ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by explaining what kamishibai was, its vicissitudes as a medium and as a phenomenon, and how its fortunes were linked with various other developments of Japanese modernity—cultural, technological, economic, political, and architectural. From the late 1920s until the early 1970s, an entertainment medium called "kamishibai" enjoyed enormous popularity in Japan. It will elucidate the ways that the fantasy space produced by kamishibai was used during the war years to construct and maintain an imperial social imaginary capable of encompassing a range of classes, in both urban and rural areas, in Japan, on the battlefield, and in the colonies. When kamishibai disappeared from the urban street corner, the street corner itself changed. Government-sponsored kamishibai were mass produced and distributed through educational and government networks, and were sold in bookstores—a production and distribution process very different from street-corner kamishibai.
