The Actor Ichikawa Danjuro V as Kudo Kanaishi in the Play Izu-goyomi Shibai no Ganjitsu, Performed at the Morita Theater in the Eleventh Month, 1772

Katsukawa Shunsho's yakusha-e of Ichikawa Danjuro V as Kudo Kanaishi records a performance of 'Izu-goyomi Shibai no Ganjitsu' at the Morita Theater in the eleventh month of 1772. Kudo, in the Soga mono tradition, is the powerful figure responsible for the death of the Soga brothers' father, and Edo kabuki used the role to anchor its annual Soga vendetta cycle in a satisfying antagonist. Ichikawa Danjuro V was one of the great Edo actors of the late eighteenth century, and his treatment of Kudo Kanaishi gave the role weight and presence appropriate to the head of the Ichikawa house. Shunsho captures this gravitas through a tightly composed portrait that emphasizes Danjuro V's distinctive features and ceremonial bearing, while costume patterning anchors the figure to the specific Kudo role. The print exemplifies Edo ukiyo-e yakusha-e at the moment of the Katsukawa school's deep authority over the genre, with Shunsho and his immediate followers producing the bulk of the surviving actor prints of the early 1770s. The impression survives via ukiyo-e.org, which serves as a critical aggregator of museum and archive holdings of Edo prints; the underlying physical print is part of the wider corpus of Katsukawa school designs catalogued through institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago. As such, the work supports continued study of Danjuro V's Soga mono repertoire and Shunsho's documentation of the early 1770s eleventh-month theatrical season at the Morita Theater.