Actor

1954-09-18 · Female

1 series in the catalog

Megumi Igarashi (五十嵐恵, Igarashi Megumi; born March 14, 1972), who uses the pseudonym Rokudenashiko (ろくでなし子 or 碌でなし子), 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" (Japanese: 体験ルポ, romanized: taiken rupo), 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)…