View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya (Ginza Matsuya yori Kabukiza), no. 3 from the series "Pictures of Ginza, First Series (Gashu Ginza dai isshu)"

View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya (Ginza Matsuya yori Kabukiza), dated 1928, is the third sheet from Kazuma Oda's series Pictures of Ginza, First Series (Gashu Ginza dai isshu). A Japanese woodblock print in the [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) tradition, this work captures a quintessentially modern moment in interwar Tokyo: the view from the upper floor of the Matsuya department store across to the recently rebuilt Kabukiza, the city's most celebrated theater for traditional drama. Oda frames the scene from an elevated vantage point that recalls the perspective of a flaneur looking down on the bustling Ginza district, then the showcase of Japan's cosmopolitan modernity. Telephone poles, low-rise commercial blocks, and pedestrians animate the foreground, while the distinctive curved roofline of the Kabukiza rises in the middle distance, anchoring the composition in a specific civic landmark. The print belongs to a broader shin-hanga interest in townscape and urban genre subjects that emerged in the 1920s, when artists turned the movement's collaborative tradition of designer, carver, and printer toward views of contemporary city life rather than the courtesans and actors of classical [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). Oda, who trained as a lithographer before devoting himself to woodcut, brought a draftsman's eye to the geometry of streets and rooflines, and the Ginza series remains among his most documented contributions to the genre. The impression held by the Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves substantial holdings of Oda's prints, attests to the work's status as a primary record of Ginza in the late Taisho and early Showa years. As a Japanese woodblock print, View of Kabuki Theater from Matsuya offers an unusually sober record of a city in transition, where electric signs and steel-frame construction shared the skyline with theaters devoted to centuries-old performance traditions.