Report April 2025
Greetings from Japan, where we’re having a series of business meetings: distribution, B2B customers, engineering, logistics, customs brokerage, and a trip to the Mokurō wax factory. Obviously, I’ll be visiting certain clubs and bars too, hooking up with old friends, and I headlined Osaka’s most prestigious SM & Fetish Bar ARCADIA, performing an erotic Kinbaku show to a packed audience. Now on to Mitsu and Titty Twister Kabukichō, and then Black Heart Ginza to perform on Lady‘s Day at Shibari Knight, following in the footsteps of Matsui Kenji and Akechi Denki.
I’ve met old friends NuitdeTokyo, Otonawa, Aotsuki and Kazami Ranki, and will be seeing Shigonawabingo, Kitagawa and Tesshin, etc. Tadaima! I’m at home, where my enjoyment of Kinbaku differs so much from a sense of alienation in the west where what is believed to be Japanese is at odds with realities here. Eg. discussing with Aotsuki-san, an influential veteran of the scene, a couple of months ago on a German forum to the question, Where does Shibari come from? 69% of respondents voted Hojōjutsu, an old Japanese martial art, he asked how things got so completely twisted from the truth.
Over 16 years of development we’ve visited most, if not all Japan’s natural fibre rope manufacturing corporations. We’ve been to many jute yarn mills in Bengal, and maintain contact with the Japan External Trade Organization, institutes, relevant universities and other bodies. As we’ve gone further and deeper into the trade we’ve made discoveries, sometimes deeply concerning, identified risks, and learned the supply chains, the scams and the pitfalls. Clearly, we have a vested interest, but in this new world neither social nor truthful, in order to retain integrity, it’s best to stick to the facts. In the long run they’ll be the only solid ground on which to stand. Those who don’t, will risk ridicule.
Fact: jute for cordage has never grown in Japan. The climate conditions do not exist. Hemp was once cultivated in the Tōhoku and Kantō regions, but banned by the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers because of its unfortunate shared Kanji with cannabis. Without reintroduction, stocks waned, and it was Toshiyuki Suma and Chimuo Nureki who started using jute rope for Shibari during the 1980s, stocked by agricultural-industrial rope outlets.
For economical logistical reasons, all yarn is manufactured close to the jute growing region in Bengal. Last exports of raw jute fibre for spinning were transported to Dundee, Scotland on sailing ships. Now, unlike democracies where governments may revolve every few years, Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China has a plan to 2049 – the Chinese Dream. From the mistaken shift of western business using cheap labour in the 1990s, they’ve learned, copied, improved, and undercut. Work conditions can be wholly unethical, e.g. it’s alleged Ramie is produced by Uighur slave labour. The goal is simple – to force foreign manufacturing out of business by applying liberal export state subsidies. Then take over the markets. They don’t only do this with vehicles, electronics, etc. They also do this with rope.
A popular JBO jute rope widely used in the west, and obtained from general high street stores in Japan is actually manufactured in Jiangsu Province, China using cheap labour in questionable conditions. Because it’s subsidised by the PRC for export, it’s galling to note resellers proclaiming it as ‘Traditional Japanese’, or ‘Made in Japan’ just because their unwitting hero may be using it. If you want to scrutinize for yourself, ask for the Mamefuda product identification label, and evidence of where it’s actually being produced. There you’ll find the truth maybe you’re assisting the demise of real Japanese-produced rope. Even if those Japanese corporations are for economical logistical reasons manufacturing at their managed and owned facilities in Bengal, where jute specific for cordage is grown.
