Author: Wakamoto sugoroku.
Title: [Wakamoto - Manga Kenko Sugoroku].
Description: Tokyo, Wakamoto [c1930]. Colour poster 63x46cm. Minor signs of use, a smallish hole in the bottle, upper left. ¶ An early bit of advertising from the health supplement makers and I don't think they've ever done better. The company started in 1929 in Shiba and opened a new plant in 1932; here the address is Shiba. This is a sugoroku, a racing game, and it's a succinct lesson in economics and industrialisation. The body as a machine had been explored by more than one graphic artist but here is not so much an intermediate step as a rational alternative. A production line may be useful but when labour is cheap why would you spend money on machinery? A decent length of sewage pipe, some vats and a manned treatment pond will do the job.

Keywords: graphic art advertising posters c20th Japan modernism Asia sugoroku games medicine health science economics paper games manga