Kamishibai is an old Japanese tradition in which a storyteller would use an easel with drawings on it to illustrate his or her stories. Children would come around to see these stories, perhaps pay some money. In return, the storyteller might give out candy in a gesture of "okashi" or return. Many manga and anime artists in Japan have drawn much inspiration from these picture plays. For an example of the story cards used in traditional Kamishibai storytelling, go to Kamishibai for Kids, which also sells kits of Kamishibai cards.

Accursed Toys has created a program that captures the spirit of the Kamishibai. With this program, you can create a story with pictures, text, sound and music. The stories can not only be simply linear, with a beginning, middle and end, but they can also have multiple paths weaving throughout the story!

Otaku World is the official Web Site for Kamishibai. Stories created for Kamishibai can be found here as well as the latest version of the Kamishibai viewer. We heartily encourage you to create your own stories and allow us to distribute them from here. The viewer archive has all the documentation you need to get started.

Kamishibai is a freely distributable, complete program with the exception that no money can be charged for distribution without the prior written consent of Accursed Toys.

We encourage everyone to spread Kamishibai everywhere.

Click here to get the Kamishibai Viewer!