Uramado

May 1959

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Cover of Uramado, May 1959

Issue Details

Volume
4
Issue
5
PDF pages
290

Summary

The May 1959 issue of Uramado is a large, visually varied publication combining erotic photography, illustrated fiction, historical narratives, sensational crime and occult stories, essays, reader-oriented material, and an extensive special feature titled A Tragic History of Women’s Liberation. The issue’s editorial identity is established through the juxtaposition of modern erotic spectacle with historical accounts of confinement, sexual exploitation, punishment, social restriction, and female vulnerability. Its illustrations range from sequential pulp-style drawings and historical scenes to a substantial monochrome photographic bondage portfolio.

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The opening material includes the illustrated thriller Keep Your Eyes on the Thighs and Nude Masterpieces: The Female Body and Rope, photographed by Fujisawa Osamu. The latter is an especially notable early rope-photography sequence built around the nude female figure, restraint, dramatic shadows, and changing bodily poses. Tattooed Komachi follows with an Edo-period narrative centered on tattoo imagery. Crimson Sash Incantation and Demon Blood continue the issue’s mixture of eroticized historical fiction, danger, coercion, and violence, while Beauty Urahoko provides another extended historical-erotic narrative.

A major portion of the issue is organized under A Tragic History of Women’s Liberation. The Prisoner Woman of the Desert, Neriko’s Hell, Lament of the Karayuki Women, Crimson Crepe Tradition, Endless Crimson Resentment, The Sea Demon and the Women, and Woman’s Body and Oppression approach female suffering through a mixture of fictionalized history, social commentary, exotic settings, captivity narratives, and depictions of institutional constraint. Woman’s Body and Oppression by Suzuki Kazuo is particularly significant as a sustained historical discussion of customs and institutions used to restrict women, accompanied by period-style illustrations. Lament of the Karayuki Women addresses women sent abroad and places sexual exploitation and migration within the special feature’s broader historical frame.

The later half of the magazine greatly expands the range of genres. The serial Strange Love Spirit Cult mixes occultism, bondage imagery, crime, and international intrigue. Ota’s Black Magic is presented as a Maso discussion feature exploring eroticized pain and sadomasochistic fantasy. Essay material such as From the Unsorted Shelf interrupts the longer narratives, while Black-Haired Lantern, Mad Dream, Invitation of Darkness, Lump of Flesh, You’re Next, and Soft-Skin Lantern return repeatedly to psychological disturbance, erotic danger, violence, obsession, and supernatural or uncanny motifs. The Sea Demon and the Women incorporates historical legend and maritime violence, while several later stories adopt contemporary urban or crime-fiction settings.

The issue also contains extensive lists of submitted manuscripts, reader and contributor material, advertisements for related publications, notices, and concluding publication information. These sections reveal Uramado as not merely a collection of erotic stories but as the center of an active amateur and enthusiast literary culture. Taken as a whole, the May 1959 issue moves freely between historical research, sensational fantasy, rope and nude photography, pulp fiction, social commentary, and sadomasochistic discourse, making the tension between erotic entertainment and the historical representation of women’s subjection one of its defining editorial characteristics.

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Table of Contents 22 items
  1. Keep Your Eyes on the Thighs by Toyoda Ichiro
    11
    Summary

    An illustrated erotic narrative follows a performer who uses theatrical tricks, ropes, blindfolds, blades, and staged danger to captivate an audience and outwit an intrusive police officer.

  2. Nude Masterpieces: The Female Body and Rope by Fujisawa Osamu
    19
    Summary

    A photographic portfolio presents staged nude compositions featuring women bound with rope in varied poses, including floor restraint, kneeling, and suspension-like arrangements.

  3. Tattooed Komachi by Nakajima Kimi
    27
    Summary

    This illustrated historical erotic tale follows the courtesan Okyō and an Edo-period household through secret encounters, erotic deception, bondage, and the eventual intervention of a military official.

