A FLOWER GROWS IN OSAKA

Naomi Tani discovers she's a rose that hasn't blossomed yet.


It’s been a few years since we checked in on Japanese bondage queen Naomi Tani. Well, she returns on this poster for Kurobara shoÌ‚ten, aka Black Rose Ascension. The movie, which is a roman porno—i.e. a Nikkatsu Studios softcore sex flick—concerns a self-absorbed Osaka porn director played by Shin Kishida who loses his star when she refuses to work while pregnant. Simultaneously, over in the subplot, Naomi Tani has an unfilled life doing various things that aren’t exactly ethical in the sexual sense, such as rimming an older man for money and having an affair with a married dentist. Kishida targets Tani, seduces her, and films it. She doesn’t know she’s on camera at first, but realizes it partway through when a gaffer and a camera guy jump out of a closet. If you know this genre you can guess where the movie goes from there. Hint: Hmm… maybe what I was doing before was kind of like porn anyway. Nikkatsu never fails to ponder whether a woman is really just a sex freak who hasn’t blossomed yet. We can’t say the movie is great, but we’ll say this much for it—you’ll really believe it’s possible to fuck while roller skating. Kurobara shoÌ‚ten premiered in Japan today in 1975.

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This awesome cover art is by Tommy Shoemaker, a new talent to us, but not to more experienced paperback illustration aficionados.
Ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque.
Sam Peffer cover art for Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, originally published in 1941.

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