Uramado

April 1959

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Cover of Uramado, April 1959

Issue Details

Volume
4
Issue
4
PDF pages
289

Summary

The April 1959 issue of Uramado is organized around a special feature on 淫祠邪教, imagined obscene, heretical, and sexually charged religious cults. Its contents combine illustrated crime and suspense, supernatural and historical fiction, pseudo-ethnographic accounts of secret rites, photographic nude studies, and recurring columns on actresses and popular visual culture. The issue repeatedly uses temples, shrines, hidden chambers, mountain settlements, occult societies, and charismatic religious figures as settings in which desire, coercion, punishment, and ritual become intertwined.

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The opening section establishes this mixture of pulp narrative and visual spectacle. “The Vanished Tattooed Nude” presents a heavily illustrated mystery involving a nude woman, criminal pursuit, captivity, and bodily marking. It is followed by Fujisawa Osamu’s “Nude Masterpieces,” a studio portfolio emphasizing sculptural poses, shadow, and the isolated female figure. Tōge Kōsuke’s “Secret Tales of Obscene Cults Abroad” then surveys lurid stories of occult sects, ritual sexuality, devil worship, and sensational Western literature, providing the conceptual frame for the themed issue.

The main body moves through extended works of historical fantasy, supernatural suspense, and erotic adventure. “Tickling Kannon” develops an Edo-period tale of money, deception, family obligation, and the exploitation of a young woman. “The Burning Women’s Cave” relocates the action to a mysterious mountain hot-spring district, where travelers encounter a hidden female community and an underground complex. Other stories center on supernatural vengeance, enchanted objects, secret temples, riding or possession imagery, magical cords, and cults whose doctrines transform female bodies into offerings, mediums, or instruments of authority.

Several longer contributions in the middle and later sections expand the issue’s imagined religious systems. “The Cult of Female Bodily Suffering,” “Nude Benten,” “The Golden-Cat Cult of Female Desire,” “The Sorceress of Yasaka,” and “Sacrifice to the God of Love” combine religious vocabulary with scenes of initiation, bodily ordeal, ritual display, and concealed communities. “Black-Hair Binding” and “Hair Lantern” shift emphasis toward fetishized hair, magical restraint, and ghostly or folkloric motifs. The recurring “That Scene, That Actress” column supplies a contrasting popular-culture interlude by discussing memorable performances and images of actresses.

The closing portion includes “Her Mass,” which adapts Christian ritual language to an erotic and transgressive narrative, followed by the long fantasy “Phantom Samurai: The Gecko Spell of Exorcism.” Publication information, submission instructions, and editorial notices conclude an issue whose identity rests on the fusion of postwar pulp fiction, illustrated eroticism, invented ethnography, supernatural folklore, and fascination with forbidden belief.

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Table of Contents 22 items
  1. The Vanished Tattooed Nude by Akitsu Kyōta
    Summary

    An illustrated sensational account follows the disappearance of a tattooed nude woman and the police investigation, mixing eroticized scenes of captivity, coercion, and interrogation with lurid reportage.

  2. Nude Masterpieces by Fujisawa Osamu
    Summary

    A photographic portfolio presents staged black-and-white nude studies emphasizing sculptural poses, bodily form, concealment, and visual spectatorship.

  3. Secret Tales of Obscene Cults Abroad by Tōge Kōsuke
    Summary

    This purportedly foreign-sourced dossier surveys obscene cults, occult religions, sexual rituals, secret societies, and sensational cases involving fetishistic or coercive practices.

  4. Tickling Kannon by Enjōji Tatsu
    Summary

    An Edo-period serialized erotic adventure follows the schemes of the physician Kōan and other villains as they pursue money, abduct O-Shizu, and subject her to elaborate rope restraints and relentless tickling. The illustrated narrative combines criminal intrigue, captivity, coercion, and the threatened exchange of a young woman’s body for religious-fund funds.

  5. The Burning Women’s Cave by Mizorogi Shukuko
    Summary

    This serialized erotic fantasy follows travelers and local men who are lured toward a hot-spring mountain and an uncanny women’s cave, where seductive, grotesque female figures subject them to captivity, humiliation, and bizarre supernatural encounters.

  6. Wheel of Vengeance Hell by Nakabayashi Setsuzō
    Summary

    This illustrated Edo-period erotic revenge serial follows shifting confrontations among townspeople, courtesans, and criminals as abduction, confinement, deception, and violent punishment drive the characters toward reciprocal vengeance.

  7. The Goddess’s Jar by Minamimura Ran
    Summary

    This serialized erotic fantasy follows investigators and other victims into a murderous occult cult centered on a seductive goddess, whose rituals involve coercion, bondage, bodily transformation, and supernatural violence.

  8. Selections from a Heretical Temple of Lust by Suzuki Kazuo
    Summary

    A historical survey of alleged heretical lust cults in the Edo period, describing their beliefs, sexualized rituals, sensational incidents, official investigations, arrests, executions, and related illustrated scenes. It presents these accounts through archival documents and crime-oriented historical commentary.

  9. The Riding Immortal Woman by Fujimi Iku
    Summary

    An erotic fictional dialogue about a young man visiting a beautiful female fortune-teller whose predictions and seductive authority lead to a coercive, physically dominant sexual encounter, accompanied by erotic illustrations.

  10. The Magic of the Waist Cord by Shimamoto Haruo
    Summary

    A serialized erotic-occult tale in which practitioners use waist cords, binding rites, curses, and other magical techniques to control women and summon frightening supernatural experiences. The narrative combines ritualized restraint, violent fantasy, and dramatic illustrated scenes of encounters between men, women, and uncanny forces.

