Once again, Tokyo Kinky's team was sadly prevented from attending in person due to unavoidable schedule clashes, but the 26th edition of Japan's largest fetish event, FetiFes, took place on September 15. The biannual event features vendors, talks, and performances by various kinds of idols and fetish artists, from newbies to industry veterans. It's a great way to explore the full range of the fetish scene in Japan and meet actual adult video and ero-cosplay idols face to face as well as buy erotic merch and toys. Are you into zentai? Pocchari chubby girls? Bondage? Fundoshi? Office ...

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The 25th edition of Japan's largest fetish event, FetiFes, took place on April 28. Certain household responsibilities prevented the Tokyo Kinky team from attending, so we were pleased to find the festival had generously published a huge gallery of pictures from the event (available on the festival website along with galleries from past editions). All the images are taken by officially approved photographers (who are are credited on the gallery page images if you want to know who they are). Unfortunately, they are just a gallery, without captions, so it is hard for us to provide much ...

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Japanese rope bondage master Osada Steve has launched the World Kinbaku Federation, a new organization that "strives to protect and preserve authentic kinbaku as practiced in Japan." Osada notes the rich and layered history of kinbaku (also known as shibari), which traces its origins back to the use of rope in the martial arts and developed into forms of rope torture and, in the postwar period, a type of erotic and BDSM practice. Thanks to the internet, kinbaku is now globally known and practiced, and Osada's own proactive efforts with his online platforms have definitely played a strong ...

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As regular readers will know, Osada Steve is a true rope master who practices the Osada-ryu school of shibari (kinbaku) bondage and is something of a legend in the Japanese BDSM scene. We interviewed Osada-sensei about six months ago to find out more about his amazing career, how he entered the secret world of shibari rope bondage, and his insights on the future of kinbaku. Now he has let us know about a new project he recently launched: a "toy salon" where top-quality Japanese female pleasure items can be tested under the expert guidance of trained counselors. In addition to the various ...

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Following our recent interview with kinbaku rope master Steve Osada, we were interested to read this interview with a very different kind of rope artist, Hajime Kinoko, in Tokyo Weekender last month. Kinoko notes that he prefers shibari to kinbaku to describe his style of rope bondage, regarding the latter as about emotional exchange with a model during a session, and the former as more general. Kinoko is known for his high-profile collaborations and more artistic style, which may involve tying a model to an object like a motorcycle. "I am actually closer to an artisan, like a chef," ...

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In our quest to bring readers the latest updates on sex and nude scenes, we spent some time watching the little-known Japanese movie Shodo (Impulse), a low-budget, bondage-themed erotic film released in Japan in late 2021. The Shibuya-set film, which purports to show the love lives of young people in Tokyo, has several nude scenes, including a particularly nice one where Uri Suzuki in a threesome with two guys on a bed in a love hotel. Suzuki pours alcohol over her breasts. In another POV-shot scene, Suzuki is giving a guy a blowjob while he is restrained on the bed. In ...

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"Shibari is 90% emotional. The other half is technical." Following our earlier article about Steve Osada's online Japanese rope bondage learning platform, Kinbaku Academy, we sat down with the rope master for a conversation about his career and the state of shibari/kinbaku today. Steve Osada (also often referred to using the Japanese name order, Osada Steve) inherited the Osada name in 2001 from grandmaster Eikichi Osada when he died. They had first met in 1998 for a photo shoot and Steve eventually started helping the grandmaster with his weekly shows as a pulley operator. The rest, as ...

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Kinbaku (shibari) rope bondage sensei Steve Osada, formerly known as the photographer Dr D Vice, is the inheritor of the Osada name and tying style (Osada-ryu) from Eikichi Osada. The late master is one of the people responsible for making kinbaku known in the mainstream. He staged his first kinbaku performance at a ballet school in Asagaya, Tokyo, in 1965, which ushered the previously hidden world of rope bondage into the open. He subsequently moved his performance act to the strip show venue circuit in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, he did many shows with pink movie legend Hiromi Saotome, ...

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Feti Fes is Japan's top fetish festival. We have attended before and previously posted photo reports that readers seemed to like. It's the kind of event where every little room, cubbyhole, or booth is dedicated to a whole other fetish. Participants include chika (underground) and gravure idols, ero-cosplayers, fetish service providers, and goods and merchandise retailers. After postponement due to the pandemic -- obviously, given the nature of the event, it's hardly compatible with social distancing guidelines -- Feti Fes 19 was finally held in April. We were not able to attend but, as we ...

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Shibari, the Japanese art of rope bondage, is a sexual subculture, something confined to certain clubs and establishments, right? Wrong. As one event proved, shibari (also known as kinbaku) is also very visible in the streets of Tokyo. On May 7, Hajime Kinoko, probably the most successful and well-known shibari rope artist in Japan, created an outdoor installation on the walls of a venue in Cat Street, a shopping street in Harajuku, central Tokyo. The installation involved him and his team suspending five female models (one of whom was Lisa M, aka Lisa Mizuno) in shibari positions on the ...

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