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Nyotaimori Society: Flesh Held Between Consumption and ControlNyotaimori, the Japanese practice of serving sushi on a wo...
08/06/2026

Nyotaimori Society: Flesh Held Between Consumption and Control

Nyotaimori, the Japanese practice of serving sushi on a woman's body, has a history rooted in Showa-era male leisure culture, existing largely on the margins of documented research and filtered through decades of clichés and fantasy. The practice has long been tied to a specific kind of male gaze, with its cultural weight buried under surface-level fascination, and the serious conversation around it remains rare. Kazumi Nishimura [] found the perfect gap to explore the practice and introduced it through her project, Nyotaimori Society. 

Created in London, Nyotaimori Society began as a live dinner and expanded into a photographic series, occupying the space between performance, fe**sh, and sculpture. Nishimura had already been drawn to the connection between food and the body when she started researching nyotaimori and found almost nothing but overused expressions. That absence became the starting point for the project, specifically the desire to explore the practice from a female perspective, reframing what had historically been a male leisure ritual into something more layered and self-directed.

The project started from a place of wanting to extract the essence of the ritual and present it with the body as a backdrop, as opposed to direct documentation. Photographer Anna Sampson [] and stylist Emika Ohta [] translated that into images that draw the viewer in through beauty before leaving them somewhere harder to categorize. As Nishimura described it to sabukaru, the goal is for the work to create a strong sensory impression while maintaining a certain ambiguity, not fully allowing the viewer to know how to place what they are seeing. If it stays with them long enough to make them curious about experiencing it beyond the image, it has done what it set out to do.

Photography: Anna Sampson 
Styling: Emika Ohta 
Concept, Culinary Direction: Kazumi Nishimura 
Featuring: .severine

07/06/2026

Trusting the Frame: sabukaru meets Lin Mao

Lin Mao [.stalin.mao] has become one of the most distinctive image makers behind Taiwan’s underground scene. While usually bands, rappers or singers are the one who take the spotlight, it's actually her lens that becomes a main character.

A sociology graduate from National Tsing Hua University, her path into filmmaking was unusual. She began in art departments and political satire at Catino Crazy News, where her humor and critical eye sharpened. Her breakthrough came when Tseng Kuo-hung of Sunset Rollercoaster [] invited her to direct a music video, marking the start of a film career that would soon define a new aesthetic for Taiwan’s underground and alternative pop scene.

Deeply influenced by manga, anime, and video games, Lin Mao cites Hideaki Anno, Kunihiko Ikuhara, Akiyuki Shinbo, Seijun Suzuki, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg as formative figures. From them, she learned how to construct what she calls “a here that is not here”. Her visuals are often described as nostalgic and surreal, but at their core they revolve around obsession. Each project fixates on an object or psychological state, transforming shame, fe**sh, or fantasy into cinematic energy.

The marginal position of MVs in Taiwan has forced directors to be resourceful, experimental, and bold. Her work embodies that spirit, merging lo fi textures with hyper digital gloss, meticulous planning with moments of sacred unpredictability on set.
Raised by Taiwan and by the World Wide Web, she refuses to perform a stereotypical version of “Taiwaneseness.” Instead, she treats identity as material, something fluid and in dialogue with the global.

In doing so, Lin Mao is not just directing music videos. She is shaping the visual imagination of Taiwan’s subcultural generation.

interview by
video by
edit by .moose

06/06/2026

Japan's Greatest Tattoo Legend Is Still Here: sabukaru meets Horihide []

sabukaru had the honour of meeting one of the most legendary figures in the entire history of tattooing. Horihide, born Kazuo Oguri and now 95 years old, is the man who built the bridge between Japanese irezumi and the Western tattoo world at a time when that bridge did not exist, and most people on both sides were not looking for one.

Working out of Gifu, Horihide moved through a world where traditional Japanese tattooing carried deep associations with the Yakuza and organised crime, preserving the art form through decades of cultural underground while opening it to the West in a way that had not been attempted. American tattoo artist Sailor Jerry spent years building a correspondence with Japanese artists and absorbing the aesthetics from a distance. That connection eventually brought Ed Hardy to Gifu and into Horihide's circle, making him the first non-Asian artist ever invited into the traditionally closed world of Japanese irezumi.

What Hardy brought back from that encounter traveled across the ocean and became the foundation of what contemporary tattoo culture looks like worldwide: the large-scale body suits, the narrative compositions, the color philosophy that now exists in studios on every continent. Most people wearing Japanese-influenced tattoos today are carrying a lineage that traces back to Horihide without knowing it, and sabukaru traveled to Gifu to sit with him, hear it directly, and document it in full.

[Documentary YouTube Link in Bio]

interview .tokyo
video
edit .moose

06/06/2026

Japan's Greatest Tattoo Legend Is Still Here: sabukaru meets Horihide []

sabukaru had the honour of meeting one of the most legendary figures in the entire history of tattooing. Horihide, born Kazuo Oguri and now 95 years old, is the man who built the bridge between Japanese irezumi and the Western tattoo world at a time when that bridge did not exist, and most people on both sides were not looking for one.

Working out of Gifu, Horihide moved through a world where traditional Japanese tattooing carried deep associations with the Yakuza and organised crime, preserving the art form through decades of cultural underground while opening it to the West in a way that had not been attempted. American tattoo artist Sailor Jerry spent years building a correspondence with Japanese artists and absorbing the aesthetics from a distance. That connection eventually brought Ed Hardy to Gifu and into Horihide's circle, making him the first non-Asian artist ever invited into the traditionally closed world of Japanese irezumi.

