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Masked
books are legally available, but the Urabon you view here are still
illegal in Japan to produce or sell...and quite expensive.
"The
Beaver
Books!"
The
"beaver-books" were sold from vending machines
with one-way mirrors on the face. During daylight, the books
were not visible. At night they were illuminated from inside
and thus viewable to potential customers. Early books priced
from about 900 yen.
1977
1979
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Early book from 1973
These were vending machine books.
1975
These
early books had no explicit sex or images of exposed genitals,
but progressed to thru-panty to showing hair and the familiar
masking shown below.
1980
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Today's
version of Urabon began issue in the present format in 1981, with
48 to 56 pages. So far there are approximately 2,500 titles issued.
Many of the earlier books were pirated from the "beaver-books"
and re-issued.
In
reviewing many of the Japanese language reference sites, the term
urabon in Japanese consist of two characters "ura-hon" (see
top of page). This literary means "wrong side book" or "back-book".
This phrase directly relates to the English phrase Urabon. The word
"Back" translates to "ushiro, ura, youritsu, bakku,
haigo, rimen". It has also been loosely translated as "plastic-wrapped",
"back-room", "under-the-counter" and may other
phrases. But the most concise is the one above. But the most concise
is the one above.
The
following quote from the Japan Underground Book Association (JUBA):
"(The)
Japanese back book research society solves the above questions with
each time background (release), and the charm of a back book is
analyzed variously, and the back book of our country is wishing
(to be known) as "URABON". The past (JUBA) also wants
to show (description) the indicator for making it from now on more
indecent, and continuing existing beautifully in the history of
pornography in the world."
Urabon
books are illegal in Japan, it is against the criminal code to show
genitailia and actual sex acts. However, there is an Underground
market producing so-called "uncorrected" or "underground"
books.
For
more about Urabon, check out the Urabon
Data Bank. Much of our content information is credited to these
infomative pages. For non-Japanese readers, use of online resorces
to translate the pages is available.
©1999-2003 ALOTI®
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