Manpuku Wagojin: Hokusai's Erotica At Its Finest

In the early nineteenth century shunga books came to be produced increasingly with full-color printing. The most important work to mark this shift was Manpuku wagojin (Gods of Intercourse) of 1821  by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).

Innovative

Both text and pictures are thought to be by Hokusai himself and the book was innovative in the way in which it constituted one complete story, which continued in pictures and text throughout all three volumes.

Erotic Tales in Color

Unlike other erotic books, which concentrate on tales of the pleasure quarters Manpuku wagojin is an example of the enpon (erotic tales in color) form and describes stories concerning ordinary men and women. In this case the story involves Osane, daughter of the rich merchant Sazayama Arisuku, and Otsubi, daughter of the ruined merchant Kawanuya Hinbei.

Ironic Variation

The tale is an ironic variation of moralistic stories: Otsubi learns to take advantage of her sexual attraction in order to gain an important position in society, while Osane, who grew up without a proper awareness of her own femininity ends up as a depraved prostitute. The explicitly anti-Confucian message is that the achievement of a certain social status depends entirely on one's skill in exploiting sexual resources.

Deity of Conjugality

The book begins with pictures of them aged thirteen and ends with them aged thirty. By the last picture their wealth and poverty have been reversed and the book ends with an appearance by the deity of conjugality to explain why this has happened.  

Complex Compositions

The printing in the books is of the finest quality and the illustrations, too, are uniformly excellent. This work features a number of multiple scenes: double pairs of couples, onlookers, and the like. The technique has appeared earlier in classical shunga scrolls, and Hokusai adapts it to fill each frame to the limit in complex compositions

Sex Toys

Including the influential ‘sex toys‘ scene (Fig.3), a couple using a helmet sex toy (Fig.5), group rape involving palanquin bearers (Fig.6), a very rare anal scene, the classic post-rape scene with a depraved Osane, the dog scene, many scenes involving female voyeurism (alternately Osane and Otsubi) and much more…