Back in print at last!
First published in 2008, this is the Updated and Amended re-issue of Behind the Pink Curtain, the definitive study of Japan's pinku eiga film genre.
Exclusively available in hardcover, Pre-Orders available now at a huge £14.99 discount off the cover price!
PRE-ORDER: Expected to ship August 2025
Steamy, subversive, exotic and bizarre!
Behind the Pink Curtain takes the reader on a wild joy ride deep into the hinterlands of Japanese culture, society and radical politics by way of the weird and wonderful world of the country’s distinctive sex film movements.
Jasper Sharp’s definitive study focuses on one of the most notorious sectors of Japanese filmmaking, the erotic Pink Film, or pinku eiga genre, and the closely related Roman Porno films produced by Nikkatsu studios from 1971 to 1988. From the early ’60s onwards major Japanese film studios and independent producers alike have kept up a conveyor belt level of output of pornographic features intended purely for cinema release. Up until the 2010s, just short of 100 such titles were shot on 35mm every year intended for screening in a specialist network of adult cinemas across the nation. Many such films have been released on home video in the West or screened at international film festivals, while a significant number of Japan’s most noted filmmakers today cut their teeth in this industry.
Based on extensive interviews with many of the leading figures in the field, Behind the Pink Curtain is a colourful and exhaustive exposé of Japan’s most vibrant and prolific filmmaking sector.
Read about:
— the ins and outs of Japanese censorship from the wartime onwards;
— how topless deep sea diving girls came to woo local audiences in the ’50s;
— how a TV nature documentary maker made nude female Tarzan movies;
— how ’60s mavericks Kôji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi met John and Yoko;
— how one of Nikkatsu’s leading directors went it alone to make a film about powerboat racing and ended up in the bad books of the yakuza;
— how the sex farce Horny Home Tutor: Teacher’s Love Juice was re-titled The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai and became one of the most talked-about Japanese films ever, playing at more than twenty international film festivals.
CONTENTS:
Chapter 1:
The Japanese Sex Film: Art or Industry?
An introduction to the world of pinku eiga, some facts, some definitions and a brief historical overview, looking at the state of the modern distribution network and who actually watches these films.
Chapter 2:
Sex, Censorship and Other Positions of Power: New Ways of Looking
Is the pink film art or pornography? What is pornography anyway, and does it mean the same in Japan as over here? An introduction to Japan's obscenity laws and censorship history, within the context of the international development of erotic cinema.
Chapter 3:
Ama Glamour and the Rise of the Flesh Actress
An overview of the output of Shintoho in the 50s, who introduced nudity to Japanese screens with films such as those in the Ama, or Girl Diver movies such as Girl Divers at Spook Mansion and Revenge of the Pearl Queen.
Chapter 4:
The Birth of the Eroduction
The beginnings of the pink genre in 1962 with Satoru Kobayashi's Flesh Market and Koji Seki's legendary female Tarzan films and the formation of Kokuei, Okura Productions and the new Shintoho.
Chapter 5:
Pioneers of the Pink Film
Introducing the early trailblazers of the pink film world and their work - Kan Mukai, Koji Seki, Satoru Kobayashi, Mamoru Watanabe and Shinya Yamamoto.
Chapter 6:
Pinkos in Pink
Pink gets political. This chapter investigates how the pink film came to echo the radicalism of ultra-leftist groups on the streets of Tokyo, and details the political landscape of the era.
Chapter 7:
Emerging from the Underground: Wakamatsu Pro
We investigate the major role played by Koji Wakamatsu and his coterie in bringing avant-garde pop culture, porn and politics to a wider market.
Chapter 8:
Eiga / Kakumei: The Story of Masao Adachi
A survey of the radical films of Wakamatsu's partner-in-crime Masao Adachi.
Chapter 9:
The Golden Dawn of the New Porn: Nikkatsu's Roman Porno
The sex film goes mass market in Japan, with the birth of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno line in 1971.
Chapter 10:
Roman Porno: The Films, Their Makers and Their Stars
A closer look at some of Nikkatsu's top Roman Porno directors and their films.
