日本語 | English

■ We are featuring Stationery from Feb. 29 to Mar. 30.







Atom_feed
Tokugawa Harem
How to Deal with a Desire?
Date:30, May, 2020
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
About our introductory articles


Hello. Today I'm mentioning about Tokugawa Harem (Tokugawa On-na Keizu), a Japanese X-rated live action film released in 1968 May. Do you remember 1968? I don't, because it was before I was given birth to. In 1968, born was Céline Dion, Ogasawara Islands officially came back to Japan, May 68 began in France, Vietnam War was still on there, the Crown Prince (Heisei Ten-no) officially announced his engagement, and assassinated was Martin Luther King Jr. who said "I Have a Dream."

Why was it set as the X-rated? It shows many Japanese half-naked women. You can see countless women dance madly on the screen. And the women all obey their master Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. He holds the shogunate at the time, and has countless women as his concubines. He can do whatever he likes with the infinite women everyday. If you dislike something polygamous like that, you'd better ignore this movie.

Then, is he walking on air? It seems so in the beginning. He doesn't need to be hard up for a woman that he does it with. Do it, do it, do it as much as he likes everyday. But one day he gets aware. There are no women who truly love him. When there are numberless women there, there's sectionalism naturally. They are stirring up their competition spirit each other. In other words, they only see their rivals, not Tsunayoshi. Who really loves him? He stands at his wits' end, takes a sinuous course. What will he meet after all? Check it out, please.

Tokugawa Harem was produced and distributed by Toei. They say that it was the first of the blue films (Pink Films in Japanese) produced by Japanese major filmakers like Toho, Toei and Shochiku. It got a big hit, which made Toei make porno films in large quantities. It means that you must pay some attention to it when you are interested in Japanese film history. The Tokugawa Harem surely played a part of Toei history, and directed the flow at all events.

What will the X-rated film teach? I suppose one of the answers is how to deal with a desire. It is difficult to manage a desire as our history has shown. Doing it with numberless women is a dream that most men have had, I suppose. But it looks hard keeping it. Many feel so after watching this film. Desire seems so hard to restrain, but also looks no good to release freely. Maybe we should do whatever moderately.

about Tokugawa Harem

・Directed by Ishi-i Teruo
・Written by Uchida Kozo & Ishi-i Teruo
・Music by Yagi Masao
・Distributed by Toei
・Released on May 1, 1968
・Running Time: 90 minutes





 

Yoko
What Does the Runaway Girl Show?

Kakekomi
At the Asylum to Arbitrate a Hard Divorce