”A Trip to Bondage in Japan” (1997)
This large format hardbound book feautures photography by Kenichi Tanaka, who also took the pictures for Akechi Denkis beautiful ”Pleasure and a Little Pain”. I dont know who did the rope here (not Akechi Denki for sure). Mainly outdoor scenes, both black&white and colour.
See also: https://kinbakubooks.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/akechi-denki-pleasure-and-a-little-pain/
Rope: ?
Photography: Kenichi Tanaka
Publisher: Japan Mix, 1997
ISBN: 13- 978-4883213443
Yukimura Haruki: ”Asereta cho, SM Photos” (2001) and ”Bond Photobook” 1–3 (2002)
These four books, all from the same publisher, have somewhat the same aesthetics. Most of the pictures are without rope, and are at times ”Damsel in distress”-scenarios.
Rope is by Yukimura Haruki, and according to Zetsu, at least the Bond-books were shot while Yukimura was visiting Los Angeles (see http://www.ainawa.com/shop/books/bond-2/)
Rope: Yukimura Haruki
Photograpy: Fujisaki Ayaka
”Asereta cho, SM Photos” (2001): ISBN: 13- 978-4813008705
”Bond 1” (2002), Model: Yu Kinoshita: ISBN: 4-8130-0083-5
”Bond 2” (2002), Model: Nao Eguchi, ISBN: 4-8130-0084-3
”Bond 3” (2002), Model: Emie Yokoyama, ISBN: 4-8130-0085-1
SMセレクト
SM Select (1973)
This is a special issue of SM Select, a magazine with rope by masters as Kita Reiko (AKA Minomura Kou) and Nureki Chimuo, started in november 1970. It contains both illustrations and photos in black and white as well as in colour.
Nawa Yumio: ”Jitte Torinawa No Kenkyuu” (1964), and the dvd:s ”Onna Hankacho” I & II
Nawa Yumio: 十手捕縄の研究
”Jitte Torinawa No Kenkyuu” (1964)
This ”Study of the constables use of truncheon and rope” is mainly a textbook, with a few images, unfortunately (for the interests of this blog), mainly of truncheons… The very few images of hojo-rope, I have reproduced here.
Nawa Yumio, famous for his historically oriented books and articles documenting hojojutsu as well as Edo-era forms of punishment and torture, also wrote the script for two dramatic films on this theme: ”Onna Hankacho I–II, Edo gomon keibatsu” (1998), directed by Masaru Tsushima, with lots of content relevant for anyone interested in ”semenawa”.
おんな犯科帳~江戸拷問刑罰抄
Onna Hankacho ~ Edo gomon keibatsu
(Torture and Punishment in Edo, 1998)
ASIN: B00005F5W1
おんな犯科帳~江戸拷問刑罰抄
Onna Hankacho 2 ~ Edo gomon keibatsu
(Torture and Punishment in Edo, 1998)
ASIN: B00005F5W2
Four Japanese Hojojutsu-books
Fujita Seiko: ”Zukai Hojojutsu” (1964)
図解捕縄術
ISBN 978-4-8390-0297-8
This is without doubt the greatest and most important of the Hojojutsu-books. A hardbound red book in a yellow carton slipcase, 327 pages with beautiful images, cataloging all the different hojojutsu ties from the different schools. This is NOT a how-to book with step-by-step rendering. In a peculiar and to my mind very beautiful way, the ties are sometimes depicted with a person being tied, and next to it only the pattern of the rope, floating in the air.
Mizukosho Hiro: ”Shashin de oboeru Hojojutsu” (2005)
写真で覚える捕縄術
ISBN 978-4-7502-0282-2
This in contrast IS a how-to book, showing a number of hojojutsu ties in pictures step by step.
There is a newer edition, with a little bit better black-and-white separation of the images, but the newer edition is shorter, lacking almost 60 pages with many ties. The new edition (2013) has ISBN 978-4-7502-0331-7
Kazuhiko Itatsu: ”Yoriki, doshin, jitte torinawa” (1992)
与力・同心・十手捕縄
ISBN: 4-404-01942-4
This is mainly a textbook with historical research, but has 60 small, albeit high quality, images, with modern recreations of hojojutsu ties.
