Kazue Tomimoto

Otake Kazue (1893–1966), best known by her pen name, Otake Kokichi (尾竹紅吉), was a feminist writer and activist in early 20th century Japan. She was an artist, and she received higher education at Japan Women's College. She joined the Japanese Bluestocking Society (青鞜社, Seitō-sha) and started contributing to the Bluestocking magazine (青鞜, Seitō) in 1911. She became a controversial member because she instigated the "Five-colored sake" and Yoshiwara incidents and because of her lesbian affair with Hiratsuka Raicho. She left the group in 1912, and after dealing with her declining mental and physical health, she went on to marry Tomimoto Kenkichi, change her name to Tomimoto Kazue, and have two children. Otake lived separately from Kenkichi for many years, and she started going by her pen name again during this time. The couple divorced following World War II because of their extreme political differences. In her writing career post-Bluestocking, she incorporated first-wave feminist, Marxist, and anti-imperialist ideas into her fiction works. While she is regarded as a pioneer for queer feminism in Japan, her extended breaks from writing to raise her children and protest the Second Sino-Japanese War led to her having a whitewashed legacy.

Early years Otake Kazue was born in 1893 in Osaka. Her father was a woodcut printing artist and urged her to be his heir, and her mother educated her about feminine arts like shamisen (三味線) and dance. Her mother was a Sōtō Zen Buddhist and her father was from a Jōdo Shinshū family. Her father later converted to Christianity and changed his name to Francisco Otake after his wife died and his daughter moved to Tokyo.

Growing up, Otake would often sneak to the library and read books that offered different perspectives about life. Some of her ideological influences were Dostoyevsky, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Buddha, Da Vinci, and Hiratsuka Raicho. Within a year of joining, Otake became a controversial figure within the group for the "Five-colored sake" incident, the Yoshiwara Incident, and her relationship with Hiratsuka Raicho.

"Five-colored sake" Incident In the summer of 1912, Otake was out at a restaurant gathering subscriptions for Bluestocking. She was shown a new cocktail that had five different liquors in it. In her excitement over the drink, she wrote a fictional story about Hiratsuka drinking the "Five-colored sake" with a man.

The press called attention to the affair by calling Hiratsuka a sex-addicted bisexual and Otake a natural lesbian. Both were also mocked for their masculine gender expressions and imitation of nanshoku. Women's Art fiction writer Funa fairytale writer