Background

Kamishibai, picture card shows, paper theater or paper drama, first appeared in Japan in the late 1920s performed as street theater, although their origins have been dated back to ancient Japanese picture scrolls, emakimono. The stories, told through the use of picture cards, each typically about 15 inches wide x 11 inches high, with narration by a gaitō kamishibaiya, “street kamishibai storyteller,” informally called ojisan kamishibaiya or "uncle kamishibai," quickly became a big hit with children, with the narrators hawking candy and toys to the assembled audience before the performance.

As Japan fell into the Great Depression in the early 1930s, this form of theater, requiring minimum investment, became even more popular and diverse in its content, expanding into the areas of education, religion and more adult themes. "It is estimated that, during the years of the Great Depression, some 3,000 kamishibai storytellers were operating in the city of Tokyo, [and in] Japan as a whole, the number of gaitō kamishibaiya, who travelled by bicycle between performances, reached almost 30,000.[1]

National Policy Kamishibai

As Japan entered into its period of colonial expansion and the 1931-1945 Asia-Pacific War (Fifteen Year War), "the government was quick to recognize and exploit the potential of this medium"[2] and "after 1938, the use of kamishibai . . . for the purpose of glorifying state projects," known as National Policy Kamishibai (国策紙芝居 kokusaku kamishibai), became commonplace.[3] While many of the wartime kamishibai were directed at children and students, many more were targeted at adults, "particularly those of the lower classes," reaching out to factory workers, farmers and small and family business owners.[4]

As censorship and the suppression of those with liberal views grew at home, the originally left-leaning Nihon Kyōiku Kamishibai Renmei 日本教育紙芝居連盟 (Japanese Educational Kamishibai Federation) was co-opted into the war effort under the Nihon Kyōiku Kamishibai Kyōkai 日本敎育紙芝居協會 (Japanese Association for Educational Kamishibai).[5] Many of its founders, such as one of this collection's kamishibai editors, Saki Akio 佐木秋夫 (1906-1988), a liberal religious scholar, shifted their "politics to a pro-government, pro-war stance."[6]

"By the early 1940s . . . all plays were being produced under the auspices of the state" and "under state sponsorship kamishibai plays [were being] sent to every corner of the country and every far-flung outpost of the colonies."[7]

Not surprisingly, "in a very large percentage of kamishibai plays . . . the end goal of the narrative was to produce a soldier who was ready to die willingly for the sake of the ‘holy war’ (seisen)."[8]

As with the artist Nonoguchi Shigeru 野々口重 (1912-?), a prolific illustrator of kamishibai including this collection's "Behind Distinguished Service," little is known about many of the wartime kamishibai illustrators. To encourage these many men (only one woman illustrator has been identified) their work was overseen by better-known artists such as the fine art painters Fukuda Toyoshirō (1904–1970) and Miyamoto Saburō (1905–1974), hired by the Japanese Association for Educational Kamishibai in late 1941.[9]

After Japan's surrender in September 1945, US Occupation forces imposed strict censorship on kamishibai storytelling, along with other performing arts, literature, and media. During this period, many National Policy Kamishibai were destroyed, making it impossible to determine how many were originally produced.[10] 

Though restricted by censorship, kamishibai persisted in postwar Japan, albeit in a diminished state. As scholar Stephanie Marie Hohlios notes, the art form "suffers loss and shortage along with the rest of Japanese society and hobbles along in the immediate postwar years, a mirror for the nation at large."[11]

Although weakened, it was the increasing presence of televisions in nearly every home after the advent of broadcast TV in 1953, that ultimately led to the decline of kamishibai and their storytellers by the early 1960s, TVs being present in almost 3/4 of households by 1963.[12]

A Resurgence

Today, there is a resurgence of interest in kamishibai, driven largely by teachers, cultural centers, and libraries. Internationally, organizations such as UNESCO, the Petite Bibliothèque Ronde, and the International Kamishibai Association of Japan are promoting its use as a teaching tool "to encourage reading [and] to offer new forms of theater performance."[13]

Their efforts have helped revitalize kamishibai, making it once again a recognized form of storytelling. However, the traditional street performances by kamishibaiya are a relic of the past.[14]

[1] "Kamishibai: An Intangible Cultural Heritage of Japanese Culture and its Application in Infant Education," Ana María Marqués-Ibáñez appearing in, Képzés és gyakorlat, 2017. 15. Evfolyam 1-2. Szam, p. 31. 02_Ana_Ibanez_tanulmany_2017_1_2_u.pdf [accessed 3-21-25] Other estimates of the number of kamishibai performers are closer to 60,000.

[2] Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (Japan and the Modern World), David Earhart, pub. M.E. Sharpe, 2008, page 412 note 7.

[3] Propaganda Performed: Kamishibai in Japan's Fifteen Year War, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Brill, Leiden, 2015, p. 54.

[4] ibid., p. 2.

[5] ibid., p. 88.

[6] ibid., p. 55. Many years after the war in a television broadcast Saki would say, “When I think about it now [after the war], I know that I made some awfully stupid things. But I would have been risking my life if I hadn't made them." [source: "Kamishibai as Propaganda in Wartime Japan," Emily Horner, appearing in Storytelling, Self, Society, FALL 2005, Vol. 2, No. 1 , Wayne State University Press, p. 29, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41948951 accessed 7-19-24]; Saki was to continue his involvement with kamishibai after the war with the formation of the Democratic People’s Kamishibai Assembly, in March of 1948, under his leadership. [source: "Gaitō Kamishibai in Postwar Japan: Picture-Storytelling Performance in the Democratic Public Sphere," Stephanie Marie Hohlios, a thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah, College of Humanities, May 2015, p.17. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6f79mwg accessed 2-8-25]

[7] op. cit. Propaganda Performed, p. 3, 55, 56.

