Tagame's works often depict Japanese historical settings, or draw heavily on traditional Japanese aesthetics in plot or subject material. While homosexuality has a history in Japan dating to ancient times, the country shifted away from a tolerance of homosexuality amid Westernization during the Meiji era (1868–1912), and forms of gay expression that were once accepted became pathologized and criminalized. In the context of Tagame's erotic manga, the tension between traditionalism and modernism often manifests in his rendering of hierarchies, such as works that focus on the patriarchal nature of Japanese society, or samurai characters that serve as symbolic representations of an unjust feudal order. Tagame has stated that he is "fascinated by how these hierarchies fail," describing his simultaneous frustration and attraction to hierarchies associated with Japanese traditionalism thusly: