Sakura Rope, 2021-, is a German studio in the bakushi / kinbaku ecosystem.
2021-
Era: 2020s
Stuttgart / Ludwigsburg-area shibari teaching project by Franky and Mel, founded at the end of 2021. Sakura Rope says its style has been strongly influenced by Ren Yagami, Sarca Martello and Naka Akira, and that it became an official instructor of the Iyasu Ropu method after Sarca Martello in 09/2023. BoundCon 2026 lists Franky / Mr. Sakura and Mel / Mrs. Sakura as Sakura Rope in a shared outdoor-stage performance with Phieli in Ropes.
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.