Brandon Chin

Knives and Ropes Brandon Chin

Hino is an artist. A master of shibari: Japanese rope bondage. She lives a marginalized life as a trans-woman in conservative Japan. Finally settling down with her high profile husband, she suddenly loses him to a violent hate crime. Before letting her despair consume her, she translates her rage into revenge. Detective Wa Otsuka, a level-headed investigator in Fukuoka's Police Department, finds Hino's first victim. He digs deeper into the case only to encounter a troubling pattern: the victims are all LGBTQ oppressors. Wa finds himself revealing unknown parts of himself during the investigation. During his first encounter with Shibari Man, he is pushed to the brink and instinctively releases a kitchen knife from his right hand. Wa realizes he knows nothing of the family he left in Sakai City a decade ago. He returns home to investigate his blade-infused skeleton only to find that he's far from reaching the end of the rope. When he hits the door of a cult organization behind nationwide murders, he only falls deeper into the endless abyss.