A handful of Internet sites have been posting illustrations from a popular Japanese magazine, a 1936 issue of Shônen Club, a magazine as popular then as it is now. There are several different Shônen magazines on bookstore racks at any time, but the old Shônen Club was primarily for boys and young men. The illustrations in this old issue with its ‘future transportation’ theme, are worth a look. They are all skillfully rendered illustration-dreams of what transportation would be like in the future. The very cool and super blog, PinkTentacle tells us they were entries in the “World Transportation Invention Competition.”
From the top, the first image is the art and invention of Reiji Iizuka, showing his ‘Sphere-wheeled car.’ Mr Iizuka was inspired by a German invention.
Number two is the ‘Amazingly swift flying machine’ by Matsujirô Murakami. This one too had foreign inspiration from an American invention.
The next picture, another borrowed idea from America is the ‘Ship with built-in boat dock’ by Gyosui Suzuki.
The fourth illustration is the ‘Mountain monorail’ by Kikuzô Itô. It sort of looks like a helicopter on wheels to my eye.
The last example is named the ‘High-speed tank-style boat’ and is another by Matsujirô Murakami. Makes me imagine a machine from the old Kevin Costner movie, Waterworld.
Get a better look at these images on the PinkTentacle webpage. Or for even better quality images, click over to site PinkTentacle credits, That’s Euro Beat (all Japanese), where you can click on the five large and clear high resolution examples. There is a treasure house of great stuff on this Japanese blog-photo gallery.
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