Manga Open House

A supplement to the Jan. 1926 issue (v. 21 no. 1) of Fujin Sekai (The World of Women), a monthly women’s magazine.

supplement to the New Year 1929 issue of Shufu no Tomo

For its New Year’s Day 1918 issue, the popular children’s magazine Youth World (Shōnen Sekai) included a “sugoroku” (literally “double sixes,” a game similar to “snakes and ladders”) game as its holiday supplement. Although the starting point shows a cheering crowd sending off a Japanese warplane, all other scenes are in Europe.
The game emphasizes technologies of war: airplanes, seaplanes, zeppelins, cannon, tanks, bombs. The winning move brings the player into the cockpit of an airplane from which bombs are being dropped. Vivid colors bring battles to life, whether on land, air or sea.
The artist, Ikeda (1889-1950), worked as a “manga reporter” for Yomiuri Newspaper and drew cartoons for Yomiuri Sunday Manga during this period.

On New Year’s Day 1915 The New Aichi Newspaper, a regional newspaper in Nagoya, published this game board as a holiday supplement. This “sugoroku” (literally “double sixes,” a game similar to “snakes and ladders”) depicts events of Autumn 1914, when Japan defeated Germany in Qingdao (China) and in Micronesia, including Jaluit Atoll which is shown at the top.
Combining fun with learning, the game emphasizes the heroism of soldiers and depicts the outcome as a “triumphal return” at war’s end, while introducing the vocabulary of war through such terms as: military staff, fusillade (simultaneous firing of rifles on command), prisoners of war, care packages.