Actor Minokawa Enjaku as Igami-no-gonta in the Play

This yakusha-e depicts a kabuki actor as Igami-no-Gonta, the morally complex fishmonger's son from the celebrated play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees). Gonta is one of kabuki's most demanding male roles, requiring the actor to convey a swift transformation from villainy to self-sacrifice. Yoshikawa portrays the figure in the rough-hewn costume appropriate to Gonta's merchant-class origins — a short hanten jacket, tasuki cord gathering the sleeves, and the disheveled appearance that marks his scenes of conflict. The actor's facial makeup (kumadori) and exaggerated pose would be rendered with the fidelity to theatrical convention that distinguishes Yoshikawa's actor prints from purely imaginative bijin-ga work. The composition draws on the long Osaka tradition of Kamigata yakusha-e, in which character and domestic realism are weighted as heavily as heroic grandeur.