Christmas Card 2007

The picture of this card is from Waseda University Library collections.

This is a visualization of the famous kyoka (japanese comic poem), in which the rise and fall of the four historical figures is compared to "mochi-tsuki" (rice cake making). The rice cake, representing the hegemony of Japan, ends up in posession ot Tokugawa Ieyasu (the first shogun of Edo). In the picture only Tokugawas' family crest is not depicted, apparently for fear of the authorities. Nevertheless, the publisher voluntarily recalled the copies as quickly as a half day after their issuance, as a natural result of the governmental notice.