[Tokyo] 東京 , すばる 書房 , 1977.
Oblong 8vo. [32] pp., ill.
“More interesting than television, more interesting than manga” — the belly band’s claim. The only edition of this interactive book, complete with its film overlay.
The book uses barrier-grid animation, or scanimation, a technique that originated in the late 1890s. The reader holds the striped transparent sheet in front of an illustration, leaving a little space between them, and slides it slowly from left to right; the image comes to life. Or, as the belly band puts it, it is "more interesting than television and manga". Among the scenes of nature and people are moving illustrations featuring The Beatles, Dracula, the Korean-Japanese wrestler
Rikidōzan, and an imagined bout between the legendary sumo wrestlers Kitanoumi and Takanohana, among others.This interactive book also plays with language: each successive word begins with the syllable on which the previous word ends.
The book was made by Furukawa Taku (古川タク; b. 1941), an animator, illustrator and children's book author, president of the Japan Animation Association and an adviser to the Japan Cartoonists Association. His son, Furukawa Shuntaro, is the president of Nintendo.
One of Furukawa's more notable contributions to animation history was his revival of the phenakistiscope, the nineteenth-century European optical toy. His 1975 animated short "Odoroki-ban" (驚き盤), built on the device, took the Jury Prize at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Binding & condition
Original pictorial paper boards and pictorial dust jacket, with belly band. Publisher’s 1977 catalogue and reader’s card laid in. Near very good: light rubbing to the jacket spine, small tears, foxing to jacket and belly band.
Rarity
No copy located outside Japan on OCLC.