  4. Crimson Sash Incantation by Takatsuki Daizo
    36
    Summary

    An illustrated historical erotic serial set in Edo-period Japan follows a merchant, spies, and a captive woman amid secret plots, abduction, interrogation, and repeated rope-bound scenes rendered with elaborate restraint imagery.

  5. The Prisoner Woman of the Desert by Minamimura Ran
    50
    Summary

    A serialized erotic captivity narrative set in the desert follows Angeli and other women imprisoned and abused by soldiers and foreign adventurers, with coercive encounters, attempted escapes, pursuit, and rescue efforts unfolding amid military outposts and desert settlements.

  6. Neriko's Hell by Yagiri Shigehachi
    62
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic fiction follows Neriko and other women subjected to forced labor, captivity, rope restraint, sexual violence, and sadistic abuse, while their suffering unfolds amid household exploitation, escape attempts, and legal retribution in an Edo-period setting.

  7. Lament of the Karayuki Women by Hada Hikaru
    76
    Summary

    A richly illustrated historical narrative recounts the exploitation of Japanese karayuki women who were sold or lured overseas, confined in brothels, subjected to sexual coercion and violence, and separated from home. The story combines sensational reportage, historical background, and dramatized scenes of captivity and attempted escape.

  8. Beauty Urahoko by Akashi Sako
    90
    Summary

    A historical erotic serial follows Akihei and other characters through encounters involving seduction, secrecy, jealousy, and elaborate rope restraint in an Edo-period setting, accompanied by erotic illustrations.

  9. Demon Blood by Mizorogi Jakuko
    102
    Summary

    A supernatural erotic serial set around a hospital depicts a mysterious blood-drinking woman, frightened patients and staff, medical examination, captivity, and escalating violence amid uncanny events.

  10. Strange Love Spirit Cult by Iida Toyokichi
    118
    Summary

    This serialized erotic thriller follows Shingo and Eiji as they become entangled with the secretive Aireikyō cult, whose leaders abduct and violently restrain women including Miyuki and Mitsuko before the conflict culminates in an attempted rescue and confrontation. The narrative combines criminal intrigue, coercive sexual violence, ritualized bondage, and sensational action.

  11. Woman's Body and Oppression by Suzuki Kazuo
    136
    Summary

    Suzuki Kazuo surveys the oppression of women in Edo-period Japan, tracing the sale, abduction, confinement, and exploitation of women in licensed pleasure quarters and related businesses through legal records, anecdotes, and cases involving Yoshiwara and other districts. Illustrated scenes reinforce the article’s account of surveillance, punishment, trafficking, and women’s restricted movement and agency.

  12. Ota's Black Magic by Ozaki Jun
    150
    Summary

    A serialized supernatural SM narrative in which Ota uses “black magic,” needles, ropes, and bodily control to dominate Misato and Mizushima through elaborate scenes of restraint, coercion, humiliation, and sadistic fantasy.

  13. From the Unsorted Shelf by Henshushi
    163
    Summary

    An editorial miscellany presenting excerpts and discussion of submitted or previously unpublished writings, including commentary on editorial selection, manuscript preparation, reader response, and the magazine’s publishing process.

  14. Crimson Crepe Tradition by Shimamoto Haruo
    172
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic tale set in the Edo period follows a formidable woman pursuing and capturing men amid village intrigue, swordplay, confinement, humiliation, and punitive violence, accompanied by dramatic illustrations.

  15. Black-Haired Lantern by Shima Fuji
    186
    Summary

    A serialized erotic fantasy centers on a young man’s intense, secretive fixation on a woman’s long black hair, developing through voyeurism, hair cutting, possession, and forbidden desire.

  16. Endless Crimson Resentment by Hashizume Hikoshichi
    192
    Summary

    A serialized Edo-period erotic revenge tale follows Oyae, Chōgorō, Tōzaburō, and others through coercive encounters, social intrigue, and escalating punishment, restraint, and violent retribution in and around pleasure quarters and domestic spaces.

