Zukai Torinawajutsu 図解捕縄術

Fujita Seiko's illustrated compendium of hojōjutsu, first issued in a limited edition in the mid-1960s and later reprinted, which English Wikipedia suggests could be seen as the encyclopedia of the art.

Zukai Torinawajutsu (“The Illustrated Technique of the Binding Rope”, in English Wikipedia’s rendering) is a book on hojōjutsu, the old martial discipline of securing someone with cord, by the martial artist Fujita Seiko (1898–1966), who according to English Wikipedia learned the Kōga-ryū Wada-ha line of ninjutsu from his grandfather.

English Wikipedia says the book appeared in the autumn of 1964 and documents several hundred ties collected from numerous schools; its article on hojōjutsu suggests the work could be regarded as the encyclopedia of the art and cites the Meicho Kankōkai reprint for details such as rope thickness. The National Diet Library’s record of the first edition gives June 1965 and the publisher Inoue Tosho, and notes a print run limited to 300 copies. Meicho Kankōkai reissued it in 1986 and 1995; the 1995 printing includes a bibliography.

The title’s reading differs between catalog records. The library’s entry for the first edition reads 捕縄術 as torinawajutsu, while its entries for the reprints read it as hojōjutsu; both are readings of the same word.

The book documents the restraint techniques that English Wikipedia’s hojōjutsu article links to kinbaku through Itō Seiu, who studied hojōjutsu. Neither Wikipedia article consulted here claims that Fujita’s book itself influenced erotic rope practice.

Sources

  1. 図解捕縄術 (1965, Inoue Tosho) — National Diet Library Search
  2. 図解捕縄術 (1995, Meicho Kankōkai) — National Diet Library Search
  3. Seiko Fujita — Wikipedia
  4. Hojōjutsu — Wikipedia