The hunt for some of the best Kamishibai compilations ever made

Although a couple of Kamishibai history books are rather old, that doesn’t mean they’re easy to find outside of Japan. The one that I borrowed from TAFE is a valuable (although feebly translated and overtly favouring the best known stories) memoir from New York Times bestselling author Eric P. Nash. 

The most popular pre-90s Kamishibai history book in Japan is a retrospective memoir made by the late Kamishibai megastar Kōji Kata; who defined the art style of Golden Bat for nearly 3 decades. First published in 1971, it has two more editions, an updated reprint made in 1979 and (after its author’s untimely death at 79-80 in 1998) a posthumously revised one made in 2004. 

Perhaps the hardest to find of them all was a huge, compiled encyclopaedia of surviving Kamishibai works mostly from the post war Showa period. Although it might’ve bombed so badly in terms of book sales, the really elusive 14 volume set is still quite popular with Japanese academics to this day. Its first seven volumes were made in 1994, while the other seven were made in 1995.