Eikichi Osada’s first billed performance at a strip theatre was in 1978 at the Dotonbori Theatre, Shibuya, Tokyo opened in 1970, closed in 1995, reopened 2001, and still operational today. It is possible due to his connection with Keiyu Tamai, who frequently performed at strip theatres to raise funds for his own theatrical productions, and because they maintained an exceptionally good relationship throughout, that Eikichi could have performed at these as early as 1975, but there exist no known records.
Underground theatre was increasing in popularity, and several theatrical events incorporating Seme began to be created, but not without attention from the authorities. From October to December 1978 a nationwide crackdown on strip theatres began, resulting in the arrest of Hagimoto, manager of Kawaguchi DX Theatre, Saitama.
Eikichi’s Shibari and a stage practice scene of Osada Seminar were featured in Bondage Secret Play, an instructional film produced by Edpro in 1978.
From 1979 until 1989 Eikichi Osada was at the height of his fame within the limited underground avant-garde world in Japan, focusing on shows using rope bondage, whips and wax with semi or fully nude models.
In 1980 aged 55, and still running the printing company in Shimbashi, Eikichi Osada’s performances in strip theatres were now billed as a Zankoku Show. The foreign term SM had entered the Japanese lexicon, and sketches at strip theatres were becoming capable of generating enormous sums of money in a very short period of time. Performers were earning good salaries as more venues had opened or been converted where sadomasochistic acts could be watched openly. However, remuneration for Eikichi was still not at a level where he could turn fully professional, and he openly commented how he enjoyed an amateur status.
Throughout 1980 Osada Seminar meetings were held at Denjiro Sakurada’s GSG planning studio, using their house models such as Mayumi Kurokawa. It was around this time that Akechi Denki first visited an Osada Seminar show via recommendation from Denjiro. While a sadomasochist ‘maniac’ enthusiast, far more perverted than Eikichi, Akechi’s Shibari was still rudimentary and messy, as was the skill level of the period, but continually evolving and improving.
That year, Eikichi Osada was also introduced by host Yoshikai Fujimoto and guest Makiro Abe on 11PM, an influential adult-themed late night live TV show that ran on Nippon Television from November 1965 to March 1990.
In May 1980 Eikichi was featured in Hot Lady Magazine, where the show was described in detail, billing Keiyu Tamai as the Godfather of SM and Eikichi as Emperor, holding Osada Seminar every two months with a membership exceeding 120: ‘The venue being approximately 100m2 and packed, when a buzzer sounded to signal the start, slides of SM photographs of bound women were projected, followed by an 8mm film. After ten minutes the live Kinbaku demonstration finally began. A woman dressed in a kimono appeared on stage and the venue fell completely silent, with everyone watching her every move. Osada appeared and bound the woman stripped completely naked, his speed of tying astonishing. After a three-minute break, the next performance was with a genuinely masochistic woman in her mid-thirties. Blindfolded and clad in a white plastic raincoat, she sat down at the front of the stage. Then Osada appeared and bound her tightly, suspending her in the air as he did so. The auditorium fell completely silent; not a sound could be heard. Osada’s merciless whip lashed out at the suspended masochist, and with every strike she let out a cry of ecstasy. It was an indescribably intense spectacle. He embraced her from behind and tore off her raincoat. Her white, slightly sagging breasts exposed. He gripped tightly and twisted them, and she let out a whimper like a dog in heat. It was like a scene from Hell, turning into a scene of chaos – dripping candle wax onto the woman’s pale skin. Lashing her with a whip, the raincoat was torn to shreds, and the only thing left was her white knickers. Then he flung her onto the floor and splashed water from his mouth over her as she, perhaps finding it pleasurable, arched her back like a prawn.’
Between June and October Eikichi purportedly held Osada Seminar monthly via Marie Aoi I’s Blue Chateau agency hosted at the Alpha Inn, an SM hotel in Minato, Tokyo, and at a private apartment, possibly Blue Chateau’s office with Emi (Nami Matsukawa), and again from 1984 four times per year until the location closed in 1988. During this period, he also often used the Alpha Inn for shooting SM videos and teaching dominatrix how to tie, including Sayoko Hojo.
