Author: Sugoroku. Kawabata Ryushi.
Title: [Shonen Mirai Ryoko Sugoroku].
Description: Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 78x54cm. Some browning and minor signs of use; not bad. ¶ The New Year gift from the boy's magazine Nihon Shonen. A view of travel in the future, this is among my favourites of the travel adventure sugoroku and hard to find in anything like one piece. Doubtless it was a favourite with many others too. Kawabata did several of the best, most captivating, sugoroku of the period. His career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic art Asia progress travel transport science fiction fantasy utopias