Kitan Club

August 1962

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Cover of Kitan Club, August 1962

Issue Details

Volume
16
Issue
8
PDF pages
189

Summary

This August–September 1962 combined issue of Kitan Club is a large, visually dense specialist erotic magazine organized around bondage photography, fetish illustration, personal confession, serialized fiction, reader correspondence, and mail-order publishing. Its opening pages establish the issue’s visual identity through staged photographs of bound women, outdoor tree restraint, gagging, chains, and a long run of dramatic illustrated captivity scenes. The recurring shackle-and-chain imagery, credited chiefly to Fujio Kurokawa, moves between erotic tableaux, historical melodrama, criminal captivity, ritual suicide, and violent fantasy.

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The issue then shifts into substantial prose. Einosuke Fukukawa’s illustrated cultural essay on harakiri examines the history, ritual mechanics, bodily suffering, literary and theatrical representations, and modern social meanings of seppuku. Kiyoshi Kimura’s Record of Feet combines literary excerpts, newspaper anecdotes, photographs, fashion commentary, class observation, hygiene, and the aesthetics of Japanese and foreign women’s feet. Other early features address buttock imagery, personalized erotic fantasy, and the long SM novel Somewhere in the Universe, whose criminal plot combines interrogation, imprisonment, trafficking, police pursuit, and sexualized restraint.

The middle of the issue foregrounds reader participation and fetish subcultures. Confessional contributions discuss bondage, exhibitionism, pregnancy fetishism, women’s sumo, adult-baby role-play, male physique, and fantasies of bodily transformation. The New Faces feature combines interviews with extensive bondage photography, while correspondence and illustrated appeals address named readers and models. Masochism Heaven, the serialized Strange Tales of Thirty-Nine Nights, and Flower and Snake extend the issue’s concerns into sensational narrative, grotesque violence, class power, captivity, and revenge. Dedicated essays consider diapers, feminization through underwear, human-horse role-play, and enemas.

The closing section makes the magazine’s publishing community especially visible. Recent-issue catalogues, photographic product advertisements, reader letters, self-restraint rules, editorial notices, an afterword, subscription information, and manuscript solicitations reveal a commercial network sustained by readers, models, contributors, and mail-order circulation. Across genres, the issue repeatedly treats the body as an object of display, discipline, transformation, and spectatorship, while also documenting the editorial negotiation of censorship, public morality, and specialized erotic culture.

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Table of Contents 29 items
  1. First Gravure: Attractive Poses by Sugihara Moto; Rika Yukiko; Sakurai Yoko; Takeno Hiroko
    Summary

    A photographic portfolio of staged domestic bondage poses using cloth, rope, garments, mirrors, and varied seated, kneeling, and reclining arrangements.

  2. Second Gravure
    Summary

    A sequence of visual gravure sections moves from outdoor tree bondage and prisoner imagery to prayer-like captivity and poses involving mouth restraint.

  3. Frontispiece: Severed Head, Buttocks, and Alice (Part 1) by Taki Reiko
    3
    Summary

    A full-page erotic illustration functioning as a frontispiece plate, associated with Taki Reiko and the issue’s recurring themes of staged bodies and restraint.

  4. Female-Body Seppuku (Part 2) by Taki Reiko
  5. Shibari Close-Up Selection
    Summary

    A concentrated sequence of bondage and captivity imagery, including chains, stocks, cages, historical costumes, female prisoners, and melodramatic scenes of punishment and violence.

  6. Valuable Responses to Bondage (Changes in Facial Expression)
    Summary

    A photographic feature documenting facial expression, gagging or masking, chains, cuffs, and the bodily effects of staged restraint.

  7. Coat Bondage
    Summary

    A visual portfolio of clothing-based and rope bondage, presenting controlled posture, flexibility, staged interaction, and restrained female bodies.

  8. Masochist Photos (Toyoki: Chest, Skin, and Performance)
    Summary

    A concluding gravure sequence emphasizing the body, performance, staged restraint, and photographic presentation of fetish scenes, followed by promotional magazine material.

  9. A Satirical Review of Japanese Customs: Harakiri by Einosuke Fukukawa
    Summary

    An extensively illustrated historical-cultural essay on seppuku, covering ritual procedure, implements, attendants, samurai ideology, class and gender, literary and theatrical representations, modern suicide, and the tension between heroic symbolism and bodily suffering.

  10. A Record of Feet (From Novels and Newspaper Articles) by Kiyoshi Kimura
    Summary

    A wide-ranging study of feet as aesthetic, erotic, social, literary, and documentary objects, incorporating fiction, newspaper material, photographs, footwear, hygiene, class, fashion, and painter Itō Shinsui’s views.

  11. Correspondence: To Takagi Kikue by Ritsuo Sudo
    Summary

    An illustrated essay on buttock contours, bodily impressions, erotic aesthetics, photographic display, posture, and the cultural meanings attached to bodily marks.

  12. Masochist Senryu with Author’s Notes: Yokoguri Mazori by Nishida Jin
    Summary

    An illustrated, personalized erotic presentation addressed to Kikue Takagi, describing successive poses, restraint, riding, bodily control, and staged encounters in a gift-like fantasy format.

  13. A Long SM Novel: Somewhere in the Universe by Saji Osamu?
    Summary

    A serialized SM novel involving prison, interrogation, criminal organizations, trafficking, police pursuit, handcuffs, ropes, gagging, sexual coercion, and institutional violence; the visible installment remains unresolved.

