notes, all in red and in the quote. This is very well written and I'd pay $10 to see the look on your professor's face as they read it.

Thanks! And the professor is this lady that always talks about her little dog, and whenever she disapproves of something, she just leans her head back and goes, "Mm hm." It should be entertaining at the least. Thanks for all your help!