The Coming-Of-Age Eroticism of the Mangaka Shuzo Oshimi

Shuzo Oshimi is a mangaka whose name brings associations with dark, melancholic, angst-filled and sexually-fraught stories often set, somewhat loosely, in the coming-of-age genre. He was born in 1981, in the mid-sized, dilapidated mountain town of Kiryu, Gunma. Much of those early Kiryu-years of pre-pubescent to adolescent life were spent in depression, with an unhappy Oshimi — lamenting his lack of friends, girlfriends, sexual fulfillment and adventure — finding escape only in the world of literature: the modernist poets of Japan and the surrealist writers of France. Oshimi would later manage an escape from the town which had been the sole source of his melancholy. He moved to Tokyo in 1998, where he pursued with full-force his mangaka career, successfully publishing his first work, “Superfly,” in 2001.

Fig.1.

Eroticism In Early Works

Oshimi’s early works — “Superfly,” “Avant-Garde Yumeko,” “Sweet Poolside,” and “Devil Ecstasy” — more than his later, seem to feature sex as the prominent focal point of the story; they can all be rightly labeled under “pornographic” — the word “erotic” seems almost too high-brow as it belies how smutty these manga really are. When someone sets out to make any piece of erotic media, sex becomes a prerequisite, meaning the sex oftentimes has the effect of feeling utterly inorganic, coming out of nowhere. The story then feels composed of sexual scenes bracketed by scenes of unearned character development and or unearned theme reinforcement, whose only purpose is to buy time — and give the impression of the work being more than just simple smut — before the next sexual encounter takes place. Oshimi’s early works all suffer from this issue. And while he attempts to provide an alibi by having sex be a focal point of the plot, and so excusable when featured in abundance, the high-volume of sexual imagery makes the author’s promise that there is more to it, and that the manga isn’t really just about arousing the audience, hard to believe..

Fig.2.

Big-Boob Related Trauma

There is nothing wrong with such manga, simply that it fails to be erotic to the high, emotional caliber which one expects from an Oshimi story, as mentioned: it strays instead into the dreaded territory of pornography — which itself is closely tied to that word “exploitative.” We see this with “Devil Ecstasy,” the story of a young man named Noburu, who, as a child, suffered a big-boob related trauma which has left him a high-strung, young-adult virgin — given that the sight of a woman’s breasts sends him into a panic. The story follows Noburu as he goes to a brothel called “Devil Ecstasy,” where he meets a small-boobed escort who, because of her small boobs, he falls in love with. The brothel, it turns out, is housed entirely by succubi whose ulterior motive is taking over the human race by harnessing “saem,” this being a force, of sorts, found inside all members of the male sex — one can easily imagine by which course getting “saem” is achieved. The story here of virgin Noburu’s budding sexuality is little but a pretense to feature sexy demons in kinky scenarios (the manga never fails in its multitude of excuses to have this or that blouse, skirt, pant or pantie conveniently come off); it’s fun, but it lacks the emotional core which would later make Oshimi famous.

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Sexual Curiosity

“Devil Ecstacy’s” subject of a young boy discovering the beauty/ complexity of sex is a constant, unifying theme which under-pins all of Oshimi’s work. We see it most often depicted through the gaze of a boy (or occasionally girl), around the age of most coming-of-age protagonists, discovering sex not through direct intercourse, but rather through slight exposures,teases, like peaks up skirts or panty-slips or top-down angled views of cleavage — that which for a young, virgin boy is likely to constitute the entirety of their sex-life. To play psychologist: the parallels which can be tied to Oshimi’s own, self proclaimed, sex-free youth are without need of elaboration. One can easily consider his protagonists to be surrogates, which he lives vicariously through or, at the very least, uses to portray some deep aspect of his adolescent-self. Most of Oshimi’s male main-characters share the dual trait of sexual curiosity and a guilt spawned from said curiosity.

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In the extended Premium edition of this article, among other things, an analysis of Oshimi's other important work The Flowers of Evil, his fascination with abalone divers (and Utamaro's triptych on this theme), why Oshimi depicts saliva-strings, numerous additional images of his coming-of-age eroticism, and MUCH more...

Click HERE for the erotic and obscene manga drawings of Keizo Miyanishi

What do you think about Oshimi's coming-of-age eroticism? Leave your reaction in the comment box below...!!