Kitan Club

May 1956

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Summary

The May 1956 issue of Kitan Club identifies itself as the fourth issue following the magazine’s revival and presents itself as a special issue devoted to notable fiction. Its editorial mixture is broader than that label suggests: extended serialized and stand-alone fiction appears alongside prison reportage, autobiographical confessions, fetish studies, reader testimony, photographic portfolios, imported American imagery, and reports on staged performances. The front matter establishes the issue’s visual identity through Takashi Shima’s theatrical bondage illustration, an editorial photographic portfolio titled “Expressions of the Models,” images reproduced from the American magazine Bizarre, and Shōhei Miyazaki’s dramatic illustration of a stewardess tied to an aircraft.

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The main body opens with the second installment of Rōko Matsui’s “The Red Flowers Are Crying,” a domestic melodrama of marriage, jealousy, betrayal, and violent possession. Ichirō Haruta’s “Ten Months Imprisoned” then shifts into documentary prose, describing prison hospitals, punishment, isolation cells, medical care, correspondence, and the experiences of prisoners and their families. Other early pieces move between sensual confession and darker domination narratives: “Taste of the Devil” recounts obsessive sensory and bodily experiences, while “Complete Submission” portrays paternal cruelty, punishment, and a child’s conflicted attachment. Seiryū Kishimoto’s “The Chilling House of Strange Tales” provides a substantial account of prewar and postwar sideshow performances, including suspension, staged torment, haunted-house effects, and public spectacles involving restrained women.

The middle portion is especially varied. Reisaku Karii’s “Body-Odor Diary” uses bodily scent as the organizing principle of an erotic memoir. Shōhaku Aizawa’s “The Palace of King Jie” presents a modern allegory of power modeled on a legendary tyrant’s court, escalating through scenes of humiliation and coercion. “A Late Awakening,” “The Gray Notebook,” and “Crucifixion in a Box” continue the issue’s interest in awakening desire, memory, captivity, and abnormal experience. A one-page “Letter from a Female Sadist to Her Slave” leads into first-person experiential essays on self-injury, unusual ascetic practice, fetishism, bladder control, and physiological compulsion.

The later fiction includes “Crimson Demon Palace,” “Older Sister and Younger Brother,” “Longing for the Shadow Flower,” and “The Beauty of Bygone Days,” followed by Yasuko Segawa’s long women’s grotesque tale “Sad Wind over the Dusty Plain.” The final literary section contains shorter editorial selections, an abnormal monologue, and “The Woman Who Laughs under Torture.” Reader correspondence and editorial notices occupy the closing pages, interwoven with classified notices, club information, photographic offers, and publication records. Taken as a whole, the issue combines literary melodrama, documentary testimony, bodily confession, fetish taxonomy, historical spectacle, and participatory reader culture, illustrating Kitan Club’s role as both an erotic magazine and a meeting place for a dispersed community of specialized interests.

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Table of Contents 25 items
  1. The Red Flowers Are Crying, Part Two by Rōko Matsui
    14–23
  2. Ten Months Imprisoned by Ichirō Haruta
    24–30
  3. Taste of the Devil by Nobuo Takagi
    31–35
  4. Complete Submission by Shinji Sakata
    36–39
  5. The Chilling House of Strange Tales by Seiryū Kishimoto
    40–45
  6. Body-Odor Diary by Reisaku Karii
    46–47
    Read Translation
  7. The Palace of King Jie by Shōhaku Aizawa
    48–53
  8. A Late Awakening by Natsuo Adachi
    54–59
  9. The Gray Notebook by Ryūichi Yazaki
    60–69
  10. Crucifixion in a Box by Kō Tayama
    70–75
  11. A Letter from a Female Sadist to Her Slave by Mika Moriyama
    76
  12. The Nadeshiko Blossoms Have Fallen: I Committed Seppuku by Misao Kitagawa
    77–79
  13. Strange Zen by Taichi Mori
    80–84
  14. Punishment and Fetishism by Tōma Mineno
    85–90
  15. Bladder Research, Part Three by Ritsuo Sudō
    91–93
  16. Physiological Desire by Aiichirō Nagaoka
    94–99
  17. Crimson Demon Palace by Kōsuke Saji
    100–107
  18. Older Sister and Younger Brother by Toshino Haruki
    108–114
  19. Longing for the Shadow Flower by Nobuo Aoyama
    115–119
  20. The Beauty of Bygone Days by Tamaki Yoshii
    120–131
  21. Sad Wind over the Dusty Plain by Yasuko Segawa
    136–146
  22. Manuscript Gleanings by Editorial Department
    147–151
  23. Abnormal Monologue by Jūzō Taketani
    152–155
  24. The Woman Who Laughs under Torture by Takashi Tsujimura
    156–163
  25. Reader Correspondence
    164–172

Highlights

  • The opening visual section combines an original theatrical bondage illustration, photographs of bound models, imported Bizarre magazine imagery, and a dramatic stewardess-in-peril illustration, establishing the issue’s mixture of Japanese production and foreign fetish iconography. (PDF pp. 6–9).
  • The second installment of “The Red Flowers Are Crying” develops a prolonged story of marital betrayal, jealousy, possessive violence, and emotional captivity. (PDF pp. 11–20).
  • “Ten Months Imprisoned” offers unusually detailed documentary writing about prison wards, medical treatment, solitary confinement, punishment, inmate labor, family visits, and correspondence. (PDF pp. 21–27).
  • “The Chilling House of Strange Tales” records the construction and performance of traveling sideshows and haunted attractions, including staged suspension, restraint, torture tableaux, and audience reactions. (PDF pp. 37–42).
  • “The Palace of King Jie” uses the legendary Chinese tyrant as a frame for a modern fantasy of authority, humiliation, bodily display, and escalating cruelty. (PDF pp. 45–50).
  • The cluster beginning with “The Gray Notebook” moves from personal recollection into self-injury, captivity, unusual ritual practice, and direct communication from a self-described female sadist. (PDF pp. 57–76).
  • “Punishment and Fetishism,” “Bladder Research, Part Three,” and “Physiological Desire” present desire through analytical, medicalized, and autobiographical frameworks rather than conventional fiction. (PDF pp. 82–96).
  • The late-issue sequence of “Crimson Demon Palace,” “Older Sister and Younger Brother,” “Longing for the Shadow Flower,” and “The Beauty of Bygone Days” forms a substantial block of psychologically charged fiction concerned with family, memory, compulsion, and forbidden desire. (PDF pp. 97–128).
  • “Sad Wind over the Dusty Plain,” identified as a women’s grotesque tale, is one of the issue’s longest later narratives and includes an illustrated map within the story. (PDF pp. 133–143).
  • The closing reader-correspondence section combines personal letters, editorial responses, club notices, photographic offers, publication information, and community announcements. (PDF pp. 161–169).
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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