In 2007, Nureki Chimuo wrote on his blog about this book. Now available in Faviola Llervus’ translation:
”Looking at the 60 tiny business card-sized monochrome photos inserted in the book ‘Yoriki, Doshin and Jitte Capture Rope’, I was so turned on I couldn’t stand it. (…) I am honestly more turned on by this black and white photo than by a hundred books of beautifully colored kinbaku photos of totally naked women’s bodies lined up in front of me. It turns me on. It makes me want to masturbate.”
https://www.wallflowercodex.com/kinbakunomicon/pages/2007chat0501.html
Kazuhiko Itatsu: ”Ittatsu-Ryu Hojo-Jutsu” (2011)
一達流捕縄術
ISBN 978-4-9905829-0-6
This is a comprehensive description in text of how to tie some of the main hojojutsu ties, in Japanese and in (well… some kind of) English (see sample page). Each tie is showed on a doll, only in its finished state and only from one side (not step by step). The last pages show images taken by the researcher Nawa Yumio, of old dolls that was once used for hojojutsu-practice.
Itoh Seiu: ”Die Bilder über die Strafe und abnormer Geschlechtstrieb” (Pictures of punishment and abnormal sexual drive)
Japanese title: 世界の刑罰・性犯・変態の研究
The book contains 296 numbered images, divided in different sections. Each section has a commentary text.
Original edition 1930, this is a reprint from 1977.
This thick, hardbound volume comes in a silver-printed slipcase. It contains what in my perception is a quite heterogeneous collection of images of punishment, torture and execution, from different epochs and geographical locations. Thus, about half of the material is European (for example the execution of Damiens, unforgettable for anyone who has read the first pages of Foucault’s ”Discipline and Punish”). Most relevant for this blog, the book contains many historical images of hojojutsu, and the last section has several images by Itoh Seiu – including some photographs of tying in a snowy landscape. The section ends with a commentary-text by Itoh Seiu on kinbaku and seme/cruelty in theatre and in crime.
Master ”K” writes on his blog about the collaboration between the photographer Akira Ishigaki and the bakushi Roppongi Kaoru, resulting in the book ”Strange Fruits”:
”‘Strange Fruit’ was released in a limited, ‘deluxe’ edition in 1982 to only modest success in Japan. However, it did get Ishigaki (and by extension the kinbaku of Roppongi) an exhibition in 1983 at the East Bridge Gallery in New York City which then resulted in a small selection of Ishigaki’s kinbaku images being printed in the March, 1984 issue of the prestigious French photography magazine ‘Photo’, thus making the works of photographer Ishigaki and bakushi Roppongi Kaoru some of the first true Japanese kinbaku images ever presented in a Western general audience magazine.” (http://www.thebeautyofkinbaku.com/kinbakuandartchap1.html )
Rope: Roppongi Kaoru
Photo: Akira Ishigaki
French magazine ”Photo”, no 198, March 1984, p. 86–95
(Only a few of these images were published in the book ”Strange Fruits”.)
Itoh Seiu
”Twelve months of punishments”
十二カ月行事奇態刑罰図譜
1953 (?)
In typical Japanese art-book style, with the text written on rice-paper over the actual print. The book shows its age, and is not in the best condition – but the colour quality of the print is amazing.
Kinbiken communications
別冊緊美研通信
1991, nr 8
Rope: Nureki Chimuo
Photo: Akio Fuji, Youri Sunohara, and others
Collaboration: Masami Akita
Mainly a catalogue over Kinbiken-video clips, low quality print, but some high quality kinbaku-photos
(Very different from this entry:
https://kinbakubooks.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/nureki-chimou-and-naka-akira-kinbiken-communications/ )
Roppongi Kaoru: Memoirs of a Nawashi
縄師の回想
Paperback textbook with low quality paper, and very few photos.
Publisher: Sun & Moon, 1986
ISBN-13: 978-4915567520
(For a contrast, see an earlier post about a very ambitious photo-book, featuring the rope-art of Roppongi Kaoru:
https://kinbakubooks.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/strange-fruits/ )
Kinbaku Books 