A provocateur of both high order and low, mangaka Hiroya Oku undoubtedly has something of the adolescent about him. It is this arrested development that is, if not his best, his most interesting quality. His manga are fraught with the big-titted sex and violence of juvenescence, fit with a toe-dip into nihilism, sociopathy, and sadism fitting of the age: in this regard his manga seem conscious only of their ability to be unconscionable.
Despite that indisputable immaturity, so too is one tempted to praise Oku for his equally indisputable creativity. Adolescence is a ripe age for creative thinking, born of its rather zen attitude towards sympathy. Meaning it is an opportune age for any creative to breastroke through.
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OKU HIROYA’S CAREER
Oku was born in 1967, in Fukuoka, Japan. A chance encounter between a 10 year old Oku and Osamu Tezuka’s “Vampire,” is cited by the author as being the moment when the possibility of being a mangaka was presented to him. “I read [“Vampire”], and it was really interesting. I thought what an interesting profession it was to be a manga artist, and I wanted to draw freely like this.” Furthermore, Oku claims a trip taken to the video store a few years later, wherein he rented both “Back to the Future” and a Japanese porn film, was the genesis of his style, which we might catabolically define as creatively written, Sci-Fi set-porn.
In his second year of highschool, Oku won a Honorable Mention Award for a manga he submitted to Weekly Shonen Sunday Newcomer. Though not prestigious by any means, the award served as evidence of his talent. This allowed him to work as an assistant to mangaka Naoki Yamamoto, after graduating from High school.
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HEN
There is something admittedly charming about Hen. When compared to the godless, cruel and bloodsoaked worlds of Oku’s later work, Hen’s deviently tame and quaint and saccharin tone taint its famously sadistic author with a dainty origin. The only resemblance to the Gantz author is the presence of fan-service, an Oku-requisite: woman with breasts of porno-proportion, wider than the already too-wide-hips below, and too susceptible and sensitive to motion for something of their dimension to manage. This fetish/ fascination can be traced to that Japanese Adult Video Oku rented during his fated trip to the video store. Quoting Oku: “Kikuchi Eri’s [the starring actress’s name] giant breasts sure made an impression on me.”
However, Hen’s mark as a Sex-Comedy provides something in the way of explanation for the fan service, concerning itself with two homosexual romances, spread over 13 volumes with two distinct parts. Part one focuses on Suzuki and Sato, and how the former, a straight boy, becomes obsessed with the latter after becoming convinced Sato is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Part two (beginning after Vol. 5) follows a lesbian romance between Chizuru and Azumi, the latter growing in guilt as she grapples with her newfound lesbianism. Out of the two parts, only the second can be found in English.
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Continue reading in Premium and explore the development of Oku's style and themes through the arousing stories of his early commercial flop Zero One, his strong comeback with the nihilistic Gantz, the sensual blossoming of a reclusive adolescent (hikikomori) in Maetel's Feelings, the elderly man who becomes Earth’s last hope after alien mishap in Inu Yashiki, and the high school boy who falls in love with the big-breasted adult video actress Papiko in Gigant. All larded with 59 additional pics and closing words on the success of selling sex.
Click HERE for an extensive article about the sex and erotism in Oku's Gigant
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