TokyoBound

Before cutting to the chase, allow me to introduce myself as the new editor for this fan site (or fan blog, if you will). I go by the name of TieBreaker. Before you start speculating how I became known by that handle, let me assure you it has nothing to do with sub poaching. In fact, before I could start my cushy job at the editor’s desk I had to promise not to poach any of Osada Steve’s models . . . though, between you and me, I think an occasional defection wouldn’t exactly cause his harem to collapse. (Mental note to self: Gotta find out one day how Steve manages his flock, then post it here under “Secrets Revealed”.)
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Among the legendary exploits of machi bugyo of Edo, the greatest of them all perhaps was Ooka Echizen (1677-1751). His full title was Ooka Tadasuke, Echizen no Kami. Born in 1677, he began his career at age 35 as an obscure magistrate. His abilities caught the eye of Tokugawa Yoshimune, the reform-minded Shogun, and in 1717, he was promoted to machi bugyo of Edo’s southern court, where he presided until 1736, making him the third longest-serving governor-magistrate of the Edo period.

Judge Ooka gained a legendary reputation for his integrity and ability to serve the interests of justice. As part of his duties, he also made an effort to influence the language. In 1723, he banned the usage of shinju (heart center), the popular term for a suicide pact, which in his view romanticized what was an illegal act. Shinju itself was an artificial term, created by puppet theater and kabuki dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) for the title of his 1703 play “Sonezaki Shinju” (which was based on an actual incident occurring only two weeks before).
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About four years ago I thought I’d show some of the regulars at Studio SIX a bit of suburbian underground. So we took two cars on a Sunday afternoon to make the trip to Funabashi in Chiba, seat of Wakamatsu Gekijo. Here’s the report that followed, courtesy of Scotto:

Nestled out in the middle of an otherwise undistinguished residential neighborhood in Chiba, is a fascinating little club called Wakamatsu. The photos of cute, perky women that are under glass next to the entrance are only a hint of what is inside.
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The casual visitor may be forgiven if he thought that this was MY blog. Though I’d love to toot my own horn, what you have read here so far has ALL been penned by KabukiJoe. (OK, I may have supplied the odd interview with Randa Mai, Akechi Denki, Yukimura Haruki and others, but that’s all I ever did here.)

KabukiJoe started this blog 18 months ago to offer a rare glimpse at the finer aspects of some of Japan’s more “esoteric” art forms. To this end he has reported and informed, generously splashed the pages with photo galleries and video clips, and successfully explained some of the enigma of what we call Shibari/Kinbaku. A five-fold increase in traffic and a good 169 posts later KabukiJoe’s assumption that people out there would appreciate such service to the community was right on the money.
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That’s right, on January 1, 2008, TokyoBound will have been around for one year. The software indicates that the first post was uploaded on December 31, 2006 but that’s because of the time difference between east and west. TokyoBound first went live on January 1, 2007 in Japan where we are located. I did it that way on purpose because I’m superstitious — or something.

This time of year it’s tempting to make new year’s resolutions. I resist the temptation. But if I were to make a resolution for 2008, it would be to post more often and maybe on a more regular schedule. As it is, I can’t make any promises but this is something that is always in the back of my mind.

I would like to thank everyone who comes here to check out what’s going on in the world of Osada Steve and bondage in Japan in general. Mostly I thank Osada Steve for providing the bulk of the content and for giving us a window into the world of Japanese shibari.

This is starting to sound like a speech so I’ll let it go at that except to say: Check out the gallery. I couldn’t close out 2007 without one last gallery now could I? This one is a bit of a potpourri of pics from some recent Kinbaku Live Night at Studio SIX events. There is one photo thrown in there of Steve and Ageha’s recent performance at MK Studio in Shinjuku.

So, Happy New Year and may 2008 be your best yet!

UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that TokyoBound has actually been around for seven, count ‘em, seven years (!) not one as I erroneously stated in the title to this post. In its current format as a blog it has, indeed, celebrated its one year anniversary but it actually has a much longer history.

KabukiJoe

GALLERY

Presenting a firsthand account of stripping, bondage, hara kiri and midgets from a fan of Osada Steve’s. This report came in some time ago and we are reproducing it here for your edification. KJ

Nestled out in the middle of an otherwise undistinguished residential neighborhood in Chiba, is a fascinating little club called Wakamatsu. The photos of cute, perky women that are under glass next to the entrance are only a hint of what is inside.

