Gōkan

Gōkan (合巻) is a variety of Japanese woodblock printed literature under the broader category of picture books known as kusazōshi (草双紙) produced during the late Edo period from circa 1805 to the late nineteenth century. It is a successor of kibyōshi (黄表紙), which featured adult themes that changed significantly in content and style following censorship imposed by the Kansei Reforms. However, in physical form and production much remained the same between the two, such as large images with whitespace filled with narrative text and dialogue composed largely of kana.

Gōkan are typically much lengthier works than their predecessors, with the longest extant example being Shiranui Monogatari, which contains ninety chapters produced between 1849 and 1885. Because of the lengthy nature of the works, individual books were often gathered together and bound into larger volumes, which is reflected in the Japanese term for the genre (lit. "bound volume"). Gōkan, along with the rest of the kusazōshi varieties, belong to the literary genre of Edo literature known as gesaku (戯作).