There are many pleasures to reading Agnès Giard’s L’imaginaire érotique au Japon, but I think the one I like best is finding artists I’ve never heard of before. The one I want to share today is Kiyoaki Kanai, a painter with a lush classical style and a decided taste for kink. With due warning that some stuff there might be a little harsh for some tastes, and also the the Japanese-language linkage might be hard to follow, I can strongly recommend his site and provide herein some of the nicer samples therefrom. As Giard quite rightly remarks, “son art est populaire, épique, visuellement frappant.”

Starting on the relatively vanilla side, Kanai imagines a near-future version of the Summer Olympics to which certain… improvements have been made:

nude woman running the olypmic torch

Even I might watch.

But of course much of Kanai’s work indulges a taste for bondage, often in fantasy or “historical” settings.

roman slave girl in public bondage -- art by Kanai

Mad science? Possibly with a little bit of ASFR flavoring? Check.

mad scientist makes robot girl

You can see how this artist managed to catch my eye.

And Kanai certainly has no fear of being even weirder. I must say I had a tricky (if hardly unpleasant) time trying to imagine the sequence of events that led up to whatever is going on in this painting:

wars among the giantesses

There’s Japanese text on the accompanying index page but sadly I don’t read Japanese, and this is what came back from Google translate:

With the outcome, “Solis” is far away from the universe’s super heroine came to earth to protect the peace.

Formidable opponent this time, but the fate of Darisu Solis Witch of the universe, accompanied by his dogs came a nasty slider evil octopus impundulu Passerat and space.

Solis Darisu defeat the purpose, is to conquer the Earth. Tokyo has already become a sea of fire, mankind’s greatest pinch!

Squirrel-Soviet and lose! Solis with the outcome!

“Mankind’s greatest pinch!” Sounds rather painful.

I hope we don’t have to wait too long before Google translate manifests certain… improvements.