The mirror-walled main theater consists of a U-shaped group of benches surrounding the main central stage walkway. This walkway ends in a carpeted two-meter wide turntable and connects to a wide but shallow main stage. Rigged with an impressive  array of spotlights, strobes, follow spots, pattern projectors and glitter balls as well as many overhead anchor points and karabiners, this flexible theater is ready for anything! The show schedule consists of five shows which rotate four times a day. Entrance costs 5,000 yen and there were many people coming and going throughout the time we were there.

There were several strip shows which consisted of three-part routines. The girl would come out and dance energetically in a lovely, complex costume. Then she would remove parts of her costume and continue dancing, showing more and more of herself. Then, typically, she would run to the back and change to a very revealing second costume, dance out to the turntable, and really show her stuff there, while rotating slowly for everyone’s viewing pleasure.   

She would continue removing items until she showed it all (as well as an inspiring amount of physical flexibility). The ladies were lovely, sexy and very energetic. Following Rie-chan’s show, she sold off a pair of her panties. Gentlemen would play group janken (the Japanese version of Paper, Scissors, Stone) against her and the winner got to take them off her. The guys were usually very shy and reluctant about it. One of them even waited for her to take them off and give them to him! Then she would come back in a skimpy, bottomless outfit and an instant camera, and guys could buy a picture of her (or with her) for 500 yen each.

Of course a horde of several obnoxious gaijin were always up there snapping pictures of each other with her and taking advantage of the opportunity to cop a feel. She stood up under the onslaught cheerfully and autographed the pictures later.

Besides the very energetic strip shows, there was a “couple show.” This consisted of a rather paunchy guy in a way-too-tiny set of bikini briefs and an extremely young, cute, slightly pudgy girl in a school uniform. She introduced herself shyly with the microphone and told us she was 19 years old. A short while later, she was sucking the guy off with a level of expertise far beyond her years!

After a bit of uniform-loosening foreplay and fellatio, the man proceeded to slip on a condom and slip it to her in a variety of positions while they rotated on futons on top of the turntable. She was very vocal and enthusiastic and he pounded away like a trooper. (On a personal note, I applied for the same job as that guy’s on the way out of the theater but it seems there’s a long waiting list ) A good time was had by all.

The next show was Saotome Hiromi doing her famous self-bondage and seppuku act. This was very graceful with her coming out first in a complete Shinto acolyte’s robe and serving sake to audience members from a sacred pitcher set. Each person served then got to remove the ties and part of her outfit (several layers).

Eventually, she was nude and she very quickly wrapped an orange rope around her into a torso web. Then she lighted a red candle and slowly began dripping the wax on herself with abandon. Then she perched on the edge of the stage and gave individual audience members the chance to drip the wax on her.

They eagerly dripped the wax all over her thighs, belly, legs and crotch. She went back to the center of the stage, pulled down a triple-pulley hoist from high up near the ceiling, and sat down. In about three seconds, she secured a two-meter piece of rope around her right ankle and calf and clipped it to the hoist.

Holding the candle with her legs, she then hoisted herself upside down and high into the air, spinning gently. She continued to drizzle wax down herself while spinning slowly in the air! Finally, she came back down, removed the ropes and stated that she wanted to give her body to the gods (I think that’s it, my Japanese is a little weak).

She went back to the center of the main stage and brought out a short dagger and a piece of rice paper. She ceremonially rinsed the dagger with water from the sacred vessel and wiped it clean. Kneeling, she ritually drove the blade into the left side of her stomach and pulled it across to the right, leaving a trail of blood. Then she drew it up and pulled it out.

Collapsing to one side, she struggled for breath and then plunged the dagger in once more right into her heart and crumpled slowly onto the stage as the light dimmed. A wonderfully dramatic performance!

Then came the show we had all been waiting for. A charming lady going by the name of Nana brought out two blindfolded women on leashes, wearing filmy negligees. She invited Steve to give a guest presentation and he stepped up onto the stage. Steve took his partner Ageha and masterfully bound her, then suspended her and worked her over on the main stage.

Meanwhile, on the central runway stage, Nana was working over Ami. Ami was stripped, bound tightly and had hot wax applied expertly. Then she was hooked to the upper karabiner and with one leg raised, was flogged and spun around. At the same time, Steve was working over Ageha, who was now suspended high above, but was having her legs alternately opened, then crossed. She was then tilted into a head down position and subjected to some serious molestation. In the meantime, Nana lowered Ami back down, untied her and ran backstage for a moment to get a strap-on.

