The SM Detective

Arisue Go, noted bakushi with over three decades of experience and rope master for the newest Hana to Hebi films, has already left for Europe with his partner, Kogure. Among other things, they will be attending KinbaCon as special invited guests. Arisue-san will be teaching authentic Japanese kinbaku to the lucky attendees.

Before they left, the pair were able to put the finishing touches on their new book: Arisue Go's Kinbaku: Mind and Techniques 1. I understand they took several copies with them to Europe. The rest of us will have to wait until May 27 when the book starts shipping officially.

Almost forgot to mention: this book is written in English. A lot of folks in the West have been clamoring for an instruction book on kinbaku written by an acknowledged master of the art.

I believe this is the first time a Japanese bakushi has put out a book actually aimed at the English-speaking market. To be honest, I'm not aware of any instructional manuals which have even been translated into English, let alone written specifically for Western rope enthusiasts who aspire to learn the ropes in the classic Japanese way.

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My friend and I did, indeed, make it over to Kabukicho on Monday evening to check out what was going on at Loft/Plus One. Neither one of us had detailed information on the event. The only thing we knew was that the celebrated Mira Kurumi would take the stage.

As I mentioned earlier, Mira Kurumi is one of the hardest practitioners of SM in Japan -- of those who ply their trade in public, at least. I used to consider Shima Shikou a hard player, and still do, but Kurumi makes even Shima look rather tame.

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Before I get to the main event, just thought I'd mention that the previous post, the Master "K" interview, broke all the records around here. The interview seems to have been very well received. For a guy who doesn't toot his own horn, Master "K" is certainly well known in the community of serious Japanese bondage aficionados.

In other news, a friend alerted me to the fact that Loft Plus One will be hosting the notorious Mira Kurumi in some sort of event coming up soon. I'm going to try to get to this to see about covering it for the blog.

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As far back as I go with The City of Angles, I'm surprised I neither bumped into nor heard of an individual who refers to himself as Master "K". I first learned of him after coming to Japan -- through the internet, of course.

As a scholar and historian, Master "K" spends surprisingly little time on the internet with the possible exception of email. He does his research the old fashioned way, burying himself in ancient and obscure texts, many written in a form of Japanese that isn't common today. While he acknowledges that his Japanese accent could use some help, he excels at reading and comprehending the Chinese characters that were committed to paper by Japanese characters whom the centuries have forgotten.

Master K's subject, and his fascination, is kinbaku -- as it has been for over three decades. Almost as an afterthought, he wrote a book. He says it dawned on him one day that he was in the unique position to write something on the topic that he would like to read.

The book is called The Beauty of Kinbaku.

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Hindsight is 20/20 vision.

When I think back to 1984 I can remember where I was and what I was doing. The thought induces a certain pang of regret that I didn't make my way to Japan much sooner. I feel that I was about a decade late.

Besides being the title to a famous novel, 1984 was the year Saotome Hiromi appeared in her first big time SM movie, a film called Nawa Shimai: Kimyo na Kajitsu. I'm afraid I don't have the English title handy just now. I get the "nawa" part but after that I'm lost.

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We went out in style on our final evening in Tokyo. After my last class with Osada Steve at Studio SIX, it was Gaijin Night at the Studio. At around 7, the Oz contingent appeared: Mark, Aleni and Lani from Sydney.

Steve opened the proceedings with some hot newaza with Aiko-chan, the lady with the amazing tiger back tattoo. As soon as he’d finished, he turned to me saying it was time for me to do a spot.

A hard act to follow. Hmm, no pressure! Anyway, I did a floor session with Electric Fairie, which Steve said was 100% for energy, if somewhat over-complicated.

Unfortunately, I missed Mark’s show as we had to leave for Arisue’s birthday party and we still had to grab something to eat before embarking on what promised to be a serious drinking session.

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Recently I've been spending some time on a fellow's site which has had me quite intrigued. I won't mention the name or link to it as it's not SM related at all, but I do find it interesting because the guy who runs it is an unabashed otaku, and I consider myself an otaku as well.

I think otaku can be translated into English as geek or nerd. And a quick check with Wikipedia reveals that there are, indeed, any number of different types of otaku. You can be a military otaku, for example. That one never crossed my mind. I would say that these are probably the "weekend warrior" types -- the ones who'd piss their pants if someone started shooting at them for real.

I'm definitely a pasocon otaku. That would be Japanese-English for personal computer. I love electronic gadgets and computers fit right in there.

Right now I literally have five computers in my shoebox apartment, and that's after giving one away. I have two big monitors on my desk which come in very handy for editing video. I've got two high def video cameras and a digital SLR. The list of gadgets goes on and on.

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By now, Esinem and Electric Fairie should be back in London. Mark and Lani are leaving today to return to Australia.

I didn't have a chance to meet up with Mark and Lani but I did get together with Esinem and Electric Fairie a few times -- and they were good times.

Everyone came at the perfect moment to see the famous cherry blossoms. This year was a good one for the legendary sakura. The weather warmed up a bit and they began to bloom. And boy did they bloom, right around the time of Esinem's arrival in Osaka.

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As you probably already know, there are lots of "groups" out there catering to just about any fetish imaginable. It seems that Yahoo Groups is a popular platform for this kind of communication. Although I haven't noticed this recently, in the past some people I know have had their Yahoo Group taken down.

I discovered a website called FetLife that lets people start their own group using FetLife's server space. They have a ton of groups over there. I joined the Kinbaku and Shibari groups. The Kinbaku group seems to be the best fit for me. They keep things more focused on Japanese bondage. Some other groups have gotten watered down with all sorts of topics I, personally, have no interest in. But that's just me. Some of these are very popular so they're obviously doing something right.

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It's around 2:30 in the a.m. here in Tokyo and I just got back from Asakusa where I had a fantastic evening with co-bloggers Esinem and Kogure as well as with Esinem's partner Electric Fairie and Kogure's partner, the one and only Arisue Go.

Esinem, Electric Fairie and I had originally planned to get together at the offices of SM Detective, drink some beer, chew the fat and do whatever else came to mind. Then the opportunity arose to meet up with Kogure-san and Arisue-san and that seemed like a much better use of our time. Thanks for the invite, guys. I really appreciate being allowed to tag along.

I'm writing this post now, in the wee hours of the morning, because, 1.) I'm a night owl and, 2.) at my age, if I wait too long, I'm likely to forget important details and I don't want that to happen.

Speaking of age, I found out all three of us men are very close in age. There's only about a year gap. Arisue-san and I share the same month for our birthdays. We are only a few days apart. I must say, though, that Arisue-san looks the youngest. Of course, the two ladies look much younger than us. Not surprising since they are much younger than us!

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