Urabon Navigator

Welcome to the Navigator bookshelf. This section deal with mostly japanese adult books and magazines published in Japan during the period 1980 to present. The books are classified in 3 major categories: Urabon, Vinyl(aka Bini)and Photobooks.

Urabon   ( 2712 books listed )
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". 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.
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.
Source: "webnetladies.com

Vinyl/Bini Bon   ( 4199 books listed ) 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.

Photobooks   ( 1172 books listed )
Photographers such as Shinzo Fukuhara were producing photography books in the 1920s. The postwar years brought low-priced photography books, such as the many volumes of Iwanami Shashin Bunko. From the 1950s onward, most Japanese photographers of note have had photobooks published.

However, the simplest Japanese translation of photobook is shashinsh, and the shashinsh section of a typical Japanese bookstore is full books of photographs of little or no documentary or artistic merit but instead conventional portraying currently popular celebs. Many are of cheesecake models (guradoru) famous for little else, or porn starlets who also appear in "adult" movies; others are of singers, television personalities, professional sportswomen (often wrestlers) and so forth. They can contain as few as 15 or as many as 120 photos.

They are very popular with fans, as they are a good source of high quality photos of a popular celebrity. A musician may release a small photobook with an album or single release.

Sources etc.
The books data is mostly collected from various sources on the net. The main source for the photbooks data has been rarebooks.jp and suruga-ya.jp. The URABON data is mostly collected from private contributors and online databases such as ugbooks.com. Model & release info for the VINYL are almost none-excisting. At leased I haven't found much. If you find incorrect or missing data, please use the 'comment form', which is available on each book.