Uramado

September 1959

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Cover of Uramado, September 1959

Issue Details

Volume
4
Issue
9
PDF pages
261

Summary

The September 1959 issue of Uramado is a large special number centered on sensationalized histories and fantasies of the Ōoku, the shogunal women’s quarters, and the wider world of the early-modern inner palace. Its editorial mixture is characteristic of Uramado: illustrated fiction, historical melodrama, erotic and grotesque anecdote, supernatural tales, nude photography, essays, and contemporary crime stories are interwoven rather than separated into rigid departments. The opening establishes this range immediately with the illustrated story The Pink Phantom Thief, Fujisawa Osamu’s Nude Masterpieces photographic portfolio, and the editorial miscellany From the Unsorted Shelf.

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The principal special feature begins with Yagiri Jūhachi’s Secret Chiyoda Picture Scroll: Lady Kasuga, an extended historical narrative built around the politics, rivalries, sexuality, and punishments associated with the Tokugawa inner chambers. Other major contributions repeatedly return to court intrigue and female rivalry: Demon Palanquin, The Flying Squirrel’s Long-Cherished Wish, Two Komachi of Vengeance, Illustrated Flowers in Combat in the Ōoku, Sinister Clouds over Nerima Palace, and The Mad Consort’s Trap. The stories are heavily illustrated and use confinement, jealousy, coercion, secret meetings, bodily punishment, and political manipulation as recurring narrative engines.

Alongside the palace material, the issue broadens into other forms of abnormal and erotic culture. Historical Fact and Fiction of Female Seppuku examines women and ritual suicide through a mixture of historical commentary and literary examples. Beautiful-Skinned Page explores male beauty and eroticized youth in an illustrated narrative. The Devil from the Graveyard, Tsugomori Pond, and The Strange Kappa Boy bring supernatural and grotesque motifs into the issue, while Pencil Hell and Hair Benten move into modern urban or psychologically charged settings. Oryū’s Secret Notebook and Records of Wicked Women and Villains continue the fascination with dangerous women, deception, sexuality, and criminality.

The final portion shifts increasingly toward modern settings. In Tokyo’s Blind Spot presents a translated or adapted urban crime narrative, while Chronicle of the Ōjō Group closes the major fiction with a contemporary underworld story. The last pages contain the conclusion of that narrative followed by publication information, manuscript solicitation, notices, and the colophon. Across the issue, the Ōoku functions less as a narrowly historical subject than as an organizing fantasy space for secrecy, erotic rivalry, punishment, disguise, transgression, and dangerous desire, while the surrounding fiction and visual material extend those concerns from the Edo period into supernatural folklore and modern metropolitan life.

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Table of Contents 21 items
  1. The Pink Phantom Thief by Toyoda Ichirō
    Summary

    An illustrated erotic crime mystery follows journalist Tsuruta as he investigates the elusive Pink Phantom Thief, whose nighttime attacks, disguises, a circus fire, and hidden clothing generate a trail of sensational clues. The investigation focuses on a suspected artist and the possibility that the thief is a cross-dressed man, combining suspense with suggestive encounters and visualized erotic danger.

  2. Nude Masterpieces by Fujisawa Osamu
    Summary

    A photographic portfolio titled “Nude Masterpieces,” credited to Fujisawa Osamu, presents a nude female model in a series of carefully composed floor-based poses, stretches, and contortions against patterned and plain studio backdrops.

  3. From the Unsorted Shelf by Henjūshi
    Summary

    This installment of “From the Unsorted Shelf” presents the erotic fiction “Tattoo Mansion,” centered on an orphaned young woman employed in an elaborate household. Her encounters with the enigmatic master and the mansion’s secluded spaces develop into voyeuristic, fetishistic, and coercive episodes involving tattoo imagery, sexual control, and attempted escape.

  4. Secret Chiyoda Picture Scroll: Lady Kasuga by Yagiri Jūhachi
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic narrative about Lady Kasuga in the Tokugawa inner palace, portraying her jealous control over the shogun’s women and her use of attendants, physicians, confinement, and violent punishment to enforce her authority. Illustrated scenes depict palace intrigue, coercion, restraint, humiliation, and sexualized cruelty involving the women of the Ōoku.

