Precursors to Japan's huge manga industry, ehon (literally, "picture books") were first published circa A.D. 770 by an empress attempting to encourage Buddhist piety among her subjects with 1 million pictographic prayer scrolls. More than 12 centuries later, Takashi Murakami, maestro of Japan's world-girdling pop culture, created Gaudy Tawdry (2003), a book of saccharine-hued, gape-mouthed smiley

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