NSFW: Erotic Gore…Suehiro Maruo’s Ero Guro art

Ero Guro? What’s that shit, you say? Well, it’s an art that combines erotica (not pornography, just erotica) with elements of macabre and grotesque, which explains its other name, “erotico-grotesque.” It comes in many forms and shapes, like novels, short stories, or movies, but today we are taking interest in the visual arts. Suehiro Maruo is a mangaka internationally recognized for its work as an ero guro artist.

With works like Imomushi, Bindzume no jigoku, or Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show, he created himself an inspired universe influenced by surrealism, German expressionism, Edgar Poe, Georges Bataille, and Otto Dix paintings. From horrific murders by Japanese serial killers to erotic tortures, each scene he depicts has a sense of fearful beauty in its own way. It’s not all blood and sex.

Perversion is a guilty pleasure for some, and the feeling you’ll get from him might remind you of the fascinating disgust you felt when you first read Marquis de Sade. If you want suffering, you will get it; if you want crude, you will get it; if you want macabre drawings and the embodiment of darkness, guess what? You will get it. Who said manga was for children?