Steve Freeman — Bakushi Map

Bakushi Map BETA

An interactive genealogy of bakushi and kinbaku — the Japanese rope traditions that grew from Edo-period hojōjutsu through twentieth-century SM magazines into today's global shibari scene.

The map currently holds 320 people, 238 studios, events, works and context nodes and 1394 documented connections across 9 eras. Each record is sourced from public material — Nawapedia, ShibariStudy, festival rosters, interviews, archived studio pages — and curated by a single researcher.

This is a beta version: the structure, sources and interface are public enough to explore, but the map is still being expanded and corrected.

How to read it

Vertical position is time: the 1800s at the top, the 2020s at the bottom. Cards are coloured by school or lineage; lines between them carry the relationship type — solid amber for direct apprenticeship (deshi), dashed for influence or peer study, thinner coloured lines for venues, magazines, or productions. Click a card to open its bio, antecedents and descendants. Filters in the top bar narrow by era, entity type, or relationship.

Caveats

Inclusion is selective: a person or studio appears only when there's enough public evidence to anchor them meaningfully. Missing birth years are deliberate — many practitioners don't publicise them. Errors and gaps will exist; corrections welcome at pussynawa@proton.me.

Thanks

The map has grown with corrections, additions and source pointers from RopeMarks, Asiana, RomKnots, Nick Freerider and Aleksei Kalatsky.

Methodology Sources