If you’ve been visiting Pulp Intl. regularly, you know we feature promo art from Japanese pinku films. The above poster is for Onna kyôshi, aka School Mistress, aka Woman Teacher, starring Eiko Nagashima. Onna kyôshi falls into a pinku category known as roman porno. The term has nothing to do with ancient Rome—it’s actually just a mash-up of “romantic” and “pornography.” The main difference with roman porno is that it was the creation of Japan’s oldest movie studio Nikkatsu, and the films produced had higher budgets and more sexually violent content than pinku productions from studios like World Eiga, Nihon Cinema, and Toei Company.
However roman porno isn’t anything like American-style porn. Due to Japanese censorship laws sexual action is depicted using clever techniques such as interposing vases of flowers and other phallic objects between the viewer and the action. In fact, many film experts believe circumventing the censors is what gave roman porno films their defining characteristic: they shock, but show little. We have about a hundred more of these posters, few of which, to our knowledge, have ever been seen on the Internet. We’ll be sharing them in the future. Below we’re also sharing a fun shot of Eiko Nagashima. Bet you never had a teacher like her. Onna kyôshi opened in Japan today in 1977.
