, who uses the pseudonym , is a Japanese sculptor and manga artist who creates works that feature female genitalia and are often modeled after her own vulva. Rokudenashiko considers it her mission to reclaim female genitalia as part of women's bodies and demystify them in Japan's male dominated society, where she believes that they are "overly hidden" and marginalized as “taboo” and “obscene” in comparison to phallic imagery. As such, the artist has created a variety of different representations of manko, the Japanese slang for vagina or pussy, using representations of her own body as the raw material to emphasize as return to experience within art and manga. Rokudenashiko has been called an international symbol of “manko positivity.”
The self-ascribed pseudonym Rokudenashiko translates to “good-for-nothing-girl,” a descriptive term created by combining rokudenashi (which translates to “good-for-nothing,” “bastard,” “ne’er-do-well”) and the diminutive feminine suffix -ko (usually translated as “girl” or “child”).
In 2014, Rokudenashiko was arrested following the creation of Man-Boat (short for manko boat), a kayak with an opening attachment modeled after a 3-D scan of her own vulva, for which she drew financial support from an online crowdfunding platform. Accused on the grounds of posting the downloadable 3-D scanned digital data of her vulva for the public as part of her crowdfunding campaign, Rokudenashiko became the first woman in Japanese history tried on the grounds of obscenity. The ensuing legal battle attracted much media attention, both within Japan and internationally, whereby the artist amassed public support and became the subject of online protests about Japan's inconsistent obscenity laws. In 2016, Rokudenashiko was fined 400,000 yen (around US$3,660) for making the data publicly available.
Education and early career Rokudenashiko studied Philosophy at the Kokugakuin University in Tokyo. After graduation, she began to work in the manga industry and was awarded a new artist award from the publisher Kodansha in 1998.
Despite this achievement, the artist was discouraged by the industry's competitive dependency on reader surveys, and eventually found work at a publisher that specialized in the genre of "experiential reportage" (), also known as reality manga. The artist has explained that this work has formed the basis for her sculptural artworks—the genre relies on life experience as the source material for manga, using first person voice to depict real events through the eyes of the writer. Rokudenashiko has described her work as "literally putting real experiences into manga.”
Manga and decorative works
Growing up in Japan, where women's genitalia are censored and stigmatized, Rokudenashiko has described how she had never seen other women's genitalia and did not know what they should look like, and was therefore concerned from a young age that her own vulva was abnormal. She decided to make a plaster cast of her own vulva to understand what it looked like and started to make related artworks using this mold. She claims that women should be able to speak about their bodies without shame, the artist arguing that the vulva should be a "part of the body...no different from arms or legs". She hopes to make the vulva something that is "casual and pop," declaring that in Japan, the "vagina is treated like it's something underground and hidden, so I want to industrialize and mass-produce it."
When Rokudenashiko first began to use a mold of her vulva to create artworks, she treated the idea light-heartedly. However, after receiving a lot of criticism and backlash, she began to use her art as a statement and form of protest. In her book documenting her legal battles (see section below), she wrote: “Since I’ve started my work in manko art, I’ve been fighting back against the old men who complain about it…I’ve decided to keep making even more ridiculous work, with all seriousness. Though this was kind of a joke at first, now I am joking around with every ounce of my body and soul.”
Many of Rokudenashiko's artworks have been confiscated during police raids in 2014 and 2015, but photographs document her body of work.
Deco Man sculptural work
Since Rokudenashiko was not exposed to many realistic depictions of women's genitalia, she decided to mold a plaster cast of her own vulva to understand the reality of what it looked like. Rokudenashiko felt that the plaster mold was too plain so she began to decorate them, creating an ongoing series she refers to as Deco Man (a play on “decoration” and “manko”). She has used the mold to create many casts of her vulva, including a series of dioramas that draw on 19th century landscape paintings by turning the form of her own genitalia into the grounds for various landscapes—moonscapes, beaches, golf courses, riverbeds, as well as rustic cottage and church settings, among others. In these tediously crafted dioramas, Rokudenashiko brings the vaginal form out of its hidden setting, positing it as a setting for the world.
The artist has created many more vulva-themed works, including dioramas, a chandelier, lampshades, tissue covers, a remote control car, necklaces, iPhone cases. She creates a variety of these Deco Man objects under the category of nado, or etcetera.
Deco Man manga In 2012, Rokudenashiko published a reportage style manga entitled Deco Man that documented the complicated relationship she has with her own body and the artist's process of starting to create her vulva-themed artistic creations. The manga is structured as seven fairy tales in the mode of a shōjo manga, documenting Rokudenashiko's own artistic formation through the main character's struggles with body insecurity and inadequacy that pushed her to get plastic surgery on her labia. The main character comes to the conclusion that many other women are plagued with the same anxieties, and starts to help herself and other women by creating Deco Man sculptures and leading workshops for making manko art.
