Maruo's Shōjo Tsubaki is an "ero guro reimagining" of a much older, more innocent story. The original "Shōjo Tsubaki" ("The Camellia Girl") was a (traditional Japanese paper theater) during the Shōwa period (primarily the 1920s). In the classic version, a poor young girl selling camellia flowers is tricked or sold into servitude for a traveling circus. There, she suffers horribly before being eventually saved by a rich or noble man. Maruo takes this simple, moralistic tale and subverts it entirely, removing the hopeful ending and replacing it with unrelenting despair.