Have you ever wondered how young Japanese spent their free time during the Taisho period?
Digging around in the storehouse, I think I have a clearer picture now. They played board games!
As it turns out, board games, called sugoroku in Japanese, date back to the Heian period.
During the Edo period, board games’ popularity reached their height, and were enjoyed by the masses whenever people tended to gather. Some were hand-drawn, others were printed using wood-block printing. Some games came complete with a rule book, dice and even game markers.
Typically created with seasonal themes, these board games give us a look into the customs, manners and viewpoint of the people who lived during that time.
Here is a 1929 reprint of a 1908 Meiji era girls’ department store board game.
A young girl’s friend, Shoujyo no tomo, was a popular magazine for young ladies. Founded in 1908 and published by Jitsugyo no Nihonsha Ltd, it was published forty-seven years before printing its final copy in 1955. During this period, board games like this one were often included in special New Year editions.
Girls Shopping Race was included as a supplement to Volume 22 in 1929 and was illustrated by Seiichi Akashi.
Unfolding the game, I was pleasantly surprised with the condition and state of the color. Then, my eyes were drawn to the department store and the customers. Some dressed in kimonos, and others in western clothes, all trying to make their way to the top of the department store. One can really get a feeling for what visiting a department store in the Meiji period would have been like.
Upon exiting the taxi, players are invited to roll the dice. Roll a one, two, three, or four, and you go straight ahead where you can purchase your tickets, luggage, and shoes for your train ride, but rolling a five or six, and you head to the basement where you start your shopping trip by buying fruit, canned goods and sweets before making your way up to the sixth floor.
Seiichi Akashi was born in Kumamoto prefecture in 1886 and he studied art at the Julian Academy in Paris under the painter Jules Joseph Lefbvre and the artist/sculptor Jean-Paul Laurens. After returning to Japan, Seiichi Akashi became known for his characteristic blended western-influenced art. While Seiichi was able to find steady employment as an illustrator, his work has remained relatively unknown. His name appears in records up until the early Showa period but runs cold after the end of World War II.