[8] ibid. p. 90.

[9] "National Policy Kamishibai," Hoover Institution Library & Archives https://fanningtheflames.hoover.org/shorthand-story/8 [accessed 7-18-24]

[10] Kokusaku kamishibai kara miru Nihon no sensō  国策紙芝居からみる日本の戦争, Yasuda Tuneo, Tōkyō-to Chiyoda-ku: Bensei Shuppan, 2018, foreword p. IV.

[11] "Gaitō Kamishibai in Postwar Japan: Picture-Storytelling Performance in the Democratic Public Sphere," Stephanie Marie Hohlios, Master's thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah, May 2015, p. 15 https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6f79mwg [accessed 3-21-2025]

[12] "Kamishibai as Propaganda in Wartime Japan," Emily Horner appearing in Storytelling, Self, Society, FALL 2005, Vol. 2, No. 1 , pp. 21-31, Wayne State University Press, p. 29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41948951 [accessed 7-19-24]; 1963 TV penetration estimate taken from "Memories of New Left Protest," appearing in Contemporary Japan, 25:2, 127-165, Patricia G. Steinhoff, Routledge, 2013, p. 131 https://doi.org/10.1515/cj-2013-0007 [accessed 2-8-25]

[13] op. cit. Kamishibai: An Intangible Cultural Heritage, p. 27.

[14] op. cit. Kamishibai: An Intangible Cultural Heritage, p. 32-33. 

Additional References

Kamishibai Collections Online

Hoover Institution Library & Archives Digital Collections https://digitalcollections2.hoover.org/browse?q=facet,parents,equals,14941&q=must,any,contains,Kamishibai&limit=10 and https://fanningtheflames.hoover.org/kamishibai-collection [accessed 7-21-24]

The University of British Columbia Libraries https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/kamishibai [accessed 7-21-24]

Children's Culture Institute Kamishibai Reference Room https://kodomonobunnka.or.jp/kamishibai-search/ [accessed 7-22-24]

Kanagawa University Digital Archive

https://www.i-repository.net/il/meta_pub/G0000723kamishibai [accessed 7-22-24]

National Museum of Taiwan History Collections Search Page https://collections.nmth.gov.tw/WebSearch.aspx?a=206&q=%2c - search on the term "紙芝居" [accessed 8-4-24]

Kamishibai Performances Online

Shinsu War Materials Center 戦時紙芝居「甦る鐘」　日中戦争・太平洋戦争下の宣伝戦 (“Wartime Kamishibai ‘The Resounding Bell’: Propaganda during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War”) https://youtu.be/K3tqgdg9mgI?feature=shared [accessed 7-22-24]

Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Kamishibai Collection, an animated reproduction of "Heitai gokko (Soldier Play),"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrv428_QNwA&t=22s [accessed 2-6-25]

Books and Articles

Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (Japan and the Modern World), David Earhart, Routledge, 2008.

Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan, Kaoru Ueda, Hoover Institution Press, 2021.

"Gaitō Kamishibai in Postwar Japan: Picture-Storytelling Performance in the Democratic Public Sphere," Stephanie Marie Hohlios, a thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah, College of Humanities, May 2015.

https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6f79mwg

“Gospel and War Propaganda Take to the Streets! The Rise of ‘Educational Kamishibai’ (教育紙芝居),” Tara M. McGowan, Princeton University, Cotsen Children’s Library, posted 2019.

https://blogs.princeton.edu/cotsen/2019/08/educational-kamishibai/

“Illustrations of War from a Remote Battlefield: Images of the Enemy in Japanese Kamishibai and Chinese Manhua, 1938-1945,” Chen Wang, a thesis, University of British Columbia, 2022. 

https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0412911

“Kamishibai: An Intangible Cultural Heritage of Japanese Culture and its Application in Infant Education,” Ana María Marqués-Ibáñez appearing in, Képzés és gyakorlat, 2017. 15. Evfolyam 1-2. Szam, p. 25-44.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320543006_Kamishibai_An_intangible_cultural_heritage_of_Japanese_culture_and_its_application_in_Infant_Education

"Kamishibai as Propaganda in Wartime Japan," Emily Horner, appearing in Storytelling, Self, Society, Vol. 2, No. 1 (FALL 2005), Wayne State University Press, p. 21-31. 

http://www.jstor.com/stable/41948951 

Kokusaku kamishibai kara miru Nihon no sensō  国策紙芝居からみる日本の戦争, Yasuda Tuneo, Tōkyō-to Chiyoda-ku : Bensei Shuppan, 2018.

Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater, Eric P. Nash, Abrams Comicarts, 2009.

Propaganda Performed: Kamishibai in Japan's Fifteen Year War, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Brill, 2015.

Other References

Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints, University of Oregon  https://pages.uoregon.edu/jsmacollections/home/artists/wada-sanzo-1883-1967/picture-card-show-from-the-series-3bfe4d65dbba8ead.html

Kamishibai in Collection

click on thumbnail for print details

revision history:

revised 04-06-2025 added alt text

revised 03-21-25

revised 02-09-25

released 02-02-25