Author: Sugoroku.
Title: [Katei Kyoiku Sekai Isshu Sugoroku].
Description: Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour printed broadside 109x80cm. Short tears in the margins and small holes; used but not bad for a particularly large and vulnerable sugoroku. ¶ It took me a few moments of slackjawed wonder before I realised this is a world map turned sideways and sat on. From where in space did the artist choose their viewpoint, unpeel the globe and spread it out flat? This a self titled educational game for the family. What does it teach us about our place on the planet and relationship to each other? Maybe that all maps are fiction. The Japanese flag flying in the Canadian Rockies marks the first ascent of Mount Alberta by the Japanese Alpine Club in 1925.

Keywords: paper games pastimes illustration cartoons manga sugoroku c20th Japan modernism graphic art travel maps Asia