Uramado

October 1958

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Summary

The October 1958 issue of Uramado is an unusually large anthology organized around a special feature of supernatural revenge tales. Its editorial identity combines historical melodrama, contemporary crime fiction, grotesque fantasy, erotic suspense, illustrated serials, photography, and popular occultism. The cover’s telephone-cord bondage image establishes a modern erotic menace, while the formal contents spread presents a densely packed program of stories about curses, ghosts, vengeance, confinement, murder, mysterious women, and bodies placed under threat.

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The issue opens with “The Female Water Entertainer,” a lavishly illustrated period tale involving a performer, murder, mutilation, and pursuit. This is followed by Osamu Fujisawa’s “Light and Skin,” a sculptural nude photographic portfolio emphasizing bodily contour, shadow, limbs, and abstract composition. The modern illustrated thriller “The Secret of the Bat Theater” then shifts the setting to Tokyo nightlife, following an actress, a dwarf performer, abduction, torture, narcotics, criminal exploitation, and violent pursuit. “Breast Chamber of Hell” extends the contemporary crime atmosphere through gangsters, stolen narcotics, sexual coercion, imprisonment, and gunplay.

The central revenge feature develops through both historical and modern settings. “The Damask-Skin Curse” concerns a bewitched mansion, secret chambers, written curses, missing women, and inherited violence. Subsequent stories move through samurai households, haunted inns, vendettas, monstrous transformations, supernatural retainers, traveling killers, deceptive beauties, river and waterfront settings, and fatal encounters with women whose beauty conceals danger or grievance. Frequent illustrations turn scenes of capture, exposure, pursuit, murder, supernatural manifestation, and punishment into a parallel visual narrative.

The later half broadens the issue’s tonal range without abandoning its core themes. Stories such as “The Inn of the Poison Butterfly,” “The Beauty Mound’s Karmic Consequence,” “The House That Invites an Eerie Presence,” “Will-o’-the-Wisp Riverbank,” “The Man Who Walks About Selling Death,” “Strange Transformation Sketches,” and “Almost the Anniversary of Your Death” combine mystery structures with ghosts, poisons, doubles, disguises, obsessive desire, and retributive violence. Longer period narratives, including “Hatamoto Bedchamber Chronicle,” “Hell Ship,” “Autumn Wind at Kikyo Field,” and “The Nineteenth Installment of Death-Coffin Komachi,” sustain the magazine’s interest in feudal authority, erotic intrigue, confinement, cruelty, and revenge across extended serial form.

The closing pages contain the final installments of “Death-Coffin Komachi,” additional illustrated fiction, reader and contributor material, a manuscript solicitation, publication information, and editorial back matter. Across its full range, the issue presents revenge as an unstable crossing point between justice and obsession. Women repeatedly appear as performers, victims, avengers, apparitions, seductresses, and bearers of inherited curses, while the magazine’s fusion of text, noir illustration, period drawing, and photography gives the anthology a strongly visual and theatrical character.

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Table of Contents 25 items
  1. The Female Water Entertainer by Yanagitsutsu Jūzaburō
    11–18
  2. Light and Skin by Fujisawa Osamu
    19–26
  3. The Secret of the Bat Theater by Natsumoto Keinosuke
    27–35
  4. Breast Chamber of Hell by Iida Toyokichi
    36–49
  5. The Damask-Skin Curse by Takagi Ryūji
    50–65
  6. The Demon Lurking in the Feet by Mizorogi Jakushi
    66–77
  7. Hatamoto Bedchamber Chronicle by Hashizume Hikoshichi
    78–89
  8. The Monster of the Stock Hotel by Takeya Jūzō
    90–101
  9. Oshima’s Vendetta Journey by Yagiri Jūhachi
    102–113
  10. The Inn of the Poison Butterfly by Matsui Yoriko
    114–127
  11. The Beauty Mound’s Karmic Consequence by Hada Hikaru
    128–141
  12. The House That Invites an Eerie Presence by Saruwaka Tonpei
    142–151
  13. The Transformed Young Samurai by Mikunizawa Takashi
    152–162
  14. Will-o’-the-Wisp Riverbank by Utagawa Taiga
    163–175
  15. The Supernatural Death-God Hatamoto by Odagiri Sō
    176–189
  16. Disappearance Underwater by Fujii Kenji
    190–202
  17. The Man Who Walks About Selling Death by Ojima Shin
    203–215
  18. Strange Transformation Sketches by Suzuki Kazuo
    216–229
  19. Almost the Anniversary of Your Death by Ujigawa Ryū
    230–242
  20. Men Who Toy with Women’s Bodies by Hattori Gen
    243–247
  21. Hell Ship by Nakajima Yoshimi
    248–255
  22. Autumn Wind at Kikyo Field by Inumon Masato
    256–265
  23. The Ageless Maiden by Sasamoto Tōru
    266–270
  24. The Hot-Spring Inn Murder Case by Kawano Kyōsuke
    271–277
  25. Death-Coffin Komachi by Shimamoto Haruo
    278–297

Highlights

  • The formal contents spread announces a “Strange Tales of Revenge” special and organizes a remarkably extensive mixture of period fiction, modern thrillers, supernatural stories, photography, and illustrated serials. (PDF p. 4).
  • “The Female Water Entertainer” opens the issue with richly colored period illustrations and a tale of murder, mutilation, pursuit, and a performer linked to a mysterious crime. (PDF pp. 6–13).
  • Osamu Fujisawa’s “Light and Skin” uses stark lighting and tightly composed nude studies to transform limbs, torsos, and bodily curves into abstract sculptural forms. (PDF pp. 14–19).
  • “The Secret of the Bat Theater” is a modern noir narrative involving a nightclub actress, a dwarf performer, abduction, narcotics, captivity, public spectacle, and pursuit through the city. (PDF pp. 20–28).
  • “Breast Chamber of Hell” combines gangster intrigue, stolen narcotics, erotic coercion, imprisonment, revenge, and gun violence in an extended illustrated thriller. (PDF pp. 29–42).
  • “The Damask-Skin Curse” inaugurates the main revenge feature with a haunted mansion, coded writings, secret rooms, missing women, and a chain of inherited grievance. (PDF pp. 43–58).
  • “Hatamoto Bedchamber Chronicle” is one of the issue’s longest period narratives, using household intrigue, sexual secrecy, status, and violence to explore the hidden life of a warrior residence. (PDF pp. 71–82).
  • “The Inn of the Poison Butterfly” and “The Beauty Mound’s Karmic Consequence” form a substantial middle sequence of poison, fatal attraction, supernatural suggestion, and karmic retribution. (PDF pp. 107–134).
  • The later sequence from “The Man Who Walks About Selling Death” through “Hell Ship” intensifies the issue’s mixture of assassination, disguise, haunted travel, waterfront danger, and violent revenge. (PDF pp. 196–248).
  • The concluding “Death-Coffin Komachi” installment combines ornate period illustration, serial adventure, female peril, violence, and historical spectacle before the editorial and publication back matter. (PDF pp. 271–290).
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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