Young Yellowtail- Hamachi — ハマチ

Hamachi designates the juvenile stage of the yellowtail (Seriola quinqueradiata), a fish of significant cultural and culinary importance in Japan. This print likely belongs to Ohno's monumental 'Dai Nihon Gyorui Gashu' series, published between 1937 and 1944, which documented Japanese fish with the rigor of natural history illustration translated into the woodblock medium. The hamachi is typically depicted in three-quarter profile against a plain or lightly gradated ground, its distinctive yellow lateral stripe and forked caudal fin rendered with anatomical precision. Multiple carved blocks would have been required to achieve the subtle iridescence of the fish's silvery flank, with bokashi gradation at the belly transitioning from white to pale silver-blue. This variant may represent a revised printing state or a reissued impression with altered colorways from the primary hamachi composition in the series.