Uramado

September 1964

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Cover of Uramado, September 1964

Issue Details

PDF pages
198

Summary

Uramado’s September 1964 issue is a large, densely illustrated S-M magazine combining erotic photography, illustrated fiction, historical sensationalism, film criticism, literary commentary, reader contributions, commercial notices, and serialized fantasy. Its editorial identity is defined by the constant movement between prose and visual spectacle: photographs, line drawings, diagrams, staged scenes, and illustrated narrative pages repeatedly foreground bondage, captivity, humiliation, punishment, gendered power, and forbidden desire.

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The issue opens with a substantial visual portfolio presented as A Day in the Life of a Queen, depicting female authority, male submission, restraint, cages, outdoor staging, and theatrical dominance imagery. Fiction follows in several modes, from the coercive domestic and supernatural story Flower Ice to the maritime adventure serial The End of the Black Dragon Party. Historical and bodily subjects receive equally sensational treatment in A Cruel History of Seppuku, Part 4 and the scatological satire The Land of the God of Defiled Paradise. The illustrated climax-scene material then presents short dramatic episodes involving a room overlooking the sea, a female spy, and other scenes of commercial display, interrogation, captivity, and sexualized coercion.

The middle of the issue expands into historical, translated, and critical material. The Moon Was Watching, the concluding episode of A Private Great Chronicle of Male Love, and the imported feature The Torturing Tarts of Frankfurt use melodramatic violence, sexual exploitation, rivalry, and spectacle in different cultural settings. The Back Window Town department discusses censorship, publishing restrictions, films, literature, courts, and popular sexual culture, documenting the magazine’s interest in the broader media environment. An extended feature, An Assaultive Theory of Masochism, combines quasi-psychological discussion, personal testimony, and large illustrations of restraint and punishment.

Later sections include the modern hotel story The Mountain Hotel, the illustrated period adventure Jikichirō’s Escape, a literary essay on Enchi Fumiko and female desire, and the continuing undersea-prison serial The Female Prisoners of the Undersea Kingdom. Gordon’s Memories carries the issue into surreal fantasy and bodily transformation. The concluding Readers’ Corner reveals an active contributor community concerned with submissions, photography, illustration, and editorial policy, while back-matter notices advertise books, subscriptions, visual publications, and previous issues. Overall, the issue presents postwar Japanese specialist erotic publishing as a hybrid culture of fiction, visual experimentation, commercial circulation, reader participation, and commentary on sexuality and censorship.

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Table of Contents 20 items
  1. A Day in the Life of a Queen by Akiyoshi
    15; 103 (contents pagination appears conflicted)
    Summary

    An image-led portfolio of staged erotic scenes centered on a dominant queen figure, with female authority, male submission, restraint, cages, outdoor settings, and theatrical tableaux.

  2. Flower Ice by Hachimaki Rei
    Summary

    An illustrated coercive domestic and supernatural narrative involving Reiko, her sister, Kurata, captivity, humiliation, and recurring imagery of ice, freezing, and uncanny transformation.

  3. The End of the Black Dragon Party by Ushio Kazuki
    Summary

    A serialized maritime adventure involving political factions, smugglers, captivity, torture, pursuit, rescue, revenge, storms, ships, and shifting loyalties, supported by sensational illustrations.

  4. A Cruel History of Seppuku, Part 4 by Natsukawa Kōichirō
    Summary

    A sensational historical survey of seppuku, its techniques, celebrated and obscure cases, attendant practices, revenge, honor, and the changing reliability of historical and popular accounts.

  5. The Land of the God of Defiled Paradise by Awaji Michishūgo
    Summary

    A satirical, scatological essay on toilets, excrement, urine, odor, ventilation, digestion, hygiene, gendered manners, and pseudo-scientific explanations of bodily waste.

  6. Room with a View of the Sea by Kagi Reiko
    Summary

    An illustrated dramatic scene involving Julia and Dennis, a room overlooking the sea, ropes, forced positioning, humiliation, and escalating physical coercion.

  7. The Female Spy of the Imperialist Party by Munakata Hachirō
    Summary

    An illustrated espionage and interrogation drama involving a captured woman, surveillance, ropes, forced examination, humiliation, and the violent commercial display of a female body.

  8. The Uninvited Night by Izu Mi
    Summary

    A contemporary erotic drama in which Mariko is displayed, examined, confined, and threatened within a commercial environment shaped by voyeurism and male control.