Eikichi performed at the famous SM inn Atami Ryokan, Ueno and Ryokan Sapporo, Bunkyō-ku, Tokyo. At the former during an Osada Seminar sadomasochistic bondage photo session a local resident reported it to the police. They arrived and Eikichi was arrested. Model Eimi Yamada escaped because she’d left after her turn shooting. The police confiscated a video taken by a seminar member, and another model was detained for 10 days and fined ~$850 at today’s value for public obscenity.
In July 1980 Eikichi appeared in an article in the July issue of S&M Sniper – SM and Breeding Classroom Infiltration Report with the GSG group. The supplemental novel Bondage Course featuring Eikichi Osada was published in the August edition. In October strip club performance director-photographer Joji Kawakami went to see the Osada Seminar performance at Dotonbori Theatre.
In 1981 Eikichi performed Osada Seminar with 18-year old tattooed model Mai Hana at Shigeru Kayama’s high-class members-only SM salon SAMM, Azabudai, Tokyo, which had a membership fee of ~$2,500 at today’s value, and was frequented by famous people in the SM world, including author Dan Oniroku of Hana to Hebi fame, and Nekura Doji, another bondage master who would go on to become Eikichi’s regular Mahjong partner.
In December 1981 he made the SM show Water Seme at Dotonbori Theatre with Mizuki Flame, and between 1982 and 1983 with Doji’s group Ra Planning, Akasaka-mitsuke, Tokyo, which managed several strip theatre models, including Miki Mori.
Depiction of Pleasure and Torment with Eikichi Osada and model Keiko Hase was published in the August 1982 issue of SM Magazine, and the same month he performed Osada Seminar with Miki Mori at Skygekijo, Ikebukuro, Tokyo, a 40-seat strip theatre where she would appear on stage as a female office worker, begin masturbating, then self-bondage before he appeared. Five or six 20 to 40-minute shows would be made through the night into the early hours of the morning.
During 1982, two professional Shibari technique videos filmed at ACB Kaikan, Shinjuku and Atami Ryokan featuring Eikichi Osada were released by the early video production company Bordeaux: Rope Magician Shibari Technique, aimed at beginners and directed by Jiro Yoshikawa, starring Jane Takahashi and Akiko Yoshioka, and Campus Porno Shibari Technique, each featuring three ~30-minute routines. In 1983 Eikichi tied in Tadashi Yoyogi’s two documentary films Orgasm Part 1 and Orgasm Part 2 for Joypack Film K.K. with models Mami Fujii and Keiko Tanaka.
Eikichi Osada’s Sanso’s Prey was published in the April 1983 issue of SM Magazine. In August he performed The Aesthetics of Bondage at the International Music Theatre Himeji, Hyōgo with Mari Tachibana (not the popular mistress of the same name who was close to Akechi Denki), and in December SM performances of Tanbi Bondage Hell at Ikebukuro Sky Theatre. But for some unknown reason Eikichi was inactive through 1984 and 1985.
While the Japanese economy had now grown very strong, this period coincided with the inflated finance asset bubble which would eventually lead to crash and crisis in 1990.
In 1986, Eikichi Osada met Kazumi Ozawa, a masochistic woman with a passion for rope bondage who from 1985 submitted SM fantasy/confession short stories to Sanwa Shuppan’s SM Secret Novels as a reportage writer. She became his private play partner, assistant and muse, and eventual model for the rest of his life, but without any sexual relationship.
In context, Japan’s law had set the age of consent at 13-years of age from 1907, although non‑intercourse sexual services were legal and public decency laws ambiguous. These would only change in 2023 to the age of 18.
From 1986 until 1989 Eikichi was performing with Masao Fujiki’s Nude Model Production’s model Hiromi Saotome twice a month at Juuraku, Shinjuku. In 1984 Hiromi had debuted in Takashi Ishii’s porn movie The Strange Fruit of the Rope Sisters (Nawa Shimai: Kimyō na Kajitsu) directed by Toshi Nakahara after first modelling for an erotic magazine the previous year. In The SM (Million 1984), a documentary masterminded by Genji Nakamura, Hiromi appeared alongside Kyōko Nakamura, Ami Ishikawa, Maya Itō, Miki Mori and others, featuring university student-teacher and dominatrix sessions, water torture suspension, masochistic exhibitionist bondage, masturbation in a car, a threesome SM session, crucifixion torture, lesbian scat play, foreign object insertions, and a four-way session. Hiromi was a rising star and had already won the Zoom Up Film Festival Best Supporting Actress Award for The Folding Cage (Opro 1985) directed by Tsuyoshi Ijuin.
