Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) Hino Kumawakamaru (日野隈若丸) From Yoshitoshi Musha Burui (芳年武者旡類) — Yoshitoshi's Courageous Warriors, no. 14 Subject: The boy Hino Kumawakamaru and the priest Daizenbo calling back a boat on the shore of Sado Island Date: Meiji 18 (1885) Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome (nishiki-e) with karazuri embossing Publisher: Kobayashi Tetsujirō (小林鉄次郎) / Enjudō — Nihonbashi-dōri Sanchōme, Tokyo Block Carver: Tsukioka Munejirō (月岡宗次郎) Format: Ōban tate-e — approx. 36.8 × 25 cm (14½ × 9⅞ inches) Signature: Yoshitoshi ga (芳年画) with red Taiso (大蘇) artist's seal 1. Impression & Colours: Superb. An exceptionally strong impression with crisp, fine keyblock lines throughout and beautifully saturated colours. The deep Prussian blue of the churning waves retains its full intensity, graduating from dark troughs to pale crests with perfectly controlled bokashi. The vivid vermillion of Kumawakamaru's robe blazes against the muted sage greens and olive of the priest's garment. The delicate pink maple-leaf pattern on the boy's inner kimono is printed with remarkable precision. The geometric wave-pattern on the rocky shore shows clean, sharp lines. The sky transitions smoothly from deep blue-grey at left to a pale, atmospheric horizon. The title cartouche displays polychrome bokashi gradation — a hallmark of early impressions from this series. 2. Paper: Excellent. The print is backed with very thin traditional Japanese paper. One minor area of soiling on the front; some soiling visible on the reverse. The sheet is full-size with margins intact. A very well-preserved example. Please examine all photographs carefully. 3. The Boy, the Monk, and the Turning Sea — A Story of Revenge and Escape The composition is a study in desperate motion. An old priest in green robes lunges toward the sea, his right hand thrust out clutching prayer beads, fingers splayed in an incantation so powerful that the ocean itself begins to obey. Below him, a boy in a flaming vermillion robe scrambles over the wave-battered rocks, one hand reaching for the monk, the other gripping a sword. Beyond the churning surf, a sailing vessel pitches on the swell — the last ship that might carry them to safety. The entire scene tilts diagonally, from the boy's bare feet at lower right to the priest's outstretched hand at upper left, creating a visual rhythm of urgency and forward thrust that pulls the eye straight toward the fleeing boat. The story comes from the Taiheiki ("Chronicle of Great Peace"), the great fourteenth-century war chronicle. Hino Kumawakamaru was the thirteen-year-old son of Hino Suketomo, a high counsellor (dainagon) to Emperor Go-Daigo. When the Kamakura shogunate suspected Suketomo of conspiracy, they exiled him to the remote island of Sado and ordered his execution by the lay monk Homma Saburō. The boy travelled to Sado to be with his father one final time — but Homma refused to let them meet, and Suketomo was beheaded before the child could reach him. What happened next became one of the most celebrated revenge stories in Japanese literature. The thirteen-year-old Kumawakamaru feigned illness, lay in wait for days, and then — in a night attack of extraordinary cunning — killed Homma with the monk's own sword. He escaped by swinging across a moat on a bamboo stalk bent by his weight, in a scene that has been cited as one of the earliest recorded "ninja-like" assassinations in Japanese history. But the killing was only half the escape. The boy needed to leave Sado entirely. This is the moment Yoshitoshi chose to depict: not the murder, not the bamboo escape — but the agonising seconds on the shore when every ship's captain has refused to take the fugitive boy, and the priest Daizenbo chants a prayer so fierce that it threatens to capsize the vessel unless it returns. The sea churns. The boat heels. The waves rise like a wall of blue muscle. It is a scene about the power of faith — not the blade — to alter the course of events. In a series full of swords and combat, Yoshitoshi picked the one moment where the weapon is a prayer.