Urabon, which appeared in the wake of binibon (underground porno mags wrapped in plastic) at the beginning of the 1980's, are once again attracting attention. In the current adult marketplace, which has everything from mainstream to indies, underground and adult video, why are urabon coming back in not as an anachronism but rather at the cutting edge. We hunt down the real story.

From collector's items to the newest works, they are selling big in the same market. In the beginning, Urabon were created as an outlaw media, an underground version of the binibon that had taken off in the late seventies only to fade out in the early eighties due to the sharp upswing in dislosure to the authorities. Because the binibon came out in an era when not even a single hair could be shown, editors at the time put all of their effort and creativity into finding ways to have the hair show through the model's clothes, by for example, thinning the material of her panties or wetting them. In contrast, Urabon contained a cavalcade of pictures showing everything with no tricks at all. Thus, from production to distribution everything had to be conducted in the utmost secrecy, but inevitably, the authorities would find out, reveal those responsible and shut them down. "Kinkakuji" and "Houryuuji" (Covers shown at right) were introduced in the mainstream media and suddenly became well-known. They originally featured models who wore too much make-up, but later there came a slew of beautiful young girlslike Miku Watase of "Eve no sasayaki" who made her AV debut. (See covers below) But after that with adult video becoming more popular, urabon went into its worst slump in ten years

Houryuuji - December 1982 　 　 法隆 Kinkakuji - Dec 1981

Miku Watase - Whisper of Eve "Eve no sasayaki" - Miku Watase also was an AV star.

However, in the late 1990's, urabon went into a second boom. The spark that set it off was Michiru Katou's "Last Scene." At the time, she was a beautiful young girl adult video actress for Uchuu Kikaku (a major adult video label), but after this book, came "Cat's eye part 1" (Shown right) with adult video actress Ami Sakuragi and "Koi no F1 checker flag" with Nanase Shiratori (Below right) who appeared on TV's "Heisei jogakuen". Nanase Shiratori in "Koi no F1 Checker Flag". Note the move towards the Campaign Girl look

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