 In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Morioka Tsuneo, , and Sen'ichi Hisamatsu studied the tale's ethical aspects, attempting to rehabilitate the work from its reputation.More recently LGBT critics have prized the tale for its portrayal of lesbianism, centuries before the Class S genre, although Gregory Pflugfelder does not see the tale as being "lesbian", as he finds it problematic to apply modern labels to older texts.