Kamishibai

A paper stage. a picture-card story show.

It used to be a very popular form of entertament for children befor the advent of television. At the sound of wooden clappers made by an entertainer, children would gather at a street corner and pay a small fee for a lolipop or the like as a treat. The showman would narrate a story dramatically, while changing scenes one by one, useing a set of picture cards in a wooden-frame miniature stage, the size of a standard television screen. (*)

All these pictures are made by cutting figures out from Japanese Paper (Washi) with a blade.