What Hardy brought back from that encounter traveled across the ocean and became the foundation of what contemporary tattoo culture looks like worldwide: the large-scale body suits, the narrative compositions, the color philosophy that now exists in studios on every continent. Most people wearing Japanese-influenced tattoos today are carrying a lineage that traces back to Horihide without knowing it, and sabukaru traveled to Gifu to sit with him, hear it directly, and document it in full.

[Documentary YouTube Link in Bio]

interview .tokyo
video
edit .moose
words

06/06/2026

Japan's Greatest Tattoo Legend Is Still Here: sabukaru meets Horihide

sabukaru had the honour of meeting one of the most legendary figures in the entire history of tattooing. Horihide, born Kazuo Oguri and now 95 years old, is the man who built the bridge between Japanese irezumi and the Western tattoo world at a time when that bridge did not exist, and most people on both sides were not looking for one.

Working out of Gifu, Horihide moved through a world where traditional Japanese tattooing carried deep associations with the Yakuza and organised crime, preserving the art form through decades of cultural underground while opening it to the West in a way that had not been attempted. American tattoo artist Sailor Jerry spent years building a correspondence with Japanese artists and absorbing the aesthetics from a distance. That connection eventually brought Ed Hardy to Gifu and into Horihide's circle, making him the first non-Asian artist ever invited into the traditionally closed world of Japanese irezumi.

What Hardy brought back from that encounter traveled across the ocean and became the foundation of what contemporary tattoo culture looks like worldwide: the large-scale body suits, the narrative compositions, the color philosophy that now exists in studios on every continent. Most people wearing Japanese-influenced tattoos today are carrying a lineage that traces back to Horihide without knowing it, and sabukaru traveled to Gifu to sit with him, hear it directly, and document it in full.

[Documentary YouTube Link in Bio]

words
interview .tokyo
video
edit .moose

sabukaru Print Issue 02Cover Feature + Interview: NENE[Pre-Order via Link in Bio]Cover Photo by
05/06/2026

sabukaru Print Issue 02
Cover Feature + Interview: NENE

[Pre-Order via Link in Bio]

Cover Photo by

sabukaru Print Issue 02Cover Feature + Interview: Minamo[Pre-order via link in bio]Cover Photo by .minds
04/06/2026

sabukaru Print Issue 02
Cover Feature + Interview: Minamo

[Pre-order via link in bio]

Cover Photo by .minds

03/06/2026

Why is Bladee Defining Authenticity in 2026?

In the rap game of machismo olympics and boastful lies, Bladee’s [] cultural significance lies in his silliness and expression that lacks barriers. He doesn’t share his vulnerabilities to be a contrarian; he does so because his art is fueled by his authenticity. Whether he’s flexing his pink Gizmo from the cult classic film Gremlins or highlighting his love for black metal, he’s his own blueprint. When you see copy-paste Hedi Slimane outfits on a 14-year-old and those chasing social currency, Bladee’s purity in creativity is refreshing.

Bladee’s creative innovation formulated a whole new vocal tone; his flows are the object of envy; and his fervent honesty justifies his greatness. Yet, Bladee isn’t the first to be “authentic.” A long history of Bjork, Daniel Johnston, Captain Beefheart, and other experimental innovators makes that clear. Bladee’s uniqueness lies in his unification of internet subculture. Bringing together the punk kids with the cottage-core girls, the southern gothic guys with the 4chan dwellers, they all rest under the sun of Bladee because of his vulnerable expressions of isolation, his scabs of weakness, and the beauty he finds in suffering.

Bladee’s latest record, Sulfur Surfer, builds around this noble journey. Abandoning his addictive choruses, the story-driven record navigates through the beauty of suffering via St. George’s courageous act of faith in martyrdom. For those battling their way through obstacles of expression, Bladee is a beacon of refuge.

[FULL VERSION LINK IN BIO]
words
edit .moose

sabukaru Print Issue 02Cover Feature + Interview: SK8THING & Toby FeltwellExclusive cover by SK8THING & Bailey Marklew [...
02/06/2026

sabukaru Print Issue 02
Cover Feature + Interview: SK8THING & Toby Feltwell

Exclusive cover by SK8THING & Bailey Marklew
[Pre-order via link in bio]

Briq: The Emotional Archive We coexist side by side in what might be the most visually saturated timeline in human histo...
01/06/2026

Briq: The Emotional Archive

We coexist side by side in what might be the most visually saturated timeline in human history, where identity can be downloaded, personalities assembled from reference folders, and the self projected across infinite simultaneous versions. The image is currently more abundant and more personal than it ever was, which is the contradiction sitting at the center of how visual culture moves.

Briq [] arrived at graphic design through oil painting, formally trained as a footwear designer; he describes his process as mostly unconscious, driven by basic shapes and colors, in which limitations become the condition for creative solutions. His work is a data stream of every emotion and thought at a specific point in time, created from a place he describes as a kid in a sandbox chasing the feeling of being present.

We got into the internet with Briq and where visual identity actually sits right now. When everything is accessible, and identity can be assembled from whatever is circulating online that week, taste flattens, and what survives that flattening is whatever was formed before the feed got involved. He sees the selfie as the image that defines this decade, the face as a way of saying I was here, and hyper-individualism as something that has made collective experience harder to access. The inner child, for him, is the only reference point that remains genuinely personal in an age where personality has become something close to a downloadable file.

When talking to sabukaru he told us that someone once said his work feels like scrolling the feed, constantly bouncing between emotional states until it becomes overwhelming enough to turn symbiotic. Human stories are the core of his creations, drawn from deep care for the people around him and a conviction that the rarest form of reference is lived experience itself. His collaborations with Ninajirachi [], Haunted Starbucks [], and Skin On Skin [] all share a fundamental philosophy: discovering aesthetic value in the overlooked and rooting every visual expression in a deeply personal, internal origin.

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