from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)

Among the pictorial problems Kyosai addressed in the Kyōsai hyakuzu series was the oni — the horned, club-wielding demon of Japanese folk belief and Buddhist moral painting. The oni appears in setsubun ritual imagery, in hell-scroll (jigoku-e) traditions, and in the popular entertainments of the kabuki stage. Kyosai's treatment of the demon figure was neither conventionally fearsome nor simply comic; his oni could be menacing, buffoonish, or pathetic depending on the compositional context. In the woodblock medium, the challenge of rendering the oni's muscular bulk and distinctive coloring — traditionally red, blue, or green — was well suited to the saturated pigments available to Meiji printers. Kyosai's signature approach often placed such figures in unexpected situations, undercutting the expected register of supernatural terror with visual wit that delighted his contemporary audience.