The following has content which some may find disturbing.
Guro is a genre of artwork that originated in Japan where it is more fully called Ero Guro or Ero Guro Nansensu. This name is a 1920's Japanese manipulation of the English words "erotic grotesque nonsense" because the term guro at the time was used for sexual art that was considered perverse or hentai. While "hentai" has come to mean anything sexually explicit outside of Japan, guro retains its meaning of perversity. Modern guro is a combination of erotic and horror genres.
It is characterized by violence and shocking content beyond ordinary pornography. Sex and nudity are not extreme enough to qualify a work as guro. Guro often does not contain anything sexual, but it is most common for guro to be considered a form of pornography and to include sexual content.
Common themes in guro art include: blood, death, decapitation, dismemberment, mutilation, rape, human deformity, urine, and scat (in the sense of feces). Guro is very loosely defined and it is not limited to the above list, but human figures are almost always involved. In general it includes all things that involve people and push the boundaries of what is usually comfortable in art.
Guro is a particularly unusual genre even in Japan and only a small group of artists works on guro. Japanese manga is the home of most guro, including the works of such artists as Waita Uziga, Shintaro Kago, Suehiro Maruo, and Junji Ito.
Waita Uziga's work includes Schoolgirl in Concrete, a 2004 fictional account based on a real murder case that is quite notorious in Japan. In 1988 Junko Furuta was held prisoner by several boys so that she could be raped and tortured. Her torture included many guro staples such as drinking urine and having fireworks explode in her anus. In the end she was killed and buried in concrete.
Relating to Junko Furuta: