Artist: Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林清親, 1847–1915) Title: Ninpu Boshūjo (人夫募集所) — "The Labourer Recruitment Office" Series: Shakai Gentō — Hyakusen Hyakushō (社會幻燈 百撰百笑) — "Society Magic Lantern: One Hundred Selections, One Hundred Laughs," Kiyochika's First Sino-Japanese War satire series Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); satirical caricature (fūshiga / giga) with comic text Date: Meiji 28 (1895) Publisher: Matsuki Heikichi (松木平吉) Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24 cm Condition: A well-registered impression with colours fairly preserved — Some moderate toning consistent with age. Some ink transfer. Fair condition overall! About the print A dense, jostling crowd of men presses toward a recruitment notice pinned up outside an office — the banner at left announces it plainly: a hiring post for labourers bound for Taiwan (臺灣人夫募集). At the centre, a seated clerk with an ink brush poised in hand takes down names from an open register, his sly, faintly self-satisfied expression suggesting he knows exactly what he is selling these men. Around him the crowd churns in every direction — men craning over shoulders to see the notice, others already turning away in argument or complaint, faces caricatured into gaping mouths, bulging eyes, and toothy grins in Kiyochika's exaggerated satirical manner. It is less an orderly hiring queue than a scrum, the promise of paid work in Japan's newly acquired colony pulling in a crowd desperate enough not to look too closely at the terms. About the Series Hyakusen Hyakushō ("One Hundred Selections, One Hundred Laughs") is Kiyochika's celebrated series of single-sheet comic prints lampooning the Qing enemy during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), with biting captions by Koppi Dōjin and publication by Matsuki Heikichi. The title is a pun: 百撰百笑 echoes 百戦百勝, "a hundred battles, a hundred victories." The prints appeared under two related banners — the well-known Nihon Banzai ("Long Live Japan") and, as here, Shakai Gentō ("Society Magic Lantern") — the latter used for the later sheets on the 1895 Taiwan campaign. Together they are among the most sought-after examples of Meiji satirical printmaking.