Steve was giving Ageha a good flogging when Nana returned and forced the kneeling Ami to suck the strap-on and get it good and wet. She then took Ami doggy-style with the strap-on and pumped her good. Then I fell to the floor, cross-eyed and convulsing from trying to watch both of these fantastic shows at once. Too much to handle!

There was much more –- the Lebanese midget acrobats, the Clydesdale horses, and the whipped cream lesbian muff diving, but it’s getting late and I’ve got to work tomorrow so I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. A fantastic set of shows by truly excellent and enthusiastic performers. And Steve, of course, at the top of his form — working with such a smooth professionalism that he makes it all look so easy. He’s really popular at that place.  

Scotto 

This time it was not Osada Steve tying Kiku-chan, but rather Kiku-chan binding herself to her partner in a wedding ceremony in Yokohama on Saturday before Kinbaku Live Night at Studio SIX. Steve and Thomas attended the wedding, then rushed back to get things ready for the night’s proceedings.

Weddings in Japan can be expensive — for the guests! I’ve never been invited to one and, for that, I’m grateful. The reason: guests are expected to cough up the sum of 30,000 yen as a gift to the bride and groom. Guests then receive presents from the couple, true. But I don’t think those presents come close to the 30,000 yen price tag of attending the wedding.

Anyway, I like to pick out the gifts I give to myself, thank you very much. If I’ve got some spare yen lying around, I can put it to much better use than someone who barely knows me.

What happened to the days when the bride’s parents were expected to foot the whole damned bill? And all I had to do was to go to X-Mart and buy a crappy 25 dollar blender so I didn’t look like a complete prick whilst eating the food and drinking the booze?

Having said that (and establishing myself as a selfish jerk) I would just like to say to Kiku-chan: Congratulations! And don’t be absent from Studio SIX too long!

The last few posts haven’t had much visual stimuli so I’m going to make up for that by uploading a couple of photo galleries. The first one has some pics of Nami-chan from Thomas’ most recent Studio SIX dispatch. As Thomas reported, Pedro was in town from abroad and some of the photos show his handiwork.

The second gallery is of blondie Kicca-chan in an encore performance.

Speaking of Thomas, this past Saturday was his last time at Studio SIX for who knows how long. Steve presented him with a set of ropes as a going away present. That, at least, is a worthwhile gift.

Gallery — Studio SIX

Gallery — Kicca-chan

KabukiJoe

The most recent Osada Steve DVD release can be found here.

This would appear not to be the usual distributor. And like some of the electronic gizmos over here, good luck finding this one outside of Japan. I guess if it does become available overseas, Europe will be the most likely venue.

I do remember this shoot since I was operating the B roll camera. I believe this may have been the one where I and the main videographer chased Ageha through the streets of Ikebukuro. She was attired in her yukata and a lot of people were wondering what the hell we were doing. I also think this is the one where Steve and I finally “captured” Ageha in the dusty bowels of an office building after which she was dragged away to the dungeon to meet her fate.

All in all, a very long but fun day.

And speaking of video shoots, another one was recently finished. If I am able to get more information on this shoot, you’ll be the first to know. Or at least the second or third.

KabukiJoe

If the title above doesn’t look right it’s probably either because (a) you can’t read Japanese or Italian, or (b) your operating system isn’t set up to display Japanese characters.

In Spanish it’s el patron. However, it doesn’t seem to have the same meaning as in English. In English, we’re accustomed to saying, for example, “a patron of the arts” whereas in Spanish the word means the boss.

It seems to have its origin in Latin with the original meaning closer to our word for father.

And now, without further ado, some pics from the most recent photo/video shoot courtesy of the patron who has been mentioned here before. As always, he exhibits good taste with Kotone-chan displaying her charms, and her tattoos, this time around.

In this case, the patron is the customer. He is also the boss. The customer is always right. The customer is king. It all fits.

KabukiJoe

Every now and then, a fellow comes in from out of town for the express purpose of hiring Osada Steve to tie up a new bitch.

I really like this guy. First, he’s friendly. Second, he has good taste. He always insists on a fresh face and usually brings along a list of ties he’d like to see done in the inimitable OS style. And third, he’s a rich guy with good taste. He always brings the best high definition video camera along to memorialize the events. He sticks it on a tripod which allows him to occasionally snap a few pictures with his professional, megapixel digital SLR camera.

Once home, he can relive these precious moments by viewing the shoots on his 65 inch high def television (OK, I made this last part up. I’m not sure it’s 65 inches). I guess if he’s not in the mood for a movie that night, he can always set up a slide show.

Steve calls him his patron.

GALLERY

KabukiJoe

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