The Importance of the Obi in Japanese Photobooks.

The obi is one of the most interesting and unique features of Japanese photobooks, and to understand many Japanese editions it is almost essential to understand what function it had.

The obi is the narrow paper band that typically encircles a book, like a sash or belt. In Japan, it's used for books, records, and other published products, and it usually contains information not found on the front cover: title, author, publisher, price, publication date, awards, reviews, or promotional text.

In Japanese photobooks, however, the obi can have a much greater importance than that of a simple advertising element.

First, it's part of the book's editorial concept. In many Japanese editions, the design of the cover, dust jacket, and obi was conceived as a unified whole. The obi can introduce a second graphic layer, completely alter the appearance of the cover, or even use a different image than the one on the front cover.

This is especially evident in many photobooks from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The obi can practically function as a second cover.

Furthermore, it has a very important documentary function. It can indicate how the book was originally presented to the public. For example, it might include a quote from a critic, a phrase from the photographer, information about a related exhibition, an award won by the author, or even a description of the project that disappears from later editions.

Therefore, when we talk about a first Japanese edition, finding the book with its original obi can provide information that is not present in the copy without an obi.

There is also a purely physical aspect. The obi is extremely fragile. As it is a strip of paper that protrudes from the cover, it is much more easily torn, lost, stained, or damaged. Many old Japanese books that originally had an obi have survived to the present day without it.

This explains a very common situation in Japanese Photobooks: you can find two seemingly identical copies, but one retains the obi and the other does not.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the book without the obi is a different edition. It could be exactly the same edition, but incomplete compared to its original publisher's presentation.

It's also important to distinguish between different types of obi. Some are very simple, containing only the price and publishing information. Others are elaborate graphic pieces, with photographs, illustrations, or extensive text. In certain Japanese photography publications, the obi can even comprise a significant portion of the visual information accompanying the book.

And here something particularly interesting for Dartbooks appears: the obi can also help us identify editions.

Sometimes it allows you to distinguish a first edition from a reissue, a special edition from a standard edition, or an edition published for a specific exhibition. It may also contain a different original price or editorial information that allows you to place the copy chronologically.

A book can be a first edition without an obi because the obi has been lost. And a reissue can perfectly well retain an obi. The correct practice is to use the obi as one more element within the bibliographic identification, along with the colophon, the copyright page, the date, the ISBN (if one exists), the edition number, and the physical characteristics of the copy.

In particularly important Japanese photobooks, I would consider it this way:

The book is the main work.

The cover and dust jacket are part of its editorial design.

The obi is an additional layer of information and design that belongs to the original presentation of that edition.

Ultimately, the obi is one of those small details that make Japanese photography books so fascinating from an editorial perspective. It's not simply a wrapping: in many cases, it's an original element of the book's graphic and documentary architecture.