「日本万歳 百撰百笑」「三途川の大混雑 骨皮道人」

From 'Nihon Banzai! Hyakusen Hyakushō,' the subtitle 'Sanzu-gawa no dai konzatsu' (三途川の大混雑, 'Great Congestion at the Sanzu River') gives this print its mordant comedic conceit. The Sanzu River is the Buddhist river of the dead, crossed by departed souls en route to judgment. The composition satirically depicts a multitude of Qing casualties so overwhelming the afterlife crossing that they create a traffic jam at the riverbank — a black-humored image presenting Chinese war dead as so numerous they congest the underworld itself. This macabre wit, characteristic of Kokkepidōjin's register in the series, draws on Buddhist iconographic familiarity to deliver a grim punchline about the scale of Japanese military lethality during the 1894–95 campaign, rendering death as comic spectacle for domestic audiences.