Kamishibai (kah-mee-she-bye) is said to have started in the 1930s, but it is part of a long tradition of picture storytelling in Japan. Early precursors of kamishibai were not easily transportable, but in the late 1920s a form of kamishibai was developed for a small wooden stage that could be strapped onto a bicycle and carried from town to town. The kamishibai performer made a living by selling candy, and he told his stories in serial fashion so that audiences came repeatedly to buy candy and to hear the next episode of the story. Just as precursors of kamishibai had modeled themselves on popular forms of traditional theater, such as kabuki, this new form drew heavily on techniques and story lines from popular films. Many of the performers had worked as benshi (narrators for silent films), and, when talking pictures came into Japan, they turned to kamishibai for their livelihood.
Kamishibai is poor man's theater, and it flourished during a time when Japan experienced extreme financial hardship. In the 1930s, Japan suffered an economic depression that sent many people onto the streets looking for a way to live from one day to the next, and kamishibai offered artists and storytellers a meager living. During and after World War II, kamishibai became an ever more integral part of the society as a form of entertainment that could be transported into bomb shelters and even devastated neighborhoods. At this time, it was entertainment as much for adults as for children.
By the 1950s and the advent of television, kamishibai had become so popular that television was initially referred to as denki (electric) kamishibai. As Japan became increasingly affluent, however, kamishibai became associated with poverty and backwardness. The kamishibai teller's candy was considered unsanitary and the stories unwholesome. Increasingly parents and educators pushed to have kamishibai stories harnessed to educational aims, and today the kamishibai storyboards published in Japan are mainly sold to schools and libraries. Eventually kamishibai as a street-performance art all but disappeared. The artists who had made their living with kamishibai turned to more lucrative pursuits, notably the creation of manga (comic books) and later anime, but they never forgot their roots in kamishibai.
—Tara McGowan,
Japanese folklore scholar