Nikkatsu is recognised as Japan’s oldest film studio, founded in 1912 when four smaller production companies merged, and still active today. Renowned for creating some of the most boundary-pushing cinema in history, they created the ‘Roman Porno’ movement in the 70s, a sub-genre known for mixing sex, violence, and romance, elevating the merely explicit into an art form.

This first volume features two erotic fascinations directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro:

Wet Desire (aka Ichijo's Wet Lust) (1972)

Once voted one of the 100 best Japanese films of the 20th Century (by the cinema journal Kinema Jumpo in 1999), Tatsumi Kumashiro’s Wet Desire stars famous stripper Sayuri Ichijō as herself, alongside Kazuko Shirakawa (After Life) and Hiroko Isayama (Martin Scorsese’s Silence). Ichijo Sayuri, once the legendary queen of Osaka strippers, has retired to run a sushi shop. She is awaiting her day in court after having been arrested for indecency at her farewell performance.

Lovers Are Wet (1973)

Also voted one of the 100 best Japanese films of the 20th Century (by the cinema journal Kinema Jumpo, 1999), Lovers Are Wet is director Tatsumi Kumashiro’s response to the hypocrisy of censorship, finding creative ways to bypass the censorship rules imposed on cinema of the time. A young man named Katsu comes to a rural town by the sea and begins working in a movie theatre. The wife of the cinema owner becomes interested in his past.