Sanshi Funayama

Sanshi Funayama (船山三四, Funayama Sanshi; c. 1920s – c. 1999) was a Japanese homoerotic fetish artist. Funayama, along with Go Mishima, Tatsuji Okawa, and Go Hirano, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.^[1]

Sanshi Funayama
Born	1920s (estimated) Kansai Region, Japan
Died	1999 (estimated)
Nationality	Japanese
Known for	Erotic illustration

Biography

Funayama's artwork first appeared in the early 1960s in Fuzokukitan [ja], a fetish magazine that published gay content alongside straight and lesbian content. He later contributed to Bara, a private circulation gay magazine, and Barazoku, the first commercially published gay magazine in Japan.^[1]

From the 1970s until the late 1990s, Funayama disappeared from public life, and did not publish or circulate art for over three decades.^[2] In 1999, he resurfaced to submit two illustrations to the magazine G-men, with a promise to submit additional works. No further works were submitted by Funayama which, combined with his presumed advanced age, led his contemporaries to assume he had died.^[3]

Little is known about Funayama's private life. Married with a daughter,^[3] Funayama worked as a police officer; he drew while on night shift, and kept his illustrations in his work locker.^[2] He was an acquaintance of the writer Yukio Mishima, who would visit Funayama while in Kansai.^[2]

Style and Impact

Funayama is noted for his depictions of "macho-type" men, often in extreme scenarios involving BDSM, torture, and graphic violence. Police officers appear frequently in his work.^[2]

Funayama is a favorite artist of Gengoroh Tagame, who has praised Funayama's works as "one of the peaks in gay erotic art."^[1]

See also

• Homosexuality in Japan