  5. Hair Benten by Shima Fuji
    Summary

    A serialized first-person erotic narrative follows a young factory worker whose encounters with employers, coworkers, and women become entangled with his intense fascination with black hair. The story combines workplace hardship, humiliation, coercive sexual dynamics, and dramatic episodes centered on hair, beauty, and submission.

  6. Demon Palanquin by Shimamoto Haruo
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic tale set amid the secrecy, rivalries, and power struggles of the Edo-period Ōoku. The narrative follows palace women and retainers through abduction, pursuit, interrogation, and elaborate rope restraint, accompanied by staged erotic illustrations.

  7. The Devil from the Graveyard by Hasegawa Isamu
    Summary

    A serialized supernatural SM story in which a woman adopts an ominous black cat linked to a graveyard, only to encounter its terrifying transformation and vengeful, sexually threatening powers. The narrative combines domestic unease, captivity, coercion, and occult horror, accompanied by staged erotic illustrations.

  8. Historical Fact and Fiction of Female Seppuku by Nakayasu Hiromichi
    Summary

    Nakayasu Hiromichi examines accounts and fictional representations of female seppuku, focusing on stories of women in the Edo-period inner palace and related sword-wielding heroines. The article compares historical records with novels, stage and visual adaptations, emphasizing how sensational and eroticized conventions reshape narratives of loyalty, desire, violence, and death.

  9. The Flying Squirrel's Long-Cherished Wish by Hashizume Hikoshichi
    Summary

    A historical erotic adventure set in the Tokugawa Ōoku, this story follows intrigue surrounding Lady Gekkōin, Tamoo, and the succession after the death of Shogun Ienobu. Rumors of forbidden relations lead to espionage, nighttime infiltration, violent pursuit, disguise, and capture amid the secret spaces of Edo Castle.

  10. Pencil Hell by Narumi Genkichi
    Summary

    A serialized SM mystery following detective Yamamoto as he investigates a woman’s suspicious relationships, disappearance, and secret encounters. The investigation develops into scenes of coercion, captivity, physical punishment, and pencil-based torture, accompanied by dramatic erotic illustrations.

  11. Beautiful-Skinned Page by Nakajima Yoshimi
    Summary

    An illustrated historical erotic tale set around a Buddhist temple, involving a beautiful page who conceals her gender amid intrigue, pursuit, and shifting power relations. The narrative features rope bondage, whipping, restraint, escape, and voyeuristic discovery, ending amid violence and flight.

  12. Two Komachi of Vengeance by Kuga Fūtarō
    Summary

    An Edo-period revenge tale centered on the women Kotoji and Yaえ, whose conflicts with Izumi-no-kami, Ogino, and other adversaries unfold through deception, coercion, captivity, and swordplay. The illustrated narrative combines eroticized restraint and punishment with a climactic struggle for vengeance and survival.

  13. Illustrated Flowers in Combat in the Ōoku by Nakabayashi Setsuji
    Summary

    A richly illustrated historical erotic narrative set in the Tokugawa Ōoku, portraying rivalries, jealousies, coercive relationships, punishments, and sexual intrigue among palace women and their attendants. Dramatic episodes are accompanied by staged drawings of restraint, humiliation, and intimate encounters, presenting the inner palace as a closed world of erotic power struggles.

  14. Tsugomori Pond by Usurogi Jakushi
    Summary

    A surreal erotic tale set around a mysterious pond, where Aguri encounters a snake-bodied man and becomes entangled in a dreamlike relationship marked by desire, metamorphosis, and death. The story combines folkloric supernatural motifs with psychologically charged erotic fantasy and accompanying illustrations.

  15. Sinister Clouds over Nerima Palace by Odagiri Sō
    Summary

    An illustrated historical erotic fiction set in and around the Tokugawa Ōoku, this tale follows intrigues, punishments, abductions, and violent encounters connected with the “Dog Shogun” and the Nerima palace. The narrative combines sensational court rumor, sexual coercion, bondage, animal attacks, and dramatic reversals with period-style dialogue and artwork.

