NAKAZAWA HIROMITSU, KOBAYASHI SHOKICHI & OKANO SAKAE.

東洋未来雙六. [Tōyō mirai sugoroku].
[Future of the East Sugoroku Game].

博文館. [Hakubunkan]. Meiji 40 [ 1907]. Stock ID #223758

Colour folding sugoroku game, 55 x 78.5cm. Small splits at folds, some marking on reverse, some light wear and browning but overall very good.

A fascinating sugoroku game published in the New Year edition of the journal Taiyo, this offers a somewhat tongue-in-cheek imagined vision of the future of East Asia. Taiyo was founded in 1895 and it became a leading intellectual magazine of the period. This was a crucial moment in East Asian history, when Japan, following its recent victory in the Russo-Japanese War, was tightening its political and economic grip on Korea, and the Chinese Empire was in the final stages of collapse.

The game starts with the opening of the Japanese-dominated South Manchurian Railway, and goes on to show images including "the future of female students" (showing them undergoing military training); Chinese "high collar" (modern culture); "the future of honeymoons" (a couple in a hot air balloon adorned with a variant of the Japanese flag where the rising sun is replaced by a red heart); the future of soldiers (a dandyish soldier studying an opera poster through his monocle); The East Asian Great War (the US and Britain with a Japanese rising sun cap contesting with Germany and France for control of a football in the form of a world globe); socialism (grimly depicted as exiles migrating to Siberia); the Japanisation of Korea (including a Korean girl twirling an elegant umbrella); and an unflattering depiction of a woman lawyer. The final and central panel shows "The Opening in Tokyo of the Great World Peace Conference" adorned with the English words "Peace and Humanity".

When referring to this item please quote stockid 223758.

Price: $600.00 AU

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