  14. A Connoisseur’s Record: That Which Is Infinitely Sweet by Toyama Katsuhiko
    Summary

    A first-person confession about bondage, exhibitionism, fetishistic attention to bodies, self-restraint, Buddhist hell imagery, and identification with readers who share unusual fantasies.

  15. Correspondence: An Appeal to Pregnancy Fetishists by Senuma Shiro
    Summary

    An appeal discussing fascination with pregnancy photographs, enlarged bellies, maternity imagery, prior magazine material, and requests for further reader contributions.

  16. A New Face Appears: Rika Yukiko’s Gift by Tsujimura Takashi
    Summary

    A photographic profile introducing new models through interviews, captions, dialogue, and extensive images of bondage participation, embarrassment, fantasy, and staged display.

  17. Illustrated Text: Memories of Women’s Sumo by Tatsuya Masaharu
    Summary

    An illustrated reminiscence of women’s sumo that emphasizes female strength, grappling, sweat, bodily exposure, spectatorship, and reversal of conventional gender roles.

  18. Confession of Days Gone By: Playing at Being a Baby by Watanabe Kaneko
    Summary

    A long first-person account of adult-baby role-play involving maternal authority, baby clothing, diapers, feeding, carrying, discipline, toilet training, dependency, and psychological regression.

  19. A Connoisseur’s Record: Confession by Saji Masazo
    Summary

    A comic first-person account of hospitality, food, alcohol, bathing, bodily odor, cleanliness, and social embarrassment during an evening gathering.

  20. Experiential Confession Memoir: A Radiantly Sweet Thing by Edonuma Shiro
    Summary

    A personal narrative of bathing and swimming encounters with a muscular man, exploring nudity, physique, admiration, embarrassment, visual comparison, and eroticized bodily observation.

  21. Confession and Correspondence: To Higashiura Hikaru and Takeno Hiroko by Kyoko Hamura
    Summary

    A provocative reader contribution imagining bodily cooking, pregnancy, abdominal cutting, anatomy, enemas, digestion, and transformation through letter-like prose and graphic illustration.

  22. Film: Love and Love—Do Not Love by Watsutani Kazuharu
    Summary

    A sensational film-related feature discussing erotic spectacle, pregnancy, artificial insemination, abortion, fetal development, and the popular presentation of women’s bodies.

  23. Masochism Heaven by Kunii Yoshiro
    Summary

    An illustrated masochism department combining anecdotes and fantasies of humiliation, domination, punishment, pursuit, fetishized clothing and bodies, and shifting gendered power.

  24. An Invitation to Suspension Torture by Toyoshima Riichi
    115
    Summary

    A direct correspondence item discussing suspension, bondage, endurance, limits of participation, and the negotiation of erotic power between correspondents.

  25. Thirty-Nine Nights of Strange Tales by Tsujimura Takashi
    Summary

    A serialized grotesque erotic narrative involving wealthy women, servants, money, coercion, bondage, humiliation, bodily violence, disguise, revenge, and criminal exploitation across successive strange-tale episodes.

  26. Fantasy Story: Women Who Cast Away Their Tears by Kondo Fuzuko
    Summary

    An illustrated series of staged accounts in which women are bound, supervised, punished, gagged, humiliated, and made to endure restraint through named scenarios and model-based photographs.

  27. Fiction: Flower and Snake by Kyotaro Hanamaki
    Summary

    A creative captivity narrative centered on abduction, criminal power, rope binding, gagging, interrogation, punishment, confinement, and attempted rescue, with wealthy captives and pursuers moving through numbered episodes.

  28. Confession: The Experience of Being a Human Horse by Takako Tsumura
    Summary

    A testimonial account of human-horse role-play involving riding, reins, commands, bodily control, endurance, objectification, and an immersive private-room encounter.

  29. Brief Film Review: The Mature Person by Higashitsuyama Murai Eishu
    166

Highlights

  • The opening visual sequence combines domestic bondage poses, outdoor tree restraint, prisoner imagery, gagging, chains, and dramatic illustrated captivity scenes. (PDF pp. 3–30).
  • Einosuke Fukukawa’s long illustrated study of harakiri examines ritual, anatomy, samurai ideology, gender, class, media representation, and the physical realities of suicide. (PDF pp. 31–46).
  • Kiyoshi Kimura’s Record of Feet joins photographs, literary excerpts, newspaper anecdotes, fashion advice, hygiene, class, and changing ideals of bodily beauty. (PDF pp. 47–52).
  • Somewhere in the Universe is a long SM novel involving imprisonment, interrogation, criminal organizations, trafficking, police pursuit, and repeated scenes of restraint. (PDF pp. 59–72).
  • New Faces combines interviews and dialogue with a substantial photographic presentation of women participating in bondage imagery. (PDF pp. 83–88).
  • Baby Play presents an extended adult-baby role-play account involving infantilization, feeding, diapers, discipline, maternal authority, and regression. (PDF pp. 91–96).
  • Flower and Snake is a serialized captivity narrative by Kyotaro Hanamaki, centered on abduction, criminal power, rope binding, gagging, punishment, and attempted rescue. (PDF pp. 156–165).
  • The closing Reader Correspondence, self-restraint rules, editorial afterword, catalogues, and manuscript solicitations document the magazine’s participatory and commercial infrastructure. (PDF pp. 169–189).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue:

English Translations from This Issue