Beer queen

This print from the Showa Shokugyo Emaki documents one of the modern service trades that had emerged in Japan's interwar cities: the beer-hall hostess, or biru no jokyu, who served customers in the large beer halls of Ginza, Asakusa, and Osaka. The figure typically wears a Western-style uniform—a fitted dress, white apron, and small cap—holding a tray of foaming mugs. Wada's composition treats her with the same dignified frontality he applies to artisans, declining to caricature or sexualize the subject. The print's palette likely centers on the warm amber of the beer, the white of the apron, and a saturated background color that signals the brightly lit interior of a Showa beer hall. By including this figure alongside cormorant fishermen and coopers, Wada makes the radical claim that the modern jokyu is no less a representative of contemporary Japanese occupational life than the inheritors of pre-Meiji crafts—a position consistent with his broader interest in documenting Showa Japan in its full diversity.