Tug-of-war with Hair (Hatsu-biki), and Board Game of China (Shina dôchû), from the series Comical Art Exhibit of the Sino-Japanese War (Nissei sensô shôraku gakai)

This sheet belongs to Kiyochika's satirical series Nissei sensō shōraku gakai (Comical Art Exhibit of the Sino-Japanese War), produced during the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. The print pairs two visual jokes: hatsu-biki, literally a hair-pulling tug-of-war, and Shina dōchū, a board game format used to mock the anticipated Chinese retreat across the continent. Kiyochika was a prolific contributor to wartime satire, and this series deploys caricatured figures and playful framing devices drawn from traditional comic genres to ridicule Chinese military capacity. The composition likely uses bold outlines and flat areas of color appropriate to comic imagery rather than the atmospheric chiaroscuro of his kosen-ga landscapes. The print documents the graphic propaganda role that woodblock printing continued to serve even as the medium faced commercial pressure from photomechanical reproduction.