News nishikie timelines

The years 1874-1875 were an interlude between two related civil wars -- the Boshin Wars of 1867-1868, straddling the end of the Tokugawa and the beginning of the Meiji periods, and the Seinan War of 1877, engendered by disputes which festered after the Boshin Wars. This first decade of the Meiji period was one of rapid, comprehensive, and extensive change of a scale rarely seen in the histories of nations. The times were alive and fraught with the usual mixture of hope and anxiety that comes when ambitious victors are determined to succeed.

The Taiwan Expedition and the Saga Rebellion of 1874 were major stories in both the Tonichi paper and the TNS nishikie. 1875 marked the 7th year memorial of the Battle of Ueno Hill, which was also treated in a TNS print.

At the end of 1876, the publisher of the THS and YHS nishikie put out prints about the Shinpuren Rebellion and other civil disturbances which, as fate had it, sparked the Seinan War that began in Kyushu in January/February 1877 and raged through September. This war spawned numerous stand-alone and short-series news nishikie, which all but disappear after the war.

A number of news magazines and newspapers sprouted in various locales in Japan during the last decade of the Edo period. Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, Tokyo's first daily, published its first issue on 29 March 1872 (solar), and Yubin hochi shinbun followed with its first issue on 1872-7-15 (solar).

Tonichi and Hochi were both "big news" (ooshinbun) papers that appealed to the better educated who tolerated if not coveted a less vernacular style of writing. Yomiuri shinbun, a more vernacular hence readable "small news" (koshinbun) paper, began publishing from 2 November 1874, and Hiragana eiri shinbun, Japan's first illustrated vernacular paper, started from 17 April 1875.

Newspapers were perhaps more strictly regulated than nishikie and other such printed matter at the time. A system of prior approval required that nishikie publishers submit a key-block proof of a print to an official, who would stamp the proof with a seal consisting of two graphs, one representing the year, the other the month, both based on the lunar calendar.

Compliance with the approval system seems to have depended a great deal on the publisher's attitude. Gusokuya obtained approval seals on fewer than sixty percent of the TNS nishikie, while all YHS nishikie published by Kinshodo during the months that seals were used, bear seals.

Most Osaka news nishikie series were shorter lived than TNS and YHS. They lasted only a few months spanning the middle of 1875, appearing in spring, shortly after the start of YHS in Tokyo that spring, and ran through the summer, when the TNS series was quickly winding down.

Kanzen choaku nishikiga shinbun (Series 13) ran a bit longer than most of the other early Osaka series, but it too fell victim to a local crackdown on nishikie "shinbun" in August 1875.

Nishikiga hyakuji shinbun (Series 14), which started from fall in full compliance with the new rules, became the longest running, and most newspaperesque, series of all news nishikie series, putting out over 190 issues between very roughly September 1875 to 9 September 1876.

Osaka, thought not beyond the reach of Tokyo politics, had its own metronome when