The Actor Ichikawa Komazo II as Soga no Dozaburo Disguised as the Ruffian Tobei (?) in the Play Haru no Nishi Date-zome Soga (?), Performed at the Nakamura Theater (?) in the First Month, 1790 (?)

Another instance of disguise plotting from the Soga franchise: Ichikawa Komazō II appears here as Soga no Dōzaburō (a less central member of the Soga clan) disguised as a contemporary ruffian named Tōbei, in the first-month 1790 Nakamura Theater production of Haru no Nishi Date-zome Soga. This hosoban print in the Art Institute of Chicago shows Shun'ei working in his most characteristic mode — a single-figure hosoban for a New Year Soga production — and combines the nigao-e portrait specificity of the Katsukawa school with the contemporary-costume signaling of the disguise role. Komazō II's face is rendered with the firm, slightly angular outlines that distinguish this actor's persistent visual identification across multiple Shun'ei prints, while the costume's pattern and texture carry the urban-bravado signaling of the Tōbei alter ego. Such prints functioned as both season-specific theater documentation and as durable records of a star actor's role assortment.