Independent studios that release pink films include OP Eiga, Shintōhō Eiga, Kokuei and Xces. The phrase 'pink film' came into use after the major Toei began advertising some of its movies as 'porno' in 1971, and other major Nikkatsu switched to producing only Roman Porno films later that year.[2]
Until the early 2000s, they were almost exclusively shot on 35 mm film. Recently, filmmakers have increasingly used video (while retaining their emphasis on soft-core narrative). Many theaters swapped 35mm for video projectors and began relying on old videos to meet the demand of triple-feature showings.
Films that are now regarded as pink films became wildly popular in the mid-1960s, and made up a large part of the Japanese domestic market through the mid-1980s.[3][4] In the 1960s, the pink films were largely the product of small, independent studios. Around 1970, the major studio Nikkatsu started focusing almost exclusively on erotic content, but Toei, another major film production company, started producing a line of what came to be known as Pinky Violence films. With their access to higher production values and talent, some of these films became critical and popular successes.[5] Though the appearance of the adult video led viewers to move away from pink film in the 1980s, films in this genre are still being produced.
The "pink film", or "eroduction" (erotic production) as it was first called,[6] is a cinematic genre without an exact equivalent in the West.[5] Though called pornography, the terms "erotica", "soft porn" and "sexploitation" have been suggested as more appropriate, although none of these precisely matches the pink film genre.[7]
The Japanese film ethics board Eirin has long enforced a ban on the display of genitals and pubic hair. This restriction forced Japanese filmmakers to develop sometimes elaborate means of avoiding showing the "working parts", as American film historian Donald Richie puts it.[8] He wrote:
The eroductions are the limpest of softcore, and though there is much breast and buttock display, though there are simulations of intercourse, none of the working parts are ever shown. Indeed, one pubic hair breaks an unwritten but closely observed code. Though this last problem is solved by shaving the actresses, the larger remains: how to stimulate when the means are missing.[8]
American pornography is kept forever on its elemental level because, showing all, it need do nothing else; Japanese eroductions have to do something else since they cannot show all. The stultified impulse has created some extraordinary works of art, a few films among them. None of these, however, are found among eroductions.[10]
Contrasting the pink film with Western pornographic films, Pia Harritz says, "What really stands out is the ability of pinku eiga to engage the spectator in more than just scenes with close-ups of genitals and finally the complexity in the representation of gender and the human mind."[11]
The first wave of the pink film in Japan was contemporary with the similar U.S. sexploitation film genres, the "nudie-cuties" and "roughies".[21] Nudity and sex officially entered Japanese cinema with Satoru Kobayashi's controversial and popular independent production Flesh Market (Nikutai no Ichiba, 1962), which is considered the first true pink film.[22] Made for 8 million yen, Kobayashi's independent feature film took in over 100 million yen. Kobayashi remained active in directing pink films until the 1990s. Tamaki Katori, the star of the film, went on to become one of the leading early pink film stars, appearing in over 600, and earning the title "Pink Princess".[23]
In 1964, maverick kabuki, theater and film director Tetsuji Takechi directed Daydream, a big-budget film distributed by the major studio Shochiku. Takechi's Black Snow (1965), resulted in the director's arrest on charges of obscenity and a high-profile trial, which became a major battle between Japan's intellectuals and the establishment. Takechi won the lawsuit, and the publicity surrounding the trial helped bring about a boom in the production of pink films.[24]
Another major pink film studio, Wakamatsu Studios, was formed by director Kōji Wakamatsu in 1965, after quitting Nikkatsu. Known as "The Pink Godfather",[27] and called "the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre",[28] Wakamatsu's independent productions are critically respected works usually concerned with sex and extreme violence mixed with political messages.[29] His most controversial early films dealing with misogyny and sadism are The Embryo Hunts In Secret (1966), Violated Angels (1967), and Go, Go Second Time Virgin (1969).
The "first queen of Japanese sex movies" was Noriko Tatsumi,[32] who made films at World Eiga and Nihon Cinema with director Kōji Seki.[33] Other major Sex Queens of the first wave of pink film included Setsuko Ogawa,[34] Mari Iwai,[35] Keiko Kayama,[36] and Miki Hayashi.[37] Other pink film stars of the era include Tamaki Katori, who appeared in many films for Giichi Nishihara and Kōji Wakamatsu; Kemi Ichiboshi, whose specialty was playing the role of a violated innocent;[38] and Mari Nagisa.[39] Younger starlets like Naomi Tani, and Kazuko Shirakawa were starting their careers and already making names for themselves in the pink film industry, but are best remembered today for their work with Nikkatsu during the 1970s.
