Ehon sakigake (Picture book of Japanese and Chinese fighters), complete in 1 vol.

Ehon sakigake (Picture book of Japanese and Chinese fighters), complete in one volume, is a 1831 illustrated book by Katsushika Hokusai that anthologizes warrior subjects drawn from both Japanese and Chinese tradition. Within the broader landscape of Edo ukiyo-e publishing, the picture book, or ehon, was a major commercial format alongside single-sheet prints, and Hokusai used it throughout his career to study figures, costume, and combat in greater depth than a stand-alone ukiyo-e print typically allowed. Across the pages of Sakigake he depicts famous heroes, generals, and outlaws in dynamic poses, lunging, dueling, leaping over rocks, with the angular line and tense musculature that mark his late warrior style. The double-page openings function almost like wide-screen action scenes, balancing dense figure compositions against passages of plain ground or schematic landscape. As a record of how Hokusai integrated Chinese and Japanese hero imagery for an Edo audience, it complements his single-sheet warrior prints and his sketchbook anthologies. The Art Institute of Chicago copy preserves a complete volume of this title and provides researchers with a coherent view of Hokusai's contribution to the picture-book strand of Edo ukiyo-e in the early 1830s.