Ichimanmaru (Soga Juro) and Hakoomaru (Soga Goro) with their mother

Ichimanmaru and Hakoomaru with Their Mother is a figure print by Inoue Yasuji, signed Tankei Inoue, from the educational series An Educational Account of Self-Made Men (Kyoiku Risshiki). The subject is drawn from the medieval Soga brothers cycle, with the two boys, Ichimanmaru (later Soga Juro Sukenari) and Hakoomaru (later Soga Goro Tokimune), shown in childhood alongside their mother, before they would grow into the most famous revenge-tale protagonists of pre-modern Japanese literature. The choice fits the broader Meiji prints program of using historical and legendary figures as exemplars of filial loyalty and perseverance. Inoue Yasuji frames the trio in a domestic interior with controlled spatial recession, careful drapery, and the restrained [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) tonality that he had developed in his cityscape work under Kobayashi Kiyochika. While Inoue Yasuji is most often discussed in connection with his Tokyo Famous Places landscapes and the kosen-ga movement, his didactic figure prints are an essential part of his career, and they show how the same technical discipline could be tuned to morally instructive scenes. The [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org archive preserves this impression, where it serves as a reference for ongoing study of Inoue Yasuji's range and of the educational publishing culture that absorbed late ukiyo-e production into the Meiji school system.