Uramado

December 1958

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Summary

The December 1958 issue of Uramado is a large illustrated fiction anthology built around a special feature on slavery, oppression, captivity, and coercive authority. Its contents range from modern crime melodrama and foreign-set adventure to historical fiction, grotesque fantasy, psychological suspense, and serial period narrative. The cover presents a shackled woman beside a heavy iron ball, while the formal contents spread frames bondage, servitude, imprisonment, forced labor, and escape as the issue’s governing motifs.

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The opening sequence establishes the magazine’s strongly visual character. “Strange Tale of Nude-Woman Island” is presented as a colorful illustrated adventure involving abduction, underground passages, secret ceremonies, masked captors, and a community of imprisoned women. Fujisawa Osamu’s “Young Nude” follows as a photographic portfolio of studio nudes posed against a dark background, emphasizing bodily contour, flexibility, and sculptural composition. Nakajima Kimi’s illustrated narrative “The Scarlet Crape-Paper Tale” then shifts to an Edo-period setting of seduction, betrayal, confinement, and violence.

The central body combines modern and historical stories united by unequal power. “The Price of a Virgin” follows a criminal conspiracy involving an underworld organization, sexual manipulation, narcotics, murder, and an endangered woman. The main special feature begins with “Palace of Troubled Slaves,” depicting a woman sold in a slave market, transported to a fortified estate, restrained, punished, and compelled to perform. “The Cage of Hell,” “Prostitution Slave Street,” “Tragic Wish at Hatchōbori,” and “Strange Suicides” extend the issue’s interest in incarceration, criminal exploitation, hidden institutions, urban vice, and mysterious death.

Later contributions broaden the geography and tone. “Prostitute Rain,” “Jar Hell,” “Calendar of Fragrant Skin,” and “White Flame” mix erotic obsession with crime and psychological menace. “The Foreign Magazine’s Female Slaves” explicitly treats representations of female bondage in overseas publications, giving the issue a documentary and comparative interlude. Historical and adventure stories such as “The Ivory Throne,” “The Poisonous Yellow Moth,” “The Slave-Ship Incident,” and “The Female Slave’s Jewel” explore colonial fantasy, forced transport, rebellion, dangerous rulers, and contested possession.

The closing third returns increasingly to Japanese period fiction and the supernatural. “Earless Grass,” “The Bodhisattva of the Cellar,” and “The Incarnated Ecstatic Female Buddha” employ religious imagery, hidden chambers, transformation, and grotesque revelation. The final installment of “Skull Lantern” closes the issue with an extended Edo-period tale of abduction, torture, criminal pursuit, and rescue. Editorial matter, publication information, contribution notices, and advertisements complete an issue whose visual and narrative identity rests on the spectacle of domination and the repeated possibility of resistance, flight, revenge, or reversal.

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Table of Contents 26 items
  1. Strange Tale of Nude-Woman Island by Natsumoto Keinosuke
    11–18
  2. Young Nude by Fujisawa Osamu
    19–26
  3. The Scarlet Crape-Paper Tale by Nakajima Kimi
    27–35
  4. The Price of a Virgin by Gamage Kazumi
    36–49
  5. Palace of Troubled Slaves by Odagiri Sō
    50–61
  6. The Cage of Hell by Shima Fuji
    62–75
  7. Prostitution Slave Street by Iida Toyokichi
    76–91
  8. Tragic Wish at Hatchōbori by Hashizume Hikoshichi
    92–103
  9. Strange Suicides by Kanbe Yūichi
    104–109
  10. Prostitute Rain by Erigaki Zan
    110–119
  11. Jar Hell by Kawaguchi Naoki
    120–133
  12. Calendar of Fragrant Skin by Iwahori Hikaru
    134–146
  13. White Flame by Kōno Haruo
    147–153
  14. An Eerie Notebook: Do Not Open That Box by Sasaki Chikara
    154–162
  15. Female Slaves in Foreign Magazines by Tōge Kōsuke
    163–170
  16. The Ivory Throne by Tachibana Shintarō
    171–177
  17. Bubble Hell by Matsui Yoriko
    178–187
  18. The Captive Beauty by Hada Hikaru
    188–201
  19. Hebiko Island by Magaki Shin
    202–213
  20. The Poisonous Yellow Moth by Mizorogi Jakushi
    214–225
  21. The Slave-Ship Incident by Dan Tatsuji
    226–237
  22. The Female Slave’s Jewel by Fujimi Miyako
    238–250
  23. Earless Grass by Sasamoto Tōru
    251–257
  24. The Bodhisattva of the Cellar by Enjōji Tatsu
    258–269
  25. The Incarnated Ecstatic Female Buddha by Umeda Kusuo
    270–277
  26. Skull Lantern by Shimamoto Haruo
    278–299

Highlights

  • The formal contents spread organizes the issue as a special feature on slavery and oppression, combining twenty-six substantive works across photography, crime fiction, historical melodrama, foreign adventure, and supernatural narrative. (PDF p. 4).
  • “Strange Tale of Nude-Woman Island” opens with a highly illustrated fantasy of abduction, underground passages, masked captors, ritualized violence, and a hidden community of imprisoned women. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • Fujisawa Osamu’s “Young Nude” is an extended studio portfolio using black backgrounds, contorted poses, and tightly framed limbs to emphasize the body as an abstract sculptural form. (PDF pp. 14–19).
  • “The Price of a Virgin” combines organized crime, murder, narcotics, sexual manipulation, and a threatened woman in a noir-style narrative illustrated with photographic collage and drawings. (PDF pp. 29–42).
  • “Palace of Troubled Slaves” begins the principal special feature with a woman purchased in a slave market, transported to a fortified compound, restrained, punished, and forced to entertain her captors. (PDF pp. 43–54).
  • “Prostitution Slave Street” develops the theme through a modern urban setting of commercial sexual exploitation, coercive control, and the social machinery surrounding prostitution. (PDF pp. 69–84).
  • “The Foreign Magazine’s Female Slaves” surveys representations of female bondage and servitude in overseas periodicals, providing a rare comparative and documentary feature within the fiction-heavy issue. (PDF pp. 156–163).
  • “The Ivory Throne” and “The Poisonous Yellow Moth” form a substantial late-middle sequence of foreign adventure, dangerous rulers, captivity, intrigue, and political violence. (PDF pp. 164–219).
  • “The Slave-Ship Incident” and “The Female Slave’s Jewel” center forced transport, confinement aboard ship, contested ownership, rebellion, and the circulation of enslaved women as valuable property. (PDF pp. 220–244).
  • The concluding “Skull Lantern” installment sustains an Edo-period atmosphere of abduction, punishment, criminal pursuit, bodily peril, and rescue before the publication and editorial back matter. (PDF pp. 271–292).
Kinbaku Today is an independent online journal dedicated to the study, practice, and cultural history of Japanese rope bondage. Blending essays, translations, interviews, and archival research, it explores kinbaku not simply as technique, but as a living dialogue between history, performance, and human connection.

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