Diving for Pearls in Celebration Under the Rabbit Moon

An Essay on Peña’s Personal Survey of Sex in Art, Indulgence in Cultural Cuisine, and Historical Interactions of the East and the West

Finding Meaning and the Cultural Significance in the Rabbit, Tentacle Porn, and Traditional Japanese Rice Cakes in “Diving for Pearls in Celebration Under the Rabbit Moon”

By @Julian Pena
*Abridged

Here, the intersection of Japanese culture and Western thought collide into a hedonistic menagerie of white rabbits - a ubiquitous symbol to many cultures all around the world. The rabbit can symbolize virginity, sex, fertility, beginnings, haste, good luck, and so much more. In Peña’s early experiences assimilating into Western society from Japan, he encounters different interpretations of various iconography much different from that of Japanese culture.

A Japanese folklore came to mind when he thought of what the rabbit may symbolize for him personally. It tells a tale of a white rabbit accompanied by a fox and a monkey. They stumble upon a starving beggar desperate for sustenance when the rabbit throws itself into his fire pit in sacrifice for the beggar’s life. Moved by its generosity, the beggar revealed himself to be the Man of the Moon and ascends the rabbit to the moon with him where it will pound mochi. It is this Japanese rice cake that has shaped Peña’s childhood.

Variations of this tale are dotted across the East, reach as far as the Aztec culture. When we look at the moon matter where we are, pareidolia takes hold as we see the shape of a rabbit in the dark regions of the surface. In that sense we share the same gaze as if we were celebrating the white rabbit’s lunar ascension.

This work represents that grand narrative, welcoming nostalgic memories of representative cultures. The rabbit’s symbolism is so pervasive it has made its way into Hollywood cinema and anime. In that sense the rabbit ascends once again, whether it be one of sexual feminine power (or objectification personified as Jessica Rabbit, Playboy Bunnies, and Lola Bunny). Naturally, the rabbits’ natural reproductive tendencies has inspired explorations in the act of sex, sex appeal and sexual liberation. Another cultural device that has penetrated popular culture is Shoukushu Goukan, translated as “tentacle erotica.” Indicative of the prevalence of the “erotic” and grotesque” in anime and manga aesthetics, we can trace its roots all the way to the controversial woodblock-print design by the Japanese artist Hokusai for a shunga erotica (notable for his famous print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”). It depicts a young ama (Japanese divers that were predominantly females who collected abalone for pearls and seafood) diver engaged in sex with a pair of octopi.

This theme has survived to this day, often times seen in hentai (pornographic anime) and even transcending into variations of tentacled monsters or even bionic. Ironically, it was pioneered into the anime and manga subculture by Toshio Maeda, an erotic manga artist who used this theme to evade prosecution from a Japanese Criminal Code prohibiting him to draw male genitalia. As an observer of discussed themes, an element of fantasy grips us from our modernity of life as a form of escape. The zeitgeist of sex in popular culture, hedonism and the indulgence of cultural cuisine continue to inspire the interconnected narratives for Peña’s “Feast or Famine” body of work as much as anime content and video games in his early childhood.