One thousand armed Russian Bodhisattva of mercy of the Russo-Japanese War.

This satirical print from the Russo-Japanese War period (1904–05) appropriates the Buddhist iconography of Senju Kannon — the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva of Mercy — as a vehicle for wartime caricature directed at Russia. Senju Kannon is conventionally depicted with multiple arms radiating from the figure's body, each hand holding a sacred implement. Kiyochika's satirical version replaces those implements with military equipment, weapons, or symbols of Russian imperialism, inverting the compassionate connotations of the iconography to portray Russian expansionism as grasping and predatory. The composition would draw on the formal structure of traditional Kannon imagery — centered frontal figure, bilateral symmetry, radiating arms — while substituting satirical content that newspaper-reading Meiji audiences would recognize immediately. Kiyochika produced numerous wartime caricature prints during both the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese conflicts, demonstrating that his graphic practice encompassed political commentary alongside his landscape and historical work.