Japanese obscenity laws (Article 175 of the Penal Code) prohibit the distribution of "indecent" materials. While "manko" as a word is not illegal, its graphic depiction in media requires pixelated censorship (mosaic blurring) of the genital area. The word itself may be bleeped on terrestrial TV but is uncensored in adult videos and publications labeled 18+.
The work spans 35 volumes and covers everything from architecture and fire lookout towers to street vendors, hairstyles, and seasonal festivals.
In some Japanese folk tales, there are references to the manko as a site of supernatural power or humor. The famous story of the "Noppera-bō" (faceless ghost) sometimes involves a woman whose genitals are replaced by a mouth, though this is a modern urban legend variant.
Kitagawa Morisada, a merchant from Osaka who later moved to Edo (modern-day Tokyo), spent nearly (from 1837 to the 1860s) documenting the cultural differences between the "East" (Edo) and "West" (Kyoto and Osaka).
The English equivalent "cunt" shares a similar semantic range: originally neutral or anatomical, later becoming highly offensive, then reclaimed by some feminist movements. "Manko" has no widespread reclamation movement in Japan, though some feminist artists (e.g., Megumi Igarashi , aka Rokudenashiko) have used the word and images of vaginas in political art—leading to her arrest in 2014 for distributing data for a 3D-printed vagina kayak.
Unlike standard text dictionaries, it features thousands of detailed illustrations that provide a "vivid picture" of the everyday lives of ordinary people.
In modern Japanese, "manko" is considered: