Tozai kyoka mondo (The Comic Catechism)

The Tozai kyoka mondo — "The Comic Catechism of East and West" — belongs to the tradition of kyoka (comic waka poetry) dialogue prints that Kiyochika practised alongside his landscape and war work. The question-and-answer (mondo) format, staging an exchange between Eastern and Western cultural values or perspectives, was a genre that resonated in the Meiji period's ongoing negotiation between Japanese tradition and Western modernity. Kiyochika's version brought his characteristic visual wit to a form with deep Edo-period roots.