Shoki Kitan Club no Shoshi Jōhō, Sōmokuji to Jakkan no Kōsatsu 初期『奇譚クラブ』の書誌情報・総目次と若干の考察

This source study by the historian Kawahara Azumi appeared in volume 4 of the journal Antitled (issued 9 May 2025, pages 273–357; DOI 10.57269/antitled.4.0_273) and is free to read on J-STAGE. The title means “Bibliographic Data and Complete Contents of Early Kitan Club, with Some Observations.”

Kawahara describes Kitan Club as a monthly reader-contributed magazine for people whose sexualities were then treated as marginal, including sadism, masochism, fetishism, homosexuality and cross-dressing. It was founded in Sakai, Osaka, in October 1947 and ran until March 1975. Its later A5 issues, from the May–June 1952 issue onward, can be read online, but the earlier B5 issues are scarce, so their publishing history and editorial staff had been hard to trace.

Having gained access to a large run of these early issues, Kawahara compiles bibliographic data and full tables of contents for the B5 period from October 1947 to April 1952. She counts 39 B5 volumes she has confirmed (37 numbered issues and two specials), works partly from microfiche copies in the Gordon W. Prange Collection of US occupation censorship material (whose censorship notes, she says, were mostly too unclear to use yet), and adds images of the covers. She also writes about the publisher Yoshida Minoru, the editor and illustrator Suma Toshiyuki (later known as Minomura Kō) and other leading contributors.

Among her observations: an early issue was banned over an illustration of a bound woman at a time when the magazine was not yet centered on sadism or masochism, and the issue Suma first helped edit toned down such content. She suggests his later recollections of the period reflect that time of censorship pressure. She presents the findings as provisional.