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LIKE AMERICAN KIDS swarm around the television set, Japanese kids rush to the kami-shibai (paper show).  Traveling proprietors carry the show to cities and towns and, to the pounding of their big bass drum, they set up the show on the street corner.  The kids hurry to see it.

Kami-shibai features funny stories, cartoons, told through a series of large, picture cards.  A dozen-or-so of the cards are stacked one behind the other and, as the showman keeps pulling out the cards, he narrates the story.

Admission to the "paper show" is free, but the kids are expected to buy candy from the traveling picture man.  And the kid who buys the most candy gets to stand up front, at ringside.  The kid who buys no candy is shooed away, retreated to the rear.

Some of the portable shows are like the goose-pimply detective thrillers or television adventure serials in that they are "to be continued."  But completed or incompleted the Japanese kids love the booming excitement of kami-shibai.  American youngsters, though, don't give a hoot for picture cards and a narrating showman.  Their heart is with Hopalong and Captain Video, the fearless figures of the television screen.

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