  17. Mad Dream by Kyogoku Miki
    214
    Summary

    This surreal serialized SM story follows Chiko through encounters with Miyo and a mysterious black-beret figure, escalating into abduction, restraint, violence, and sadistic sexual power games.

  18. The Sea Demon and the Women by Odagiri So
    224
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic fiction episode about the pirate lord Wang Zhi and his encounters with women, depicting abduction, captivity, coercion, torture, punishment, and violent power struggles in a sixteenth-century maritime setting. The unit combines narrative prose with dramatic illustrations of pirates, weapons, restraints, and captive women.

  19. Invitation of Darkness by Ushioi Taku
    240
    Summary

    A serialized erotic mystery follows a woman drawn into clandestine nighttime encounters whose disappearance and apparent murder prompt an investigation that gradually exposes deception, coercion, and hidden desire.

  20. Lump of Flesh by Narahara Tetsuo
    254
    Summary

    This illustrated erotic thriller depicts a respectable marriage destabilized by secret sexual obsession, jealousy, and coercive encounters, escalating into psychological and physical violence within an atmosphere of domestic secrecy.

  21. You're Next by Kuroba Shin
    266
    Summary

    A serialized crime-and-SM narrative follows a predatory man, his female victims, and the police investigation surrounding abduction, coercion, bondage, humiliation, sexual violence, and murder. The story moves between criminal pursuit and intensely staged scenes of captivity and domination.

  22. Soft-Skin Lantern by Kuroki Shinobu
    280
    Summary

    A serialized erotic crime narrative follows maid Chikaga and other women as they are abducted, bound, humiliated, and threatened by violent men, with the detective-like figure Hamano Suke pursuing the case; illustrated scenes accompany the story.

Highlights

  • The formal illustrated contents spread presents an unusually broad program of photography, historical-erotic fiction, occult and crime stories, essays, and the extensive A Tragic History of Women's Liberation special feature. (PDF p. 4).
  • Keep Your Eyes on the Thighs opens the major editorial content as a heavily illustrated sequential narrative combining sexuality, danger, and pulp-crime imagery. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • Nude Masterpieces: The Female Body and Rope, photographed by Fujisawa Osamu, is an extended monochrome portfolio exploring rope restraint, bodily pose, negative space, and strong cast shadows. (PDF pp. 14–19).
  • Tattooed Komachi uses Edo-period settings, tattoo imagery, nudity, and sequential illustration to merge historical fantasy with erotic spectacle. (PDF pp. 20–27).
  • The A Tragic History of Women's Liberation feature develops across numerous articles and stories concerned with imprisonment, forced movement, punishment, sexual exploitation, and historically imposed restrictions on women. (PDF pp. 43–81, 128–141, 164–177, 184–198, 216–231).
  • Lament of the Karayuki Women addresses Japanese women sent overseas, placing sexual exploitation and migration within the magazine's broader historical treatment of women's constrained lives. (PDF pp. 68–81).
  • Woman's Body and Oppression by Suzuki Kazuo surveys historical institutions and customs that regulated women and is accompanied by illustrations of confinement, punishment, and social control. (PDF pp. 128–141).
  • The issue contains extensive lists of unpublished submitted manuscripts and contributor material, documenting a substantial participatory literary culture surrounding Uramado. (PDF pp. 106–109, 200–205).
  • The fifth installment of Strange Love Spirit Cult combines crime, occultism, bondage, exotic settings, and international adventure in a long serialized narrative. (PDF pp. 110–127).
  • The concluding portion contains a succession of psychological, erotic, supernatural, and crime-oriented narratives, including Invitation of Darkness, Lump of Flesh, You're Next, and Soft-Skin Lantern, carrying the magazine's themes of obsession and bodily danger through to the final editorial pages. (PDF pp. 232–289).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue: