Japanese Game Boards 113 items

Cotsen Children’s Library houses approximately three hundred Japanese game boards published from the nineteenth century through the 1950s. This is a digital showcase of that collection. The majority of the game boards are sugoroku, with rules similar to the dice-based "Snakes and Ladders." Sugoroku has entertained the Japanese for centuries. A wide range of topics and themes can be found in the heavily illustrated game boards, which served not only for recreation but also for religious enlightenment, the dissemination of information, commercial advertising, literacy education, moral and political socialization, and militarist propaganda targeting children and adults alike.