Ero Guro will never come here!
This was an article I found over at Anime News Network while browsing around for information on Lucky Star and a few other shows that had caught my intrest... all I could do was read this and laugh and think about musical acts like Caligari and Merii... even though it applies to manga... but music made it, didn't it?
I was wondering what do you think of artists like uziga waita,kago shintaro, & other ero guro (18+) manga artists and which publisher do you think might bring over see their more extreme stories brought to the u.s.?
Uh oh. An ero guro question. You all knew this day would come.
For those of you who aren't in the know about this particular (and particularly small) niche inside anime fandom, I'll explain what "ero guro" is first before commenting on this question.
According to Wikipedia, the best place to find a lot of information on subjects like this (and Star Trek and Pokémon), "ero guro" is defined thusly:
"Ero Guro is a concept or movement or sub-genre, still somewhat loosely defined, that has emerged inside multiple schools of Japanese art and music. The words "ero guro" or "ero guro nansensu" is gairaigo derived from the English words "erotic grotesque nonsense", and is sometimes shortened to simply guro (though this shortening is usually used to describe pornography). Regardless of nomenclature, the terms ero and ero guro are widely recognized as codewords denoting artwork that depicts extreme/bizarre violence (mutilation, dismemberment, scatology, etc.) in an erotic manner.
The typifying element of ero guro visual art is the macabre intermingled with sexual overtones. Often the erotic element, even when not explicit, is merged with grotesque themes and features-somewhat similar to the works of H. R. Giger. Others produce ero guro as a genre of Japanese pornography and hentai involving blood, gore, disfiguration, violence, mutilation, urine, enemas, or feces."
Sounds like a fun time for everyone, right?
If you ask me what I think about ero guro (which you did, thankfully, so I'm at least moderately justified in giving my opinion of the genre as a whole) it's gross. Really gross. Too gross for me. Way too gross for me. Think of the grossest thing you can possibly think of or have ever seen, and there's an ero guro manga out there that has something in it that's approximately one trillion times grosser than that. Me, I gag at just the thought of spoiled milk, so naturally, ero guro is not for me. It's an extremely acquired taste and I don't actually know anyone nor have I ever met anyone who likes it (or will at least admit to liking it).
In fact, I don't think the Wikipedia article's invocation of H. R. Giger is correct at all; I own several Giger art books and I really dig a lot of his stuff. Ero guro - at least the small amount of it I've seen - is way, way more insanely violent and disgusting than anything Giger's ever done. Say what you want about Giger's more controversial work (think lots and lots of alien genitalia), it pales in comparison to the ero guro artwork I've seen (think someone getting raped while... you know what, I'm not even going to go into it, I just ate).
To sum up, ero guro is really gross. Did you get that? Maybe I needed to say it again. Gross. That's basically the point of it; to be really, really intensely disgusting.
Will it ever be published in any capacity in America? I'm going to consult my crystal ball here and say "no, probably not". It's way, way too intense. I can't think of a single publisher who would touch it with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, Dark Horse releases some very edgy adult titles like Berserk and MPD-Psycho but those are really in a completely different category and can't responsibly even be compared to ero guro. I'd even say that we'll sooner see lolicon on store shelves than any ero guro manga title.
I was wondering what do you think of artists like uziga waita,kago shintaro, & other ero guro (18+) manga artists and which publisher do you think might bring over see their more extreme stories brought to the u.s.?
Uh oh. An ero guro question. You all knew this day would come.
For those of you who aren't in the know about this particular (and particularly small) niche inside anime fandom, I'll explain what "ero guro" is first before commenting on this question.
According to Wikipedia, the best place to find a lot of information on subjects like this (and Star Trek and Pokémon), "ero guro" is defined thusly:
"Ero Guro is a concept or movement or sub-genre, still somewhat loosely defined, that has emerged inside multiple schools of Japanese art and music. The words "ero guro" or "ero guro nansensu" is gairaigo derived from the English words "erotic grotesque nonsense", and is sometimes shortened to simply guro (though this shortening is usually used to describe pornography). Regardless of nomenclature, the terms ero and ero guro are widely recognized as codewords denoting artwork that depicts extreme/bizarre violence (mutilation, dismemberment, scatology, etc.) in an erotic manner.
The typifying element of ero guro visual art is the macabre intermingled with sexual overtones. Often the erotic element, even when not explicit, is merged with grotesque themes and features-somewhat similar to the works of H. R. Giger. Others produce ero guro as a genre of Japanese pornography and hentai involving blood, gore, disfiguration, violence, mutilation, urine, enemas, or feces."
Sounds like a fun time for everyone, right?
If you ask me what I think about ero guro (which you did, thankfully, so I'm at least moderately justified in giving my opinion of the genre as a whole) it's gross. Really gross. Too gross for me. Way too gross for me. Think of the grossest thing you can possibly think of or have ever seen, and there's an ero guro manga out there that has something in it that's approximately one trillion times grosser than that. Me, I gag at just the thought of spoiled milk, so naturally, ero guro is not for me. It's an extremely acquired taste and I don't actually know anyone nor have I ever met anyone who likes it (or will at least admit to liking it).
In fact, I don't think the Wikipedia article's invocation of H. R. Giger is correct at all; I own several Giger art books and I really dig a lot of his stuff. Ero guro - at least the small amount of it I've seen - is way, way more insanely violent and disgusting than anything Giger's ever done. Say what you want about Giger's more controversial work (think lots and lots of alien genitalia), it pales in comparison to the ero guro artwork I've seen (think someone getting raped while... you know what, I'm not even going to go into it, I just ate).
To sum up, ero guro is really gross. Did you get that? Maybe I needed to say it again. Gross. That's basically the point of it; to be really, really intensely disgusting.
Will it ever be published in any capacity in America? I'm going to consult my crystal ball here and say "no, probably not". It's way, way too intense. I can't think of a single publisher who would touch it with a 10-foot pole. Yeah, Dark Horse releases some very edgy adult titles like Berserk and MPD-Psycho but those are really in a completely different category and can't responsibly even be compared to ero guro. I'd even say that we'll sooner see lolicon on store shelves than any ero guro manga title.