depictions of the crucifixion of Christ), whereas Japanese classical art such as shunga (woodcut erotic art originating in the Edo period) has inspired his depictions of violence. Themes and motifs Hypermasculinity The majority of Tagame's works depict men with personal and physical traits associated with hypermasculinity – developed muscles, hirsute bodies, large penises, an exaggerated volume of ejaculate, machismo, and participation in extreme or violent sexual acts. Tagame has stated that he is interested in how men who are perceived as masculine "respond to societal pressure" and "perform their manliness beyond what's necessary," and how those attitudes change "if a man loses his manliness [...] by participating in activity that normative society believes men would not normally participate in." Armour identifies Pride, which depicts a dominant university student who is trained into submission by his masochistic professor, and The Gamefowl in Darkness, which is inspired by Yasujirō Ozu's A Hen in the Wind and Edogawa Ranpo's The Caterpillar, as representative examples of hypermasculine themes in Tagame's works. Tagame's artwork is often associated with bara, a colloquialism used by non-Japanese audiences to refer to Japanese erotic art featuring masculine men. Tagame has rejected this association, citing the term's historical use as a pejorative for gay men and calling it "a very negative word that comes with bad connotations." Tagame's works are often categorized alongside the "macho" gay art movement associated with artists such as Tom of Finland, which emerged in American biker culture in the early 1960s and was later adapted by gay men to counter stereotypes of effeteness and emasculation. Designer Chip Kidd has contested this association, arguing that "as delightfully sturdy and game as Tom of Finland’s characters depicted, they never quite seem alive. Tagame’s characters are, by vivid contrast, almost unbearably so." Edmund White argues that the hypermasculine ideal Tagame depicts is more categorically similar to Meiji period literature, specifically the character archetype of a man "who was homosexual because he was uncouth, not refined enough to be heterosexual and to please women, a warrior, a peasant from the south, not fit for decent society." Armour notes that Tagame's works are distinguished from his Western gay comic peers through his subversion of stereotypical portrayals of East Asian men as emasculated and asexual, writing that "while there seems little difference in how Tagame’s men are drawn and how male characters in Western erotic gay comics are depicted [...] from