  16. The Strange Kappa Boy by Suzuki Tarokubei
    Summary

    An illustrated Edo-period supernatural adventure follows Genzaburō and his companions as they investigate rumors of a strange kappa-like boy and a series of uncanny assaults. Their pursuit leads through riverside settlements, hidden houses, mysterious women, martial encounters, transformations, and revelations about the creature’s identity and origins.

  17. The Mad Consort's Trap by Fujimi Iku
    Summary

    A historical erotic tale set in the Ōoku, in which the neglected consort Suikihi plots a trap against the favored beauty Yōkin. Palace jealousy, secret alliances, manipulation, captivity, and punitive sexualized scenes drive the narrative, accompanied by dramatic illustrations.

  18. Oryū's Secret Notebook by Enjōji Tatsu
    Summary

    A serialized historical erotic tale following Oryū and Chōtarō through abduction, confinement, pursuit, and attempted escape amid rival schemes and revenge. The narrative combines dramatic dialogue with illustrations of rope restraint, captivity, and sensational encounters in the inner-palace setting.

  19. Records of Wicked Women and Villains by Suzuki Kazuo
    Summary

    A historical miscellany of notorious women and male villains, presenting Edo-period anecdotes of murder, arson, poisoning, theft, sexual scandal, betrayal, and other crimes. The account emphasizes sensational case narratives, punishments, executions, social disorder, and the perceived psychological or moral causes of criminal behavior, accompanied by dramatic illustrations.

  20. In Tokyo's Blind Spot by Kuroha Shin
    Summary

    A serialized crime narrative set in postwar Tokyo follows an American serviceman and others as they search for a missing woman amid deception, surveillance, kidnapping, and murder. The story combines investigative suspense with scenes of coercion, restraint, and sadistic violence, framed by cross-cultural encounters between Americans and Japanese characters.

  21. Chronicle of the Ōjō Group by Iida Toyokichi
    Summary

    A serialized Edo-period sensational fiction follows the rōnin Namikawa Jūrō and the performer Kogiku amid seduction, betrayal, murder, suicide, and mysterious identities. The narrative repeatedly depicts eroticized rope binding, coercion, torture, and violent retribution, framed by melodramatic illustrations and dramatic dialogue.

Highlights

  • The Pink Phantom Thief opens the substantive issue as a lavishly illustrated crime story, using alternating red and green page designs and cinematic scenes of pursuit, disguise, and seduction. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • Fujisawa Osamu's Nude Masterpieces is a monochrome photographic portfolio emphasizing sculptural poses, bodily curvature, gesture, and studio composition. (PDF pp. 14–19).
  • Secret Chiyoda Picture Scroll: Lady Kasuga launches the Ōoku special feature with a long illustrated historical narrative about Lady Kasuga and the political and erotic dynamics of the shogunal inner chambers. (PDF pp. 29–42).
  • Demon Palanquin develops the special issue's combination of palace intrigue, coercion, punishment, and illustrated historical melodrama across one of the issue's longest early features. (PDF pp. 55–70).
  • Historical Fact and Fiction of Female Seppuku treats women's ritual suicide as both a historical and literary subject, pairing commentary with period examples and illustrations. (PDF pp. 85–94).
  • Beautiful-Skinned Page is an illustrated narrative focused on an attractive male page, making male beauty and homoerotic attention unusually explicit within the issue's broader erotic program. (PDF pp. 126–133).
  • Illustrated Flowers in Combat in the Ōoku presents rivalry among women of the inner palace through prose and numerous period-style illustrations of confrontation, intrigue, and punishment. (PDF pp. 143–154).
  • The Mad Consort's Trap is a substantial late historical narrative by Fujimi Iku, returning to the special issue's central concerns with court sexuality, manipulation, danger, and entrapment. (PDF pp. 193–206).
  • Records of Wicked Women and Villains combines Edo-period criminal and erotic material with illustrated episodes involving deception, violence, and socially transgressive women. (PDF pp. 219–232).
  • Chronicle of the Ōjō Group carries the issue into a modern underworld setting and occupies most of the final substantive pages before publication notices and the colophon. (PDF pp. 243–260).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue: