Lesbian Harem
Synopsis. Two lesbian lovers (Reika Kano and Kyōko Hashimoto) escape the city to commit a lovers-suicide deep in the forest. There they are captured by the queen (Chiemi Akimoto) of a lesbian colony who uses the two lovers for her own sex games. The couple organize a revolt against the queen. Background. Tomoaki Hosoyama filmed "Lesbian Harem" for Shintōhō Eiga and it was released theatrically in Japan by that studio on April 18, 1987. U.S. low-budget exploitation films had become popular in Japan with the advent of home video. Director Hosoyama made "Lesbian Harem" on a  similarly low budget, and designed the film as a tribute to these films, and particularly as an "homage" to John Waters' "Desperate Living" (1977). In their "Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films", Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give "Lesbian Harem" three out of four stars. Noting that "Lesbian Harem" is an important film on its own, they point out that in many ways this early Hosoyama film also anticipates his later hit, "Weather Girl" (1993). Hosoyama's attitude towards lesbianism, in particular, is shared between these films, and in direct opposition to the way it was depicted in most contemporary  pink films dealing with the subject. Rather than showing lesbians as women who are bitter from bad experiences with heterosexual affairs, and who are victims of a disapproving society, Hosoyama shows lesbianism simply as a lifestyle which the storyline accepts without judgment.