The Spirit of Akugenta Yoshihira Strikes Nanba Jirō at the Nunobiki Waterfall

Lightning breaks across a black sky and a figure is thrown backward above the falling water, mouth open, armor scattering the light. The bolts are the work of a dead man. Akugenta Yoshihira, executed years before, returns as thunder to kill Nanba Jirō, an enemy retainer, during a lord's outing to the Nunobiki cascade. Yoshitoshi stages the whole event as one violent instant. He was still in his twenties here, working through the bloody, kinetic manner that made his early reputation. The composition reads top to bottom like a fall: cloud, strike, body, water. Cartouches in the corners name the actors, the way a caption names a scene, so the sheet carries its story in both picture and word.