Nikoyon Or day labourer

Nikoyon (Day Labourer) is from Wada Sanzo's Shōwa Shokugyō Emaki series. The term nikoyon, literally "two-hundred-and-forty," referred to the 240-yen daily wage paid to registered day laborers under the postwar public-works employment scheme, making this sheet one of the most directly historical entries in the series. The figure is likely shown in tenugui headcloth, jika-tabi and work jacket, possibly with shovel or carrying-pole, set against a flat color ground that strips away picturesque setting. Wada's mokuhanga technique here uses the same broad color planes and decisive keyblock contour seen across the series, but the palette tends toward muted earths and indigos appropriate to laboring dress. The print exemplifies how Wada extended the Edo tradition of fūzoku-ga (genre figures) into Shōwa documentary, recording occupational types created by postwar economic conditions. Within the wider series, Nikoyon sits alongside fishermen, miners and street sellers as part of Wada's effort to inventory the working classes of mid-twentieth-century Japan.