Suehiro Marou – Icon of the Modern Erotic Grotesque Scene

Posted on by AJ Sunderland

Horror is a tool. A tool used by the architect in order to design a macabre landscape, layered with mountains of fear and embedded with the riverbanks of mystery.

Suehiro Maruo did not appropriate the tool, nor did he simply embellish it, Maruo crafted and invigorated the art with his non-conventional understanding of the grotesque and his limitless capabilities of disturbing an audience. Art is subjective, and Maruo redefines the subject as a subgenre of subgenres, a horror which cannot be consumed by the norm; for if one were assaulted by the unwarranted imagery of his art, it would surely be met by the curdling of one’s own blood.

Born in 1956 and hailing from Nagasaki, Japan, Maruo has most certainly made his impression upon the world of horror. Due to the content of his personal graphic nature, his works do not pass the surface filters, rather, they stay shrouded in both obscurity and notoriety. He is no stranger to the abstract, while also paying full attention to the human anatomy, which ultimately belittles the human psyche.

Suehiro Maruo is an artist, although not one who initially achieved success. His first attempt at gaining an entrance to the professional world of manga was by submitting one of his works to Shonen Jump. Much to his misery, his entry was rejected due to its distorted nature. This did not quell his thirst for recognition as he later came on to the scene with Rose Colored Monster, his first published work. Ever since, Maruo has been pulling in and shocking audiences without a doubt. Some of his more known works include but are not limited to, Ultra-Gash Inferno, New National Kid, Dr. Inugami, and far more to count.

Lo and behold his most famous works, which entail gore and pain, terror and agony: a human tongue enwrapping the soft and tender eyeball of a young and unsuspecting victim, the face peeling off of someone who never thought it possible, and the pure joy in the face of the assailant. While being an image with concrete illustrations, it is lined with the more fine details of an unknown horror; what or why this is happening, who or what would provoke such anguish, or where have the laws of decency and order disappeared to?

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