  11. The Strange Cult of Loving Spirits by Iida Toyokichi
    Summary

    This serialized erotic fantasy follows characters drawn into a sinister spirit-worship cult whose schemes involve abduction, coercion, captivity, ritualized bondage, and attempts at rescue and revenge. Its illustrated narrative combines supernatural menace with sensational scenes of restraint and sexual domination.

  12. The Cult of Female Bodily Suffering by Setani Tomohachi
    Summary

    An illustrated sensational account of a secretive heretical cult in which women are subjected to ritualized humiliation, forced nudity, bodily punishment, restraint, and sacrifice-like suffering.

  13. Nude Benten by Nakajima Yoshimi
    Summary

    An erotic occult narrative depicting the manipulation and coercion of women through religious ritual, hypnotic suggestion, nudity, binding, sexualized humiliation, and staged scenes of submission.

  14. The Sin of Falling by Ushioi Taku
    Summary

    A suspenseful erotic crime narrative follows Kasai as he schemes to obtain money through fraud, murder, staged alibis, and drugging, while investigators and associates gradually expose the plan.

  15. The Golden-Cat Cult of Female Desire by Yagiri Jūhachi
    Summary

    This serialized occult crime fantasy follows the Golden-Cat cult, its female mediums and male devotees, and a series of ritualistic manipulations, assaults, murders, and supernatural threats surrounding its secret teachings.

  16. That Scene, That Actress by Shiba Toshiyasu
    Summary

    A critical survey of bondage and erotic scenes in Japanese and foreign films, discussing actresses, direction, staging, visual impact, and the conventions of sensational and SM cinema.

  17. The Sorceress of Yasaka by Hashizume Hikoshichi
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic narrative set in Edo-period Japan, in which a mysterious sorceress and her associates become entangled in religious intrigue, pursuit, captivity, interrogation, and ritualized bondage.

  18. Sacrifice to the God of Love by Kitaba Okunao
    Summary

    A serialized erotic-sadistic narrative follows Hartley, Marie, and others through abduction, restraint, violence, murder, and ritualized sacrifice within a sinister cult-like setting. Illustrated scenes emphasize captivity, coercion, female figures, police investigation, and the recurring imagery of the “god of love.”

  19. Black-Hair Binding by Odagiri Sō
    Summary

    A serialized erotic historical-fantasy thriller follows doll maker Izumi Megichi and other Edo-period figures through abduction, rope binding, hair-cutting rituals, grotesque dolls, curses, and violent pursuit, accompanied by dramatic bondage illustrations.

  20. Hair Lantern by Shima Fuji
    Summary

    A serialized narrative follows a boy’s fascination with women’s long hair through encounters at a bathhouse, hair salon, cinema, and domestic settings, blending sensual fantasy with crime, femme-fatale imagery, and occult or supernatural motifs. The later sections discuss literary, cinematic, and folkloric representations of seductive, dangerous women and magical practices.

  21. Her Mass by Kurobane Shin
    Summary

    A serialized erotic-crime narrative follows Shuwaru and Merii as they investigate a clandestine obscene cult, encountering abduction, coercive restraint, ritualized violence, and a deadly confrontation. The story is accompanied by dramatic black-and-white illustrations.

  22. Phantom Samurai: The Gecko Spell of Exorcism by Kuroki Shinobu
    Summary

    An illustrated historical erotic fantasy follows a mysterious samurai and an exorcist through seduction, deception, violent captivity, murder, and supernatural rituals involving a gecko spell. The serialized narrative combines occult menace with elaborate scenes of restraint, punishment, and forbidden desire in an Edo-period setting.

Highlights

  • “The Vanished Tattooed Nude” opens the issue with a densely illustrated crime narrative involving pursuit, captivity, tattooing, and the circulation of sensational images. (PDF pp. 6–11).
  • Fujisawa Osamu’s “Nude Masterpieces” presents a sustained monochrome studio portfolio built around dramatic shadow, isolated bodies, and sculptural posing. (PDF pp. 12–17).
  • “Secret Tales of Obscene Cults Abroad” surveys devil worship, secret rites, ritual sexuality, and Western occult fiction, establishing the intellectual and sensational framework of the special issue. (PDF pp. 18–25).
  • “Tickling Kannon” is an extended Edo-period narrative in which family debt, deception, religious imagery, and the exploitation of a young woman converge. (PDF pp. 27–40).
  • “The Burning Women’s Cave” follows travelers into a mysterious mountain and hot-spring community, gradually revealing a concealed female society and underground chambers. (PDF pp. 41–52).
  • “The Cult of Female Bodily Suffering” develops one of the issue’s most explicit invented religious systems, organizing female suffering and bodily discipline as doctrine and ritual. (PDF pp. 141–153).
  • “The Golden-Cat Cult of Female Desire” combines animal symbolism, occult authority, sexuality, and religious secrecy within the issue’s central cult motif. (PDF pp. 173–184).
  • “The Sorceress of Yasaka” draws on shrine and folk-magical imagery to depict a dangerous female ritual specialist and a world governed by secrecy and supernatural power. (PDF pp. 193–204).
  • “Black-Hair Binding” and “Hair Lantern” form a late pairing centered on hair as fetish, magical instrument, bodily trace, and source of supernatural danger. (PDF pp. 219–252).
  • “Her Mass” adapts Christian ceremonial vocabulary and imagery to a transgressive narrative immediately before the issue’s closing samurai fantasy. (PDF pp. 253–266).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue: