Complete digitization of 518 issues of Japan’s first graphic magazine, and the major research journal for the study of social customs. A veritable graphic encyclopedia of modernity and the recent past.
The first issue of Fuzoku Gaho was released in 1889 by Toyodo publishing house and it continued to be sold for 27 years until 1916. It was the first graphic magazine produced in Japan, and is also known as a major journal source for the research of customs and social mores.
The magazine contains a total of 518 issues covering content pertaining to social and cultural trends and conditions in the Edo, Meiji and Taisho periods; customs, history, literature, things/objects and affairs, geography (regional and world), war and disasters. Feature articles were first accompanied by lithograph illustrations that were later replaced with photography, and so the magazine assumes the characteristic of an illustrated encyclopedia for matters concerning the early modern and modern periods.
Publications featured special series, such as a number of meisho zue (illustrated guides to famous places) series, taking up the Shinsen Tokyo Meisho Zue, Yokohama Meisho Zue, and Kyoto Meisho Zue, and also single-theme extra issues, such as the Seiro Zue (photo journal of the Russo-Japanese War) and the Tokyo Kangyo Hakurankai Zue (the National Industrial Expositions in Tokyo). These issues have often served as standalone sources for research and study.
Not only does Fuzoku Gaho serve academic specialists of history, cultural mores and literature, it has also proven valuable as a historical and socio-cultural guide map for a wide range of readers in other fields.
General editor: Tsuchida Mitsufumi
Editors: Ogushi Natsumi, Yokoyama Yasuko