Sugoroku Collection

Commonly compared to the board game chutes and ladders, e-sugoroku is said in origin to have demonstrated the uncertain path to enlightenment. By the late Tokugawa, the game incorporated more secular themes, such as the stages of the Tokaido or the journey from childhood to adulthood. The game sheets were printed by woodblock (or lithography in the modern age) and therefore extremely ephemeral. The East Asian Library acquired 155 sugoroku sheets (and 27 original wrappers) with the Mitsui acquisition of 1950. In recent years, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, has digitized the collection, and made available online. David Rumsey and Cartography Associates have made these images also available online. Individual items can also be located through OskiCat.