Suzuki Gyosui. [Kasei Tanken Dai Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1931 (Showa 6). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A little browning and a couple of spots; rather good. Au$450
The new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen is a splendid, faithful record of these Japanese boys' expedition to Mars. Artist of many parts, Suzuki had accompanied some intrepid boys on a ferocious zeppelin tour of the world the year before this and made a specialty of battle scenes in later years. Before this he produced gentle night scene woodcuts.
Tsutsumi Kanzo. [Manga sugoroku sekai haya nozoki]. Nagoya(?), Shin Aichi 1931 (Showa 6). Colour lithograph broadside, 55x70cm; Folded, a touch of nibbling on one edge; a nice copy with the playing pieces intact in the right margin. Au$400
Sugoroku, these paper racing games, like most genres of Japanese graphics range from the fabulous, through insipid to kitsch to awful to downright disturbing. This one is up the fabulous end of the scale.
Tsutsumi - one of the great pioneers of modern manga - takes two young aviators on quick world tour and shows them all the most important things. Curious, for me, is that each stop is not headed with the country name but some quality, some spectacle, some activity. Thus meeting Mussolini in Italy is titled 'hero'; for baseball we see see Babe Ruth knocking over a New York skyscraper; tennis is Henri Cochet in France; film is of course Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood; science is a zeppelin in Germany; war is Chiang Kai-shek in China; manners are learnt in England from Ramsay MacDonald; I'm not sure what the gymnastic penguins in the Antarctic represent. And so on round the globe with celebrity and national stereotypes galore.
Niizeki Kennosuke (?) [Boken Manga Takarajima Tanken Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shogakukan 1935 (Showa 10). Colour broadside 54x78cm. A bit used: rumpled with some short tears in folds. Not bad. Au$325
This exciting adventure with the natives, giant apes and tigers of a coral island was the new year gift from the Shogaku magazine for third graders. An exemplary lesson as to why every eight year old should be issued a service revolver before they leave the house.
Advertising Sugoroku. [Shobai Hanei Sugoroku]. Tokyo printed, Notagawa Ekimae Shoten 1935 (Showa 10). Colour broadside 79x55cm. Minor signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$400
A proper aspirational sugoroku for girls and young women. Prosperity is the reward for the perfect modern girl: good husband, handsome family and shopping, shopping shopping. This shopping game advertises the glamorous range of businesses in Notagawa - now part of Higashiomi, more or less half way between Kyoto and Nagoya. The same game, relabelled, was used for businesses of Matsumoto City. A very similar - a few panels the same - but not so modern game - more kimonos, fewer cars, furs and bobbed or marcelled heads - with the same title was issued the year before by the newspaper Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun for readers in the Iwamurata-machi area. You don't waste a good idea and a decent bit of artwork.
Advertising Sugoroku. [Shobai Hanei Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Sankosha 1935 (Showa 10). Colour broadside 80x56cm, folded as issued. Minimal signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$300
A proper aspirational sugoroku for girls and young women. Prosperity is the reward for the perfect modern girl: good husband, handsome family and shopping, shopping shopping. This shopping game advertises the glamorous range of businesses in Notagawa - now part of Higashiomi, more or less half way between Kyoto and Nagoya. The same game, relabelled, was used for businesses of Matsumoto City. A very similar - a few panels the same - but not so modern game - more kimonos, fewer cars, furs and bobbed or marcelled heads - with the same title was issued the year before by the newspaper Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun for readers in the Iwamurata-machi area. You don't waste a good idea and a decent bit of artwork.
Advertising sugoroku. [Katata Shobai Hanjo Sugoroku]. Katata Shimbun 1936 (Showa 11) Colour broadside 54x79cm. A somewhat rumpled but decent copy. Au$200
A rare, cheerful advertising game featuring local businesses, issued as the new year gift by the newspaper Katata Shimbun. I'm not sure where the Katata Shimbun originated. I can't find a record of it. Katata is an area now in Otsu, near Kyoto, but that it comes from there is a guess.
Sugoroku. [Yumei Shoten Annai u Kure-Roku]. Tokyo, Hirohidesha 1936 (Showa 11). Colour broadsheet 54x79cm. Chewed in the left margin and along a couple of folds, marring a bright copy. Au$210
A rare, cheerful shopping game advertising the businesses of Horinouchi-cho. As there are any number of Horinouchi-chos spotted around Japan I'm not sure which one but as this seems to have come from the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun I'm guessing it's around Tokyo. I came across one other copy of the game but it has a different title and advertises different businesses in a different area.
Yamagami Kishi. [Sekai Mirai-Sen Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shogaku Gonensei 1937 (Showa 12). Colour broadside 54x789cm. Some browning and small holes in the folds, Au$300
Despite the grim colour scheme - a feature of the late thirties - and those terrifying children, this is a heart-racing view of future war. It was the new year gift from the elementary school magazine for 5th graders, Shogaku Gonensei.
Paper Toy. John Sands, Sydney. The Spanish Galleon. Sydney, John Sands [194-?]. Colour printed perforated card sheets in a ragged but essentially complete colour printed envelope (27x40cm); with 16pp octavo leaflet including instructions. Au$125
War time production by the look of it. Designed and produced by Sands for lovers of things piratic and pretty complicated - 97 pieces according to the instructions. I can't find any record of another copy.
: Medical Card for Sexual Design [Igaku Kado : Sei no Dezain hen]. Tokyo, Sansheisha Shobo 1965. 19x13cm, glossy card wallet case with 64 glossy cards. Fifty two cards printed both sides with photo illustrations of a young woman in black bodysuit on the front, one with sketches of hairstyles and the rest with diagrams and tables of reproductive organs and menstruation cycles; text and/or illustrations on the back of all. The last card is a diy rhythm calculator. All in excellent shape. Au$150
Even after deciphering the rules I'm still be baffled by this triumph of sixties sexual revolution kitsch. The first sixteen cards are blue, the rest pink; the 52 playing cards have a king's or queen's crown and one or two suit symbols - clubs, hearts &c - most have two but one has an A. The rules tell us there is only one ace but not what it's good for. Is the odd card out, the hairstyles, the joker? So the loser at Old Maid would, instead of having sex, get a new hairstyle? The gender symbols are graphic hints and must have been fun for the designer; the text on both sides is poetry; and hygiene is important. The point of the game and the rhythm calculator seems to be to give women some control in the new era of liberation; not something often evident, east or west.
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