Kinbaku Today, 2014–, is a American platform in the bakushi / kinbaku ecosystem.
2014–
Era: 2010s
Independent online journal founded in 2014 to promote kinbaku to the Western-speaking world. Zetsu has served as founding editor since its inception, publishing contributions from authors in the US, Europe, Australia and Japan. The site covers event and book announcements, interviews with Japanese bakushi and models, tutorials, galleries, reviews, translations and kinbaku history.
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.