Report November 2025
Historically, material used for Shibari has been extraordinarily diverse. Pre-WWII we have very little recorded evidence, but until the 1949 SCAPs ban due to the unfortunate common Kanji with cannabis, Tochigi, Iwate, Nagano and Fukushima grown hemp would have been the easiest to access. In fact, our partner’s great-great and great-grandfathers were hemp fibre dealers in the early 20th Century until the latter’s injury in the second Sino-Japanese war led his switch to rope manufacturing.
Also used for Shibari, but far less durable was grass-straw Aranawa as depicted in photographs by Ito Seiu. Interviewed during the 1970s, Tsujimura Takeshi detailed in 1937 using his girlfriend’s obijime, koshihimo and pyjama-belt. From reader submitted images in Kitan Club magazine (1946-75), there’s evidence of every type of binding material being used – hemp, Manila, sisal, linen, cotton and synthetics to magnetic tape, ribbons, wire and chains. But no identifiable jute. Ergo, there was never a specific material historically associated with Shibari.
During the 1950s, with hemp stocks dwindling, synthetic ropes became available. But the necessity for a natural fibre meant that sooner or later jute would become the biodegradable alternative for farmers. By the early 1980s, Suma Toshiyuki and Nureki Chimuo first started using jute for Shibari. By the turn of the century when our MD first purchased jute in an Akihabara adult store, it had already become the favoured material due to its unique handling characteristics, and can be seen used by Matsui Kenji, Akechi Denki, Arisue Go, Kitagawa, Yukimura Haruki, Etc.
As a member of Kinoko’s former club KUNKUN, our MD was directed to the nearest little high street general rope store Ogawa, and started buying spools of their JBO-batched Chinese made farm rope in increasing amounts. This supply ceased in 2013 after a consignment was so heavy with JBO it couldn’t be removed. The rope was unusable, and had to be trashed.
Having visited rope manufacturers all over Japan, in 2014 he founded Amatsunawa as a sole-trader. First ø6mm x 200m low-JBO ‘Kansai’ jute Asanawa came from a ropemaker in Aichi-ken. Later, to be discovered it, and the following excellent JBO-free white jute in 2015 were sub-contracted to KOUMANAWA’s now production partner. Eventually, all these Japanese rope suppliers were identified to be outsourcing in Bangladesh, China or India for practical, economic reasons.
With the aid of small crowd-funding in 2017 our MD then switched to European manufacturing. 15kg x ø6.6, 5.5 and 4.4mm spools were produced on modern, aggressive Roblon machinery, not suitable for the peculiarities of jute fibre, and susceptible to generating flaws. But he persevered, learning and making improvements.
Changing to criss-cross winding 33, 30 and 27 – the total number of yarns per rope on card cores, yarn supply issues always compromised repeating attained quality. Red and black yarn were tried, but they’d been dyed after spinning, making it uneven, so the rope was lumpy and unwise to release onto the market.
After selling control in Amatsunawa in 2021, the next product’s yarn was sourced in Belgium. But it had been cut with low-grade Meshta and coated with natural latex, perfect for non-slip carpet backing. Not for Shibari. So, using an historical affiliation and personal friendship with the Japanese, production switched at the worst possible moment, and a string of unlucky coincidences resulted in a disastrous first supply – Covid closed borders so he couldn’t oversee specification and training, and his technical contact retired back to Japan days ahead of production start. To be fair to the Japanese, they visited, agreed to shoulder liability, and remanufactured with significant discount. The result was the best Shibari Asanawa to date, but could still be improved upon if only we could manage yarn supply.
As a result of a series of questionable incidents, on legal advice our MD walked away from Amatsunawa. A few months later, recognising global demand, the 84-year old Japanese rope corporation invited him to join forces to supply the Shibari market as KOUMANAWA. First production was again an enhanced quality, but for a portion of the market still deemed twisted too tight.
We had to go back to the drawing board, but now with a massive advantage – our own in-house, State-of-The-Art yarn mill. Finally, now we could experiment with materials, hackling, soybean oil batching content, piling time and temperatures, yarn twist and count. Something impossible before with third-party yarn supply. We tried various parameter iterations – stranding orbits, gearings and voice toolings. We sent trial samples out to key buyers, and tested extensively in applied conditions with load and after conditioning.
Several pre-production tests later and we’d optimised to the limit of what is achievable with jute rope. 10 tonnes has just entered production for launch in 2026. You may then find it available from your existing sources in Japan, through our expanding global distribution network, and of course, direct. It is the world’s first ever designed and developed Asanawa specific for Shibari that, barring slight seasonal colour variations, can be reliably and consistently repeated.
