Summary
The August 1959 issue of Uramado is an unusually large special number built around curses, magical practices, occult fantasy, supernatural revenge, and illusion, while retaining the magazine's characteristic mixture of erotic illustration, nude photography, fetish material, historical curiosity, crime, confession, and popular fiction. Its opening sequence juxtaposes the illustrated Beauty and the Beast, in which circus spectacle and coercive eroticism dominate the imagery, with Fujisawa Osamu's stark Nude Masterpieces portfolio. From the Unsorted Shelf then shifts into first-person sexual confession and psychological reflection, reinforcing Uramado's interest in abnormal desire as both fantasy and testimony.
The central Curses, Magic, and Illusion feature develops through a long succession of period and contemporary stories. Ghostly Yin-Yang Master follows a fraudulent occult practitioner whose predictions, curses, suspicious deaths, and frightened clients gradually create genuine uncertainty about supernatural agency. The Demon-Cursed Blind Doll, Strange Letter, Strange Incident at the Hour of the Ox, A Woman Digs a Hole, and Magic-Trick Town expand the theme through curse rites, threatening correspondence, nocturnal ritual, burial imagery, trickery, and sexual danger. Andromeda Picture Story introduces a more overtly fantastic illustrated interlude, while Enburi: A Curse Song of Tohoku roots uncanny material in regional custom and folk belief.
The middle portion moves repeatedly between historical cruelty and modern erotic psychology. Revenge: Female Yasha Extract and The Devil's Flute Makes Women Dance emphasize violent supernatural or magical retribution. Troubled Married Women Tomoe turns toward contemporary marital desire and confession, while History of Beautiful-Boy Seppuku examines the cultural and historical imagery surrounding youthful male suicide. The serialized Women's Intelligence Agent supplies modern adventure and espionage, followed by the exotic island fantasy The Island of Strange Female Guardians and the reader-contribution feature Clouded Rear-Window Glass.
The later issue again broadens in genre. Dance of the White Blade presents a period tale centered on sword violence; Slug House uses grotesque bodily imagery and is illustrated by Minomura Kou; Oryū's Secret Notebook and The Mirror Reflects return to serialized period and uncanny storytelling. Selections of Strange Tales and Curious Accounts gathers darker Edo-period material, while The Curse of Kangiten places religious imagery and supernatural punishment at the center of a late major feature. Hell Doctor closes the principal fiction sequence with grotesque medical and courtroom motifs before the magazine moves into concluding notices, manuscript solicitation, publication information, advertisements, and its back cover. Taken as a whole, the issue presents occultism less as an isolated supernatural subject than as a framework for linking eroticism, fear, punishment, bodily vulnerability, folklore, fetishism, crime, and historical fantasy.
Highlights
Beauty and the Beast opens the illustrated editorial material with a circus-set narrative combining erotic spectacle, coercion, whipping, captivity, and dramatic full-page drawings by Koshō Hideo.
Fujisawa Osamu's Nude Masterpieces is a stark black-background photographic portfolio emphasizing sculptural poses, bodily curvature, and isolated studio presentation.
Ghostly Yin-Yang Master is the first major story of the occult special feature, developing a lengthy narrative around prophecies, fraudulent spiritual authority, curses, unexplained deaths, and the growing possibility of genuine supernatural power.
Strange Incident at the Hour of the Ox invokes the traditional ushi no toki curse motif, combining nocturnal ritual, jealousy, violent imagery, and illustrations of clandestine magical practice.
Enburi: A Curse Song of Tohoku connects the supernatural theme to northeastern Japanese folk custom, pairing regional curse-song imagery with erotic and uncanny illustration.
History of Beautiful-Boy Seppuku examines accounts and cultural imagery of youthful male ritual suicide, giving the issue a historical and documentary counterpoint to its predominantly fictional supernatural material.
Women's Intelligence Agent, installment 2, provides a long illustrated modern adventure sequence involving espionage, danger, captivity, and female protagonists.
Slug House is a grotesque late-issue tale illustrated by Minomura Kou, combining bodily disgust, erotic menace, and the magazine's taste for abnormal or disturbing environments.
The Curse of Kangiten brings Buddhist-derived religious imagery into the special issue's occult framework and develops a late extended narrative of desire, taboo, and supernatural retribution.
Hell Doctor forms the final major fictional sequence, using medical grotesquerie, death, legal or courtroom motifs, and dark anecdotal storytelling before the closing editorial and publication material.
Analysis Notes
The issue title page identifies this as Uramado Volume 4, Number 8 and labels it the August oversized issue with a Curses, Magic, and Illusion special feature. The formal contents is on PDF page 3. The opening illustrated and photographic inserts use non-sequential printed pagination: Beauty and the Beast appears earlier in the PDF although its printed pages follow the Nude Masterpieces portfolio. From PDF page 19 through PDF page 210, the principal numbered body generally follows printed page = PDF page + 8. PDF page 211 is blank; after that point the numbered body generally follows printed page = PDF page + 9. The final editorial pages include manuscript solicitation and publication information on PDF page 326, advertisements on PDF page 327, and the illustrated back cover on PDF page 328. Several uncommon pen names have romanizations that should be checked against KRP authority records, particularly 権大坊呑海, 柳斐子, and the author of 鏡は映す.