Flip fantasia: Engaging an audience with kamishibai

January 12, 2012 by CJ

Yuta Sasaki with his iPad in Akihabara

(Photo by Tokyo Reporter, October 20, 2011)

TOKYO (TR) – Developing an understanding of the present global financial debacle has perplexed experts and laymen worldwide. One difficulty is that obscure topics like “sub-prime loan” and “sovereign risk” make little sense without a detailed explanation. Another challenge lies in comprehending the mechanics for how these elements came together to fuel the crisis.

The October 1 issue of Tokyo-based weekly business magazine Shukan Diamond took a unique approach to simplify things. Over ten consecutive even-numbered pages — excluding a subscription insert — the publication printed a single descriptive phrase above a half-page cartoon, each　representing a stage in the crisis, to accompany the charts, tables, and main text of an article about the problem.

In the first drawing, a sharply dressed banker is seen handing over home loan agreements (stamped “sub-prime”) to citizens atop a stick of lit dynamite; next, Barack Obama, former Prime Minister Taro Aso, and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao drop armfuls of cash from the basket of a hot-air balloon floating just beneath a darkened sky; and so on. The idea is that a reader will turn each page, almost like a flipbook, and easily comprehend how, for example, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers influenced the lowering of Japan’s credit rating. [See more photos in this roll]