Shibari in Comic Books

Mass media has always served as a cultural thermometer for our society. Movies, being the most popular media channel around the world, leads the trend. However, it is also worth noticing how other, smaller media, shape changes that may slowly take over and become trends. In the case of Shibari, even though Hollywood has scarcely dared to portray it, it has been way more popular in other means. It is actually very common to find Shibari in comic books.

There are two long traditions in the world of comics: the American and the Japanese. It is in the last one, usually called “anime”, although there are many subgenres, each with its own traits, that we can find depictions of bondage and Shibari. Since Japanese comic books have become extremely popular during the last 20 years, we are talking about at least two generations that have had a certain contact with rope bondage. Not that they have practiced it, but at least they have seen it and accepted as an interesting variation of kink.

And that’s another good new. Today’s culture is way more open to kink than it was, say, thirty years ago. Therefore, it wouldn’t be strange that people who saw bondage depicted in the comic books they read on their youth, were willing to try Shibari. After all, it’s not a total stranger, and kink is way more acceptable than it used to be.

The depiction of bondage in comic books ranges from the scenes of torture that recall Shibari’s origin in Hojojutsu, the rope restraint technique from ancient Japan, to subtle innuendos of its erotic value. In either case, it is frequently a first contact of the reader with the idea of bondage. And this first encounter might ignite the interest for the wonderful world of bondage.