The actors Iwai Hanshiro VI, Ichikawa Danjuro VIII as Kintoki, and Ichikawa Ebizo V as the woodcutter Nekko no Yokizo

In this 1833 Edo ukiyo-e woodblock print, the Utagawa Toyokuni studio brings together three kabuki stars - Iwai Hanshiro VI, Ichikawa Danjuro VIII in the role of Kintoki, and Ichikawa Ebizo V as the woodcutter Nekko no Yokizo - in a multi-actor yakusha-e composition. The Art Institute of Chicago catalogs the sheet by sitter, role, and date, and that record is the basis for the identifications here. Three-figure designs of this kind were a recurring strength of the Utagawa Toyokuni workshop: the studio's printers and block-cutters could handle the increased density of pattern, costume, and likeness that several stars on one sheet required, and the resulting prints served as compact records of an entire on-stage moment rather than of a single role. Kintoki, the legendary strong boy of Mount Ashigara, is drawn with the characteristic red skin and warrior bulk that Edo audiences associated with the role, with Ichikawa Danjuro VIII's young likeness carried by the Utagawa portrait conventions of the early 1830s. Ebizo V as Nekko no Yokizo is given the heavy outer garments and rough demeanor of a woodcutter, while Iwai Hanshiro VI provides the third focal point of the group, his lineage's onnagata reputation registering through costume and bearing. The composition's pleasure lies in the way the three figures are arranged to read both individually and as a coordinated stage tableau, an effect the Utagawa workshop refined throughout Toyokuni I's career and that his successors continued to develop.