This story was turned into a noh play in the early fifteenth century, as well as being adapted for more popular stage plays. The story was represented in woodblock prints, but during the eighteenth century the depiction of the barely clad divers, wearing only a red underskirt, became sensualized and provided suitable subject matter both for ukiyo-e designs of beauties (such as the opening page of the Utamaro’s Poem of the Pillow album), and for explicit images of octopuses penetrating and sucking.

Yet the design lacks obvious references to the tale of the heroic diver, contemporary readers (viewers) of the book would have been familiar with these links, and would have understood the visual play which Hokusai was deploying in his extraordinary design.Display your tentacle love with this super-huggable octopus! In addition, tako, the word for octopus, was argot for vagina, for its ability to suck firmly, and this term is used in the dialogue here. ☆ For more kawaii, anime, goth, and Japan-inspired clothing: