To send you off for the weekend, here are the seventeenth century Japanese fart scrolls you didn’t ask for. The unusual images from an Edo period between 1603 and 1868, are known as ‘He-gassen’, which can only be translated as “fart battle” or “competition” and they’re all about, well, farting!

It’s Friday, and on Fridays, I get a little immature…

In the 90s, a collection of these scrolls were sold for $1,200 at a Christie’s auction. There is very little academic information on Japanese farting battles but researcher Steffen Remvik notes that similar drawings were used to ridicule westerners towards the end of the Edo period in response to increasing intrusion of Europeans.

On Monday we can go back to pretending toilet humour does not amuse us.

Sources: Naruhodo, Tofugu