Manko-chan
Rokudenashiko also created her signature cartoon character Manko-chan (the effeminate suffix -chan added as an endearing way to refer to the manko, often translated into English as Miss Pussy or Cute Little Pussy). Manko-chan is a cute, personified manko with two legs and a labia articulated like a mane around a simple yet expressive face that includes a characteristic yellow clitoral “third eye.” Manko-chan is featured on the cover of Rokudenashiko's 2016 book What is Obscenity?, and has been featured in the artist's newsletter, website, as well as the autographed photos she passes out at book signings and other events. Manko-chan is also purchasable as a sticker set for her fans, and has been made into plastic figurines, a plush doll, and a full-size costume.
Web museum
In February 2023, Rokudenashiko established 6d745 Software, a company aimed at creating art pieces utilizing AI and web technologies. Later in June of the same year, she unveiled the "Rokudenashiko Museum", a web-based virtual museum accessible via browsers, at an exhibition in Art Lab TOKYO. Within the museum, visitors can interact with characters in a 3D environment to view and comment on art pieces. Additionally, the museum offers a role-playing experience titled "Detention Game", which is based on her personal experiences. Rokudenashiko has expressed that her goal is that the "Museum provides a fun and cutting-edge alternative to the art industry's existing bias towards physical-world museums"
Man-Boat (2014) and legal battle
In 2013, Rokudenashiko was inspired to make a larger sculptural work through the use of 3-D printing. She considered making a door and a car, before settling on a kayak, inspired by the connection between female sexuality and the sea. She decided to create Man-Boat (short for manko boat), enlisting help from the public via the crowdfunding platform “Campfire” to create an attachment to mount on the cockpit of a 2-meter yellow kayak modeled from a 3-D scan of her own vulva. The crowdfunding platform was online from June 18 - September 6, 2013 and raised ¥1 million (194% of its total goal) from 125 people. With their support, Rokudenashiko went forward with her project, spending the rest of the year creating Man-Boat, the process of which she documented in detail on her blog.
In March 2014, Rokudenashiko successfully sailed Man-Boat down the Tama River in Tokyo (the artist referred to it as the Ta-manko River). That same month, the artist emailed the downloadable 3-D scanned data of her vulva to the 65 crowdfund supporters who had contributed ¥3,000 or more to her campaign, and gave a CD-ROM with the data to 17 others. She claimed that she distributed this data to encourage people to use the data to make their own original genitalia artwork.
First arrest On July 12, 2014, Rokudenashiko was arrested for alleged violation of Article 175 of the criminal code for distributing obscene data, becoming the first woman in Japanese history tried on the grounds of obscenity. She spent a week in a Tokyo women's prison for the alleged violation of obscenity laws. Her arrest launched a frenzy of media attention about Rokudenashiko, her work, and images of the artist sailing the Man Boat in question down the Tama River; this surge in press led to an international outcry of support for the artist. More than 21,000 people worldwide signed an online petition on Change.org urging the government to free her immediately. She was released on July 18, 2014, after having successfully appealed her detention. Following her release, Rokudenashiko created a manga that satirized the police after her first arrest. After her second arrest, she suggested “[the police] trumped up some charges and arrested me in December” for releasing the work.
Second arrest The artist was arrested again at an exhibition of her diorama manko works at a sex shop on December 3, 2014, alongside the owner of the shop, writer and feminist activist Watanabe Minori (who uses the pseudonym of Kitahara Minori). Watanabe was later released. After almost a month in jail, Rokudenashiko was indicted on December 24 for three separate counts of violating Japan's obscenity law: "obscenity display", "obscenity electromagnetic record", and "obscenity electromagnetic recording medium distribution." She pleaded not-guilty and was released on bail on December 28.
Trial Rokudenashiko's trial began 14 April 2015 in Tokyo District Court. The trial served as a venue for the artist to challenge the double standard on representations of male bodies in comparison to female's bodies. The artist's defense was built around the claim that Man Boat was a work of art rather than a pornographic or erotic image. As shared with the creative agency MASSIVE in an interview, Rokudenashiko's full statement to the court was as follows:“I make fun, cheerful things that attempt to overturn prevailing perceptions of female genitalia. I’ve attempted to make things specifically for supporters of my work, but was then indicted and arrested, as you know. While I find the whole ordeal absurd, it is precisely because of my arrest that so many more people have been able to think more seriously about the perception of female genitals and of their right to a freedom of expression, which is ultimately a good thing. And yet, I have absolutely no idea what makes the three pieces for which I’ve been indicted, crimes of obscenity, why other works haven’t been deemed obscene.