Kitan Club

October 1956

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Summary

The October 1956 issue of Kitan Club is a large, densely organized publication combining visual portfolios, film and art criticism, autobiographical testimony, medical and institutional narratives, psychological fiction, cultural commentary, reader communication, and editorial miscellany. Its opening pages establish the issue’s visual identity through Kitahara Junko’s illustrations of historical captivity and punishment, reproductions of foreign bondage imagery, photographs of restraint, and a formal illustrated contents spread. These images are followed by Fujiki Senji’s extended survey of sadistic scenes in contemporary cinema, which examines how restraint, threat, humiliation, and violence are staged across Japanese and foreign films.

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The early literary and testimonial sections move among satire, confession, and social observation. Iwase Shōichi’s illustrated “Moxa Queen Contest” treats bodily punishment through comic exaggeration. “Heaven Knows” presents an office-based tale of secrecy, fixation, and physical control, while Kondō Kikuya’s continuing memoir “Through the Light” gives a detailed account of illness, hospitalization, overcrowding, medical neglect, institutional poverty, and the social world formed among patients. Aoyama Sanekichi’s essay on popular magazines considers the circulation of punitive and erotic imagery, and Aoba Shin’ichi’s “Abandoned Dog” develops an urban melodrama involving dependence, criminality, coercion, injury, and unstable male relationships.

Several central contributions are unusually documentary. “My Enema Play” catalogues equipment, techniques, and fantasies in a first-person voice, while Fukumura Mitsuharu’s prison memoir describes discipline, food, tobacco, labor, punishment, contraband, and relations among inmates and guards. Hara Tadamasa’s recurring “Modern Masochism Art Review” surveys European and American cinema, magazines, actresses, visual styles, and political meanings, demonstrating Kitan Club’s sustained effort to place Japanese sadomasochistic culture within an international media network. Tamao Sumiko’s “Parasites” continues a domestic and biological narrative in which family relations, animal experimentation, sexuality, and bodily dependency become intertwined.

The middle and later sections broaden into essays on domestication fiction, correspondence, literary and detective-fiction criticism, personal notebooks, dream records, homosexuality, local reports, theatrical and cinematic commentary, and serialized fiction. The issue repeatedly shifts between clinical description and fantasy, between confessional authenticity and deliberately sensational storytelling. Illustrated fiction and historical pieces remain prominent, including later narratives involving female domination, punishment, confinement, and the symbolic use of disease, animals, and bodily transformation.

The closing pages contain shorter columns, publishing information, foreign-magazine notices, bibliographic material, reader submissions, open letters, editorial responses, and community news. These sections make the magazine more than a collection of stories: they present it as a participatory subculture in which readers, collectors, writers, artists, translators, and editors debate terminology, exchange publications, report experiences, and negotiate the boundaries between fantasy, documentation, art, and lived practice.

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Table of Contents 31 items
  1. October Collection: Fragile Prey by Kitahara Junko
    6–8
  2. Reference Materials by Hara Tadamasa
    9–10
  3. Procession
    11
  4. Bondage Photographs Seen in an American Magazine
    12
  5. New Euro-American Style, Part Three by La Bonda
    13
  6. Detailed Examination of Sadism Scenes: From Recent Films by Fujiki Senji
    18–24
  7. Moxa Queen Contest by Iwase Shōichi
    25
  8. Heaven Knows by Takarazuka Fumio
    26–27
  9. Through the Light, Part Three: A Patient’s Record by Kondō Kikuya
    28–36
  10. Popular Magazines and Punishment Pictures by Aoyama Sanekichi
    37
  11. Abandoned Dog by Aoba Shin'ichi
    38–44
  12. My Enema Play by Fukumura Mitsuharu
    45
  13. Memories of Prison Life by Fukumura Mitsuharu
    46–49
  14. Modern Masochism Art Review, Part Three by Hara Tadamasa
    50–53
  15. Parasites, Part Two by Tamao Sumiko
    54–61
  16. I Do Not Know by Honda Yoshirō
    62–63
  17. In Sympathy with the Praise of Domestication Fiction by Asō Kazuo
    64–69
  18. An Open Letter Concerning Domestication Fiction by Aoyama Sanekichi
    70–71
  19. A Story of Being Bound by a Thief by Ikeda Shōichi
    74
  20. From the Notebook of a Dreamer by Numa Shōzō
    76–84
  21. Report Concerning Enemas
    85
  22. Seiu Miscellany: Punishment Pictures, Past and Present by Itō Seiu
    86–91
  23. New Studies in Detective Fiction
    92–115
  24. Record of a Homosexual Man
    116–119
  25. The Slug by Ōtani Ayako
    120–129
  26. Local Report
    130–133
  27. A Half-Life of Suspense
    134–137
  28. The Black Empress by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
    138–154
  29. Continuation: The Woman in Riding Breeches and Female Seppuku by Fujiyama Hide緒
    155–159
  30. Female Seppuku Composition Reference
    160–163
  31. Reader Documents and Editorial Communications by Editorial Department
    164–176

Highlights

  • The opening visual portfolio combines Kitahara Junko’s scenes of historical captivity with foreign bondage photographs and illustrations, establishing the issue’s international and historical visual frame. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • Fujiki Senji’s “Detailed Examination of Sadism Scenes” surveys restraint, humiliation, threat, and violence in contemporary films and considers how cinematic technique shapes their emotional effect. (PDF pp. 15–21).
  • “Through the Light” provides an unusually detailed patient’s account of Japanese hospital life, including overcrowding, sanitation, food, tuberculosis treatment, staff shortages, and the economics of care. (PDF pp. 25–33).
  • “Abandoned Dog” uses male companionship, criminal underworld settings, injury, dependency, and physical coercion to construct a bleak urban melodrama. (PDF pp. 35–41).
  • “My Enema Play” describes instruments, quantities, procedures, and fantasy scenarios in a rare first-person account of specialized bodily play. (PDF p. 42).
  • Fukumura Mitsuharu’s prison memoir documents food, tobacco, labor, searches, punishment, smuggling, and relations between inmates and guards. (PDF pp. 43–46).
  • Hara Tadamasa’s “Modern Masochism Art Review” examines European and American films, actresses, magazines, fashion, politics, and the international circulation of fetish imagery. (PDF pp. 47–50).
  • Tamao Sumiko’s “Parasites” joins biological observation to a domestic narrative of sexuality, dependency, and bodily abnormality. (PDF pp. 51–58).
  • The later illustrated fiction includes extended scenes of domination, confinement, social degradation, and historical or quasi-historical punishment. (PDF pp. 135–151).
  • The closing editorial and correspondence pages preserve exchanges among readers, contributors, collectors, and editors and document the magazine’s function as a subcultural network. (PDF pp. 157–173).
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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