Faced with Japan’s strict censorship laws (depicting genitals is prohibited), Saeki turned constraint into creativity, shifting the oldest theme in the world - sex - toward the absurd and the dreamlike
A living god and underground icon in Japan, Toshio Saeki is the creator of a unique style in a genre he completely transformed: ero-guro (short for “erotic grotesque”). This genre, rooted in the origins of classical Japanese illustration, has inspired countless prints over the centuries. But Saeki reimagined traditional motifs by infusing them with the anxieties of his own generation - one shaped by the hopes and disillusionments of the 1970s.
His unmistakable style, often likened by European readers to the iconic ligne claire of Hergé or Joost Swarte, appears equally strange to both Japanese and Western audiences. Each finds in his deceptively simple line work a unique and unfamiliar sense of exoticism. This perception is only possible because of the radical originality of Saeki’s extravagant body of work - one that seems drawn directly from “whatever plays in his mind when he closes his eyes.” Modern life - its violence, flaws, and madness - seeps into timeless scenes, giving rise to never-before-seen monsters and fantasies beyond imagination.
Rêve écarlate (Scarlet Dream) is the first volume in a chronological and curated anthology of Toshio Saeki’s art - a world-first for an artist who, though widely known, has remained under-published, especially in Europe. Compiled from the artist’s original works and distributed all the way to Japan, the book’s colorization - developed in close collaboration with Saeki - faithfully reflects the original hues, with a delightfully pop-inspired approach.
PLEASE NOTE : This illustration book includes a foreword translated into three languages (French, English, and Japanese).
Published by Editions Cornelius
France Import
Hardback with dustcover
192 full-color pages
17 × 24 cm
Faced with Japan’s strict censorship laws (depicting genitals is prohibited), Saeki turned constraint into creativity, shifting the oldest theme in the world - sex - toward the absurd and the dreamlike
A living god and underground icon in Japan, Toshio Saeki is the creator of a unique style in a genre he completely transformed: ero-guro (short for “erotic grotesque”). This genre, rooted in the origins of classical Japanese illustration, has inspired countless prints over the centuries. But Saeki reimagined traditional motifs by infusing them with the anxieties of his own generation - one shaped by the hopes and disillusionments of the 1970s.
His unmistakable style, often likened by European readers to the iconic ligne claire of Hergé or Joost Swarte, appears equally strange to both Japanese and Western audiences. Each finds in his deceptively simple line work a unique and unfamiliar sense of exoticism. This perception is only possible because of the radical originality of Saeki’s extravagant body of work - one that seems drawn directly from “whatever plays in his mind when he closes his eyes.” Modern life - its violence, flaws, and madness - seeps into timeless scenes, giving rise to never-before-seen monsters and fantasies beyond imagination.
Rêve écarlate (Scarlet Dream) is the first volume in a chronological and curated anthology of Toshio Saeki’s art - a world-first for an artist who, though widely known, has remained under-published, especially in Europe. Compiled from the artist’s original works and distributed all the way to Japan, the book’s colorization - developed in close collaboration with Saeki - faithfully reflects the original hues, with a delightfully pop-inspired approach.
PLEASE NOTE : This illustration book includes a foreword translated into three languages (French, English, and Japanese).
Published by Editions Cornelius
France Import
Hardback with dustcover
192 full-color pages
17 × 24 cm