  9. The Moon Was Watching by Miki Shun
    Summary

    A rain-soaked period drama of lodging houses and entertainment districts, combining debt, poverty, sexual coercion, male rivalry, pursuit, attempted rescue, and violence under the recurring witness of the moon.

  10. A Private Great Chronicle of Male Love, Part 9: That Day He Must Die
    Summary

    The concluding episode of a historical male-love revenge narrative involving jealousy, debt, social hierarchy, attempted murder, swordplay, restraint, theater, and a violent final confrontation.

  11. Fierce Women: The Torturing Tarts of Frankfurt by Ernest Hoenschel; illustrated by Mel Crair
    Summary

    An imported sensational feature about women, torture, restraint, vice, and Nazi-associated violence, reproduced through English-language captions, prose, and striking visual presentation.

  12. Back Window Town
    Summary

    A multi-page miscellany of censorship news, publishing restrictions, film and literary notices, court and social reports, and commentary on foreign erotic media and popular culture.

  13. An Assaultive Theory of Masochism by Mizuo Kyū
    Summary

    A hybrid essay, testimony, and quasi-sexological narrative examining masochism, sadism, bondage, spanking, gendered power, pain, desire, and the psychological meaning of submission.

  14. The Mountain Hotel by Murayama Shōichi
    Summary

    A modern narrative of travel, hotel leisure, bathing, drinking, conversation, sexual tension, embarrassment, voyeurism, and coercive intimacy between a man and a woman.

  15. Jikichirō’s Escape by Ochiai Ryūji
    Summary

    An illustrated period adventure in which Naokijirō leaves his household and becomes involved with gambling, deception, abduction, disguise, pursuit, ropes, and threatened violence.

  16. Uramado Literary Review: The Burden of the Woman Who Follows by Andō Izumi
    Summary

    A critical essay on Enchi Fumiko and the representation of female desire, sadism, beauty, marriage, family constraint, jealousy, supernatural femininity, and hidden erotic power in modern Japanese literature.

  17. The Female Prisoners of the Undersea Kingdom, Continued by Nangō Kyōsuke
    Summary

    A heavily illustrated dystopian captivity serial involving locked rooms, cages, chains, surveillance, forced labor, medical inspection, endurance trials, technological control, women’s solidarity, and covert resistance.

  18. Gordon’s Memories by Ama Tetsurō
    Summary

    A continuing surreal adventure in which Gordon encounters strange women, animalistic or monstrous figures, caves, water, pursuit, restraint, capture, and an inverted or otherworldly social order.

  19. Editor’s Afterword
    212
  20. Readers’ Corner
    Summary

    A recurring correspondence department addressing readers, contributors, submissions, editorial decisions, payments, photography, artwork, and practical instructions for participation in the magazine.

Highlights

  • The opening visual portfolio, A Day in the Life of a Queen, constructs female authority through staged scenes of bondage, captivity, male submission, and theatrical display. (PDF pp. 6–18).
  • Flower Ice combines domestic coercion, supernatural transformation, and recurring ice imagery in an extended illustrated story. (PDF pp. 19–30).
  • A Cruel History of Seppuku, Part 4 surveys ritual suicide, historical memory, bodily violence, and sensational accounts of Japanese punishment. (PDF pp. 49–57).
  • The Land of the God of Defiled Paradise satirizes toilets, excretion, hygiene, odor, gendered manners, and pseudo-scientific bodily explanation. (PDF pp. 58–65).
  • The Back Window Town department addresses censorship, obscenity, foreign films and books, courts, and the regulation of sexual culture. (PDF pp. 103–111).
  • An Assaultive Theory of Masochism presents a hybrid of testimony, psychological commentary, and illustrated scenes of bondage, spanking, and unequal sexual power. (PDF pp. 112–121).
  • The Female Prisoners of the Undersea Kingdom develops a heavily illustrated dystopian captivity narrative involving cages, locks, surveillance, forced labor, and resistance. (PDF pp. 140–168).
  • Readers’ Corner documents editorial exchange with contributors and readers, including submissions of writing, photographs, and artwork. (PDF pp. 180–181).
  • Gordon’s Memories closes the fiction sequence with surreal bodies, monstrous figures, pursuit, captivity, and an unresolved continuation marker. (PDF pp. 170–179).

Contributors

Named contributors represented in this issue: