Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this the same Japan that blurs out genitals in porn films? Even in puritan America that doesn't happen.
I heard the genitalia censorship is a western influence, but I haven't found a really solid source. This is from a Cracked article: >Despite what the censored porn might imply, nudity has never been taboo in Japanese culture. Not only were women used to walking around topless, but what we call porn was just another common genre of books, like cooking or travel. Japanese porn, or shunga, was a traditional form of visu…
And it wasn't just sex that got censored. It became illegal to criticize the occupation government, object to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, complain about Japan's loss of the war, etc, etc.
As I understand it, that's what the 50s monster movies were about. The monsters were metaphors for the nuclear and firestorm attacks on civilian populations.
Those laws no longer exist. And so Miike gets into those issues in a few films. "Izo", for example, begins with an extended fast-motion contemplation of WWII, ending with the nuclear attacks. But "Izo" is more generally about the absurdity of nationalism, and how it's used by the powerful to control the masses. Indeed, it takes on all forms of authoritarianism, including religion.