Behind the Pink Curtain

The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema

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by Jasper Sharp

Type: Studies
Subject: Genre > Porn films
Keywords: sex, Japan, pornographic films
Publishing date: 2025 (November 17, 2025)
Publisher: FAB Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 416 pages
7 ½ x 10 ¼ inches (19 x 26 cm)

ISBN

978-1-913051-44-0

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Book Presentation:
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.

About the Author:
Jasper Sharp is a writer and filmmaker based in the UK and co-founder, with Tom Mes, of Midnight Eye (www.midnighteye.com), the first online resource on Japanese cinema in the English language. His other books include The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003, with Mes), The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (2011) and The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds (Alchimia, 2015). His doctorate degree from the University of Sheffield was on the subject of ‘Japanese Widescreen Cinema: Commerce, Technology and Aesthetics.’

Press Reviews:
"Behind the Pink Curtain is an engrossing read and a great addition to the meager literature on pink film. Sharp is an engaging narrator and the book is full of piquant details; it is without doubt an essential addition to any film lover's book collection."
- Cineaste Magazine

See the publisher website: FAB Press

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