Hiromi’s performances with Eikichi came about due to her somehow losing her job after appearing in Hell’s Roper (Kokuei 1986) directed by Shuji Kataoka during the height of the explosion of pink (erotic) Audio Visual VHS video productions in Japan. She heard from an acquaintance Osada Seminar was looking for a model, and since she was looking for her next job, she wanted to try live SM performance, even with anxiety about strip theatre being scary and gloomy.
Aged around 18, Hiromi went to meet Eikichi in a coffee shop in Tokyo, imagining a big character in the world of SM. She waited almost an hour and was about to leave when a call came over the in-store announcement (Teleclub – a common telephone dialling and meeting call service of the time). Who she thought was a grandfather sitting nearby turned out to be Eikichi, and she was aghast such a gentile old man could be doing SM shows. He in turn could also not believe such a young woman would be interested, yet she had already been involved in modelling photoshoots and video for the SAMM label. Hiromi then went to see an Osada Seminar show at Kurihashi Daiichi Theatre, Saitama, north of Tokyo, and decided she wanted to model.
Kazumi Ozawa first modelled for Eikichi at a gathering of Osada Seminar members at Nakano Queen when the intended model, coming all the way from Kyushu called and left a message she couldn’t come and Kazumi stood in.
Hiromi Saotome would go on to perform regularly with Eikichi Osada for the next 3 years. However, they would argue constantly, with Hiromi wanting to modify the show structure to prevent it being always the same. In December 1986 they performed at Shinjuku Modern Art, and in April 1988 Hiromi Saotome versus Osada Seminar at Wakamatsu Theatre.
Sex industry researcher Kitahara Domu wrote the article Dream Chaser Reisan featuring Eikichi Osada in the February 1988 issue of S&M Sniper.
Around this time Akechi Denki was beginning to gain reputation. 15 years younger than Eikichi, with far superior Shibari tying skills and more hardcore perverted sadomasochistic performances, he’d initially become a member of Denjiro Sakurada’s GSG Planning in 1978, started his Phantom Shows including audience photo sessions at Nakano Queen in 1979. In 1981 he began assisting Denjiro’s shows, coming into regular contact with Eikichi. Akechi would make his first performance in June 1982 in SM Swapping Training Exchange III promoted by Denjiro and SM Aquarium at Ars Nova with Mayumi Kurokawa.
At this time, apart from Rock Theatre, Asakusa and Dotonbori Theatre, strip theatres rarely appeared in the media. This was the heyday of the SM show, and in Tokyo there was a sense of crisis it could destroy traditional theatre.
In December 1989, with Eikichi Osada now aged 64, Hiromi Saotome persuaded him to retire at Tsurumi New World Theatre, Yokohama after which he became the manager. The final performances were complete versions of the Osada Seminar show with Hiromi taking turns for 5 days with another, unnamed model. After the final show Eikichi took his trademark black-haired wig and said to the audience, “This is the face so far. From now on, I will be the manager with this face. Laugh with your face and cry with your heart.” He then assisted Hiromi’s performance in May 1990 at Le Pillier, Ikebukuro.
Sources:
長田英吉NOW
Tsurumi Shinsekai Eikichi Osada retirement Osada Seminar v Hiromi Saotome Dec 1989
Kazumi Ozawa ‘Diary of an M Woman’
Hiromi Saotome ‘After an apology to the late Eikichi Osada’, Hot Lady Magazine 20 May 1980
Shibari Technique, Bordeaux 1982
Eikichi Osada ドキュメント オーガズム
Eikichi Osada 長田英吉緊縛テクニック BIND TECHNIQUE
Weekend Super magazine
SM Spirits 1993
AdultRopeARt Yahoo group
Junichi Tate ‘Granpi Diary’
Interview and conversations with Yoshikatsu (Hige) Hayakawa 2019
Conversations with Kazumi Ozawa 2022
smpedia.com