Chapter 11:
Eros International
International co-productions and international distribution - was the pink film ever a purely Japanese phenomenon?
Chapter 12:
I Am Curious (Pink) - An Industry in Flux
The pink film underwent significant changes in the 70s, with the arrival of Roman Porno, and yet its output remained as strong as ever. A look at the major production companies of the decade, their staff and their films.
Chapter 13:
The Decade of Excess
Japanese sex films became renowned for their excessive depictions of violence, rape and sadomasochism, but was it always this way, or was this a purely 80s development, and if so, why?
Chapter 14:
The Four Devils and the Pink Nouvelle Vague
The renaissance of the pink film in the early 90s, following the death of Roman Porno and the arrival of Adult Video.
Chapter 15:
The Devils Themselves....
An overview of the films of the directors known as the Four Devils: Kazuhiro Sano, Hisayasu Sato, Toshiki Sato and Takahisa Zeze.
Chapter 16:
Girls and Boys Come Out to Play
The modern-day audience for the pink film is more diverse than one might expect. This chapter looks at female viewers, female directors and the gay sub-sector of the pink film genre.
Chapter 17:
21st Century Girl and the Seven Lucky Gods
The latest new wave of pink directors known as the Seven Lucky Gods, including Mitsuru Meike, Shinji Imaoka and Yuji Tajiri have captured the attention of a new generation of audiences and have had their works screened widely abroad. But are they a continuation of or a reaction against their predecessors the Four Devils?
Chapter 18:
Final Curtain?
In the era of DVD and the internet, is there still a market for the theatrical sex films, and where might the industry be heading in the future?
Afterword:
Not Dead Yet
TEXT NEW TO THIS EDITION: A summary of the development and evolution of pinku eiga over the course of the 17 years since the book's first edition was published in 2008.
Appendices:
- List of Japanese titles, cast and credits and DVD availability.
- Bibliography.
About the Author
Jasper Sharp is a writer, curator, disc producer and filmmaker based in the UK and co-founder, with Tom Mes, of the website Midnight Eye (www.midnighteye.com), the first online resource on Japanese cinema in the English language. His book publications are the critically-acclaimed The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge, 2003, with Mes), Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (FAB Press, first published 2008), The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) and The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds (Alchimia, 2015), while he has contributed chapters to anthologies including 24 Frames: Japan and Korea (Wallflower, 2004), Tokyolife: Art and Design (Rizzoli, 2008), Ga Netchu! The Manga Anime Syndrome (Deutches Filmmuseum, 2009), Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film (A BFI Compendium) (Bloomsbury, 2011) and A Companion to Japanese Cinema (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021). His writings on film have appeared in numerous publications, including Sight and Sound, The Guardian, All the Anime and The Japan Times. He has contributed liner notes, commentaries, interviews and other extras to numerous home-video releases and worked as a disc producer for labels including Arrow Films and 88 Films. His doctorate degree from the University of Sheffield was on the subject of ‘Japanese Widescreen Cinema: Commerce, Technology and Aesthetics.’
As well as programming the Japanese section at London’s Raindance Fim Festival from 2005-2009, he was the artistic director of Zipangu Fest (2010-2014), showcasing Japanese independent film in the United Kingdom, and the Asia House Film Festival (2016-17), and has curated a number of high-profile seasons and retrospectives with organisations including the British Film Institute, the Deutches Filmmuseum, Austin Fantastic Fest, the Cinematheque Quebecois, and Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Sharp has also directed the feature-length documentaries The Creeping Garden (2014) about plasmodial slime moulds, made with Tim Grabham, The J-Horror Virus (2023) with Sarah Appleton, and Splatterfest Exhumed (2024).
Technical Details
Size: 260mm x 198mm
Binding: Hardback
Extent: 416 pages, heavily illustrated throughout in colour & b/w
Publication Date: Expected August 2025
Market: Cinema / Erotica / Japan
Packed Weight: 1720g
Edition: Updated and Amended Edition
Cover Price: £39.99 (UK) / $59.95 (US)
