World Kamishibai Forum LIVE in 2025 in San Diego (CA) and San Marcos (TX)

On February 13, 2025, master kamishibai storytellers from Japan—Mimoto Fumiyo, Araki Fumiko—kamishibai pioneer from Peru, Pepe Cabana-Kojachi, and WKF co-founders Tara McGowan and Donna Tamaki all converged in San Diego, CA, the home of our host and sponsor, Walter Ritter, co-founder of the WKF and executive director of the theater troupe Write Out Loud, to take part in the first LIVE World Kamishibai Forum festival.

On February 14, we presented kamishibai performances, ranging from 30-40 minutes per session at four San Diego public elementary schools, for a total of 645 children in classes ranging from kindergarten to 5 ^th grade. Some of the children were bilingual Spanish/English speakers and some were learning Japanese in the classroom or in an after-school program. Most of the performances were done with interpretation from Japanese to English by the organizers or volunteers and Spanish to English by volunteers. 

February 15 ^th  and 16 ^th was the festival began at the state-of-the-art San Diego Central Public Library. Since 2020, literally all of the WKF events have been held online, and this was the first time for everyone—the organizers, presenters and the forty registrants—to meet in person.

The event began with a day-long series of workshops led by the international presenters and Tara McGowan. The registrants were mostly from California, especially the San Diego area, but there were even guests from far-flung places like Australia and Hungary. The sessions were also livestreamed, and twenty-five people from around the world—Latin America, India, Europe, the US and even Japan—joined via Zoom. Videos of the workshops are available on the WKF website .

“The History of Kamishibai Animation” Presented by Tara McGowan –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_f6pZ2sDvw

“Kamishibai Performance Techniques” Presented by Araki Fumiko (aka Bunchan) –  https://youtu.be/91x04Ffz1i8?si=kFVb4d8k4EkzVbMM

“When and How Kamishibai Can Be Used” Presented by Pepe Cabana Kojachi –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ErxgO6vZw

“Creating Kamishibai Workshop” Mimoto Fumiyo (aka Piman) –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtWKYrrfeQU

The overall response to the workshops was that they were “inspirational, informative, fun.” One librarian, who was more experienced with kamishibai wrote: “Today was fantastic. I’ve been doing this for 15+ years, but only took one short, online workshop, which felt great at the time, but this really BUILDS on that and the interactive activities were so useful. Also beneficial to see international performers with LIVE translation. MUCH BETTER than videos or online live zoom meetings.”

On February 16, approximately 30 people gathered for the Open-Mic session, where participants had an opportunity to perform their own stories. This was the first-ever such event in the US, and we were delighted to have at least 10 storytellers, including participants from Australia and Hungary, telling many original works and a few published ones. Everyone agreed in their comments that the Open Mic should be longer at the next LIVE Forum and include time for coaching sessions with the master-storytellers.

World Kamishibai Forum LIVE in San Marcos (TX)

Our other school program took place in San Marcos, TX, home of Texas State University, which was founded as a teachers’ college and still boasts a large education department. This programming was partially funded by the Japan Foundation of New York, the Department of Education at Texas State University and private donations. Our host, Prof. Jesse Gainer, made arrangements for the WKF presenters and organizers to perform at all seven public elementary schools in San Marcos. On February 18, they performed for the entire second-grade class at the De Zavala Elementary School (120 children) and, in the evening, put on a free program for the San Marcos community at the beautiful, historic Price Center. Although kamishibai was virtually unknown in San Marcos, over 120 people (children, university students, faculty and the general public) filled the center to capacity. The response was overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic.

In total, across all the events in both San Diego (740) and San Marcos (635), our audience members added up to more than 1,375 children and adults, the majority of whom had never experienced kamishibai before. We were particularly delighted with the response from educators both in San Diego and San Marcos, who, in the follow-up survey, all said that they wanted more programming like this and would be interested in participating in kamishibai workshops in the future. 

We would like to thank the Toshiba International Foundation and Japan Foundation for their generous support of these events. And also the following organizations:

• Write Out Loud, San Diego, CA: non-profit sponsor of World Kamishibai Forum/ Coordinator of all on-the-ground arrangements in San Diego for
• World Kamishibai Forum Live 2025, USA
• City of San Diego Central Public Library, San Diego, CA/ In-kind use of its facilities for the World Kamishibai Forum Live 2025’s in-person workshops (2/15-16), USA
• San Diego-Yokohama Sister Cities Society/ Organized kamishibai performances at three San Diego public elementary schools, USA
• Dept of Education, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX /A funder of San Marcos tour, USA
• Price Center, San Marcos, TX/ In-kind use of its facilities, USA
• Public elementary schools in San Marcos, TX/ Assisted in organizing kamishibai performances on campuses of all six of its schools, USA