Yoji Muku – The Pencil & the Taboo

In the shadowy alleys of postwar Japan’s erotic subculture, Yoji Muku (椋陽児) stood apart. Neither a performer nor a photographer, Muku’s medium was pencil — fragile, intimate, and radically expressive. His drawings of bound girls and fantastical eroticism came not from live sessions, but from photographic references, often sourced from the works of legendary nawashi Nureki Chimuo and photographer Sugiura Norio. This distance — interpreting a performance second-hand — gave his art a strangely dreamlike intensity: never fully real, never fully fantasy.

While the explicit nature of Muku’s art still provokes today, it also forces an important cultural reflection. Many of his subjects are disturbingly young, and yet his drawings were published in major Japanese SM magazines for decades. Why? Because at the time, illustration was seen as a realm of protected fantasy — a controversial but accepted space of freedom for artists to explore even the most taboo desires. As Japan’s censorship laws focused on photographic content, the drawn image retained a rare artistic autonomy. Muku’s case — like Araki’s photography or Suehiro Maruo’s grotesque manga — raises critical questions about the boundaries between fantasy and harm, art and obscenity.

Working from the 1960s to the 1990s, Yoji Muku left a prolific legacy in both SM illustration and underground manga. He collaborated with cult magazines like Kitan Club, Uramado, and SM Fan, and also published long-form illustrated manga for Satan Comics and Joy Comics — now highly prized by collectors. Though reclusive, he played an editorial role at Uramado during Nureki’s tenure, and his work even inspired a series of figurines late in life. Muku passed away in 2001, but his vision — fragile lines etched in fantasy — continues to provoke and inspire.

Legacy & Key Works of Yoji Muku

  • Name in Japanese: 椋陽児 (Yoji Muku)
  • Main Medium: Pencil illustration (based on bondage photography, not live models)
  • Art Style: Minimalist pencil line work, expressive and restrained, emotionally haunting
  • Known for: Drawing disturbingly young female figures, evoking taboo and artistic freedom
  • Primary Magazines: Kitan Club, Uramado, SM Fan, Uramado, Night Mask, etc.
  • Manga Series:
  • Art Books:
    • 処女狩り / Shōjo-gari (Virgin Hunt) — Available !
    • Kinbaku no Hada (1971) — Source
    • 夢少女伝説 / Yume Shōjo Densetsu — Source
    • Jyo (緤), 2000 — Source
  • Editorial Work: Served on editorial team of Uramado under Nureki Chimuo
  • Collaborations: Artwork often based on Sugiura Norio’s photographs of Nureki’s rope work
  • Death: Passed away on July 30, 2001 at age 73

Further Reading & Sources

Want to explore or collect his work? Discover all available Yoji Muku books here on Showa Mania Books