Special Issue of Strange Tales of Revenge

The October 1958 issue of Uramado is an unusually large anthology organized around a special feature of supernatural revenge tales. Its editorial identity combines historical melodrama, contemporary crime fiction, grotesque fantasy, erotic suspense, illustrated serials, photography, and popular occultism. The cover’s telephone-cord bondage image establishes a modern erotic menace, while the formal contents spread presents a densely packed program of stories about curses, ghosts, vengeance, confinement, murder, mysterious women, and bodies placed under threat. The issue opens with “The Female Water Entertainer,” a lavishly illustrated period tale involving a performer, murder, mutilation, and pursuit. This is followed by Osamu Fujisawa’s “Light and Skin,” a sculptural nude photographic portfolio emphasizing bodily contour, shadow, limbs, and abstract composition. The modern illustrated thriller “The Secret of the Bat Theater” then shifts the setting to Tokyo nightlife, following an actress, a dwarf performer, abduction, torture, narcotics, criminal exploitation, and violent pursuit. “Breast Chamber of Hell” extends the contemporary crime atmosphere through gangsters, stolen narcotics, sexual coercion, imprisonment, and gunplay. The central revenge feature develops through both historical and modern settings. “The Damask-Skin Curse” concerns a bewitched mansion, secret chambers, written curses, missing women, and inherited violence. Subsequent stories move through samurai households, haunted inns, vendettas, monstrous transformations, supernatural retainers, traveling killers, deceptive beauties, river and waterfront settings, and fatal encounters with women whose beauty conceals danger or grievance. Frequent illustrations turn scenes of capture, exposure, pursuit, murder, supernatural manifestation, and punishment into a parallel visual narrative. The later half broadens the issue’s tonal range without abandoning its core themes. Stories such as “The Inn of the Poison Butterfly,” “The Beauty Mound’s Karmic Consequence,” “The House That Invites an Eerie Presence,” “Will-o’-the-Wisp Riverbank,” “The Man Who Walks About Selling Death,” “Strange Transformation Sketches,” and “Almost the Anniversary of Your Death” combine mystery structures with ghosts, poisons, doubles, disguises, obsessive desire, and retributive violence. Longer period narratives, including “Hatamoto Bedchamber Chronicle,” “Hell Ship,” “Autumn Wind at Kikyo Field,” and “The Nineteenth Installment of Death-Coffin Komachi,” sustain the magazine’s interest in feudal authority, erotic intrigue, confinement, cruelty, and revenge across extended serial form. The closing pages contain the final installments of “Death-Coffin Komachi,” additional illustrated fiction, reader and contributor material, a manuscript solicitation, publication information, and editorial back matter. Across its full range, the issue presents revenge as an unstable crossing point between justice and obsession. Women repeatedly appear as performers, victims, avengers, apparitions, seductresses, and bearers of inherited curses, while the magazine’s fusion of text, noir illustration, period drawing, and photography gives the anthology a strongly visual and theatrical character.

Title	Author	Printed Pages	PDF Pages
The Female Water Entertainer	Yanagitsutsu Jūzaburō	11–18	6 –13
Light and Skin	Fujisawa Osamu	19–26	14 –19
The Secret of the Bat Theater	Natsumoto Keinosuke	27–35	20 –28
Breast Chamber of Hell	Iida Toyokichi	36–49	29 –42
The Damask-Skin Curse	Takagi Ryūji	50–65	43 –58
The Demon Lurking in the Feet	Mizorogi Jakushi	66–77	59 –70
Hatamoto Bedchamber Chronicle	Hashizume Hikoshichi	78–89	71 –82
The Monster of the Stock Hotel	Takeya Jūzō	90–101	83 –94
Oshima’s Vendetta Journey	Yagiri Jūhachi	102–113	95 –106
The Inn of the Poison Butterfly	Matsui Yoriko	114–127	107 –120
The Beauty Mound’s Karmic Consequence	Hada Hikaru	128–141	121 –134
The House That Invites an Eerie Presence	Saruwaka Tonpei	142–151	135 –144
The Transformed Young Samurai	Mikunizawa Takashi	152–162	145 –155
Will-o’-the-Wisp Riverbank	Utagawa Taiga	163–175	156 –168
The Supernatural Death-God Hatamoto	Odagiri Sō	176–189	169 –182
Disappearance Underwater	Fujii Kenji	190–202	183 –195
The Man Who Walks About Selling Death	Ojima Shin	203–215	196 –208
Strange Transformation Sketches	Suzuki Kazuo	216–229	209 –222
Almost the Anniversary of Your Death	Ujigawa Ryū	230–242	223 –235
Men Who Toy with Women’s Bodies	Hattori Gen	243–247	236 –240
Hell Ship	Nakajima Yoshimi	248–255	241 –248
Autumn Wind at Kikyo Field	Inumon Masato	256–265	249 –258
The Ageless Maiden	Sasamoto Tōru	266–270	259 –263
The Hot-Spring Inn Murder Case	Kawano Kyōsuke	271–277	264 –270
Death-Coffin Komachi	Shimamoto Haruo	278–297	271 –290

The formal contents appears on PDF viewer page 4. The cover identifies the issue as the October number and as a special issue devoted to strange revenge tales; the internal title page identifies it as Volume 3, Number 13. Pagination is irregular in the opening matter because the cover, advertisements, contents spread, and inserted photographic leaves are unnumbered. From printed page 27 onward, printed pagination generally corresponds to PDF viewer pagination plus seven. Several contributor names are unusual pen names or are printed in small type; provisional romanizations are identified in entry notes. Minor edge loss, dark staining, tears, and blackened areas affect portions of several pages, including the crime serial around PDF viewer pages 40–41, but the affected articles remain structurally identifiable. PDF viewer page 291 contains publication information, manuscript solicitation material, and closing editorial matter.