Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #24 — page 58: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains satirical commentary on Japanese public bathhouses ("sento"). The author describes visiting a bath at Venus in what appears to be a red-light district, where numerous nude women bathed without apparent modesty. The satire mocks both: 1. **Japanese bathing customs** - contrasting "Japanese beauty" (angular) with American (curved), comparing Japanese women unfavorably to wax figures 2. **Western prudishness** - criticizing foreign insistence on gender separation via bamboo partitions The passage then shifts to describing Mogi, a fishing village near Nagasaki, known for its overwhelming stench. The author humorously invokes the Romantic poet Coleridge, suggesting even his imaginative powers would be "overpowered" by Mogi's smell—a joke equating poetic exaggeration with actual sensory assault. The humor relies on early-20th-century Western stereotypes and xenophobic observations.