It is a successor of kibyōshi (黄表紙), which featured adult themes that changed significantly in content and style following censorship imposed by the Kansei Reforms.
[2] Because of the lengthy nature of the works, individual books were often gathered together and bound into larger volumes, which is reflected in the Japanese term for the genre (lit.
Although itself classified as a kibyōshi by the Waseda Classics Database, the complete story is a collection of ten books bound into a single volume as shown on the cover, giving a name to the new process.
Initially serialized in his own Kanayomi Shinbun, the work was quickly transferred over to the gōkan format for a lengthier and more in-depth story.
[7] This late flourishing of gōkan was primarily reserved for dokufu (毒婦) literature, outlining stories of murderous sensational women.