Kazami Ranki 風見蘭喜
Kansai-based kinbakushi who heads the SM circle Circle M's, founded in 1996, and whose way of tying is taught abroad as Kazami-ryū, a graded curriculum known for secure, comfortable chest harnesses.
Kazami Ranki is a Japanese kinbakushi from the Kansai region and the founder of the style taught abroad as Kazami-ryū. London Kinbaku calls him “the Rope Master of Osaka”. The notes to a 2025 podcast interview credit him with more than thirty years of performing and teaching in Japan and internationally.
Career in Japan
The podcast notes say Kazami began by teaching himself, taking inspiration from the late Randa Mai, and that his own way of tying grew gradually into Kazami-ryū. Nawapedia records that he founded the SM group Circle M’s in 1996 and still leads it, and that from September 2000 he wrote a monthly report from the group for Mania Club magazine. In the same year he started bondage training sessions at Circle M’s, and from 2001 he held classes at a venue Nawapedia calls Nawa-ya and workshops in Tokyo. Nawapedia also lists SM events staged by the circle in Tokyo in the early 2000s.
In 2016 he co-wrote a how-to manual with Bingo Shigonawa, and in 2022 he was one of the five kinbakushi featured in the book Kinbaku GONIN, alongside Naka Akira, Yagami Ren and others.
Work abroad
According to Nawapedia, he has taught workshops abroad since 2011, in Britain, the United States, Canada, France and Australia. Its list of appearances includes London rope festivals in 2011 and 2012, a performance in Taipei in 2012, an Australian tour in 2013, the Sydney Rope Festival in 2014, Toronto, Paris and Chicago in 2014, Dallas in 2015 and a workshop at a Los Angeles dojo in 2024. The podcast notes say certified Kazami-ryū schools now operate in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong.
Style
Teachers of the style describe it in practical terms. London Kinbaku says it is known internationally for safety, strength and the partner’s comfort, and for its own set of patterns, or kata; it teaches the style through a graded course and states that Kazami recognized its instructor as master instructor for North America. Shibari Classes names safety, comfort and balance as the focus and singles out the L-shaped frictions with which Kazami isolates the wraps of the takate kote; its instructor, who studied with him, recalls how little tension Kazami put into the wraps. In the podcast Kazami discusses where those L-locks came from, why his ties keep changing, and how he builds performances without rehearsal. Nawapedia records that he named a new official teacher of the style in 2025.