Most exploitation films produced in the 1960's were made by low-budget independent companies. The major studio Toei released a few films with female nudity, starting with Kunoichi ninpō in 1964 by director Sadao Nakajima. In films like his ero-guro series and Joys of Torture series of the late 1960s director Teruo Ishii provided a model for Toei's sexploitation ventures by "establishing a queasy mix of comedy and torture."[40]
In 1972, Richie reported, "In Japan, the eroduction is the only type of picture that retains an assured patronage."[41] To tap into this market, Toei began advertising some of its films using the English word 'porno,' a new word at the time. Onsen mimizu geisha directed by Norifumi Suzuki and starring Reiko Ike was the first such in July 1971.
In 1971, Takashi Itamochi, president of Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest major film studio, decided to stop his own company's involvement with action films and start making sexploitation films.[46] Like Toei, Nikkatsu had made some previous films in the sexploitation market, such as Story of Heresy in Meiji Era (1968) and Tokyo Bathhouse (1968), which featured over 30 sex-film stars in cameo appearances.[47] Nikkatsu launched its Roman Porno series in November 1971 with Apartment Wife: Affair In the Afternoon, starring Kazuko Shirakawa.[48] The film became a huge hit, inspired 20 sequels within seven years, established Shirakawa as Nikkatsu's first "Queen", and successfully launched the high-profile Roman Porno series. Director Masaru Konuma says that the process of making Roman Porno was the same as that of making a pink film except for the higher budget.[49] Nikkatsu made these higher-quality sexploitation films almost exclusively, at an average rate of three per month,[50] for the next 17 years.
Nikkatsu gave its Roman Porno directors a great deal of artistic freedom in creating their films, as long as they met the official minimum quota of four nude or sex scenes per hour.[51] The result was a series that was popular both with audiences and with critics.[52] One or two Roman Pornos appeared on the top-ten lists of Japanese critics every year throughout the run of the series.[53] Nikkatsu's higher-quality sex films essentially took the pink film market away from the smaller, independent studios until the mid-1980s, when adult videos began to lure away much of the pink film's clientele.[7]
Tatsumi Kumashiro was one of the major directors of the Roman Porno. Kumashiro directed a string of financial and critical hits unprecedented in Japanese cinematic history, including Ichijo's Wet Desire (1972) and Woman with Red Hair (1979), starring Junko Miyashita.[54] He became known as the "King of Nikkatsu Roman porno"[51][55] Noboru Tanaka, director of A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975), is judged by many critics today to have been the best of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno directors.[56][57] The S&M subgenre of the Roman Porno was established in 1974 when the studio hired Naomi Tani to star in Flower and Snake (based on an Oniroku Dan novel), and Wife to be Sacrificed, both directed by Masaru Konuma.[58] Tani's immense popularity established her as Nikkatsu's third Roman Porno Queen, and the first of their S&M Queens.[59]Tani was also directed by the important director Shgor Nishimura in titles that became classics, such as Rope Cosmetology (1978).Other subgenres developed under the Roman Porno line included "Violent Pink", established in 1976 by director Yasuharu Hasebe.[60]
When ownership of VCRs first became widespread in the early 1980s, adult videos made their appearance, and quickly became highly popular.[61] As early as 1982, the AVs had already attained an approximately equal share of the adult entertainment market with theatrical erotic films.[62] In 1984, new government censorship policies and an agreement between Eirin (the Japanese film-rating board) and the pink-film companies added to Nikkatsu's difficulties by putting drastic new restrictions on theatrical films. Theatrical pink movie profits dropped 36% within a month of the new ruling.[62] Eirin dealt a serious blow to the pink film industry in 1988 by introducing stricter requirements for sex-related theatrical films. Nikkatsu responded by discontinuing their Roman Porno line. Bed Partner (1988) was the final film of the venerable 17-year-old Roman Porno series. Nikkatsu continued to distribute films under the name Ropponica, and pink films through Excess Films, however these were not nearly as popular or critically respected as the Roman Porno series had been in its heyday.[63] By the end of the 1980s, adult videos had become the main form of adult cinematic entertainment in Japan.
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