The Gods Make You Giggle: Finding Religion in Japanese Picturebooks from the Postwar to the Postmillennial

Incisive and fun, The Gods Make You Giggle draws readers into the world of Japanese picturebooks, where the sublime can erupt from the everyday and hell may just turn out to be hilarious.Juxtaposing analyses of folksy retellings, mid-century classics, and avant-garde provocations, this study crafts dynamic new perspectives on religion and history while also showcasing the richness and sophistication of one of the world’s most vibrant children’s literatures. Because Japan’s mainstream picturebook repertoire eschews overt engagement with religious doctrines and institutions, most authors, illustrators, and critics see it as simply and self-evidently non-religious.The Gods Make You Giggle turns that thinking on its head.Taking its cues from picturebooks themselves, it frames religion as a ground for play, open to irreverence, ambivalence, surprise, and transformation.In turn, it shows that religion, reconceptualized in a ludic frame, energizes the picturebook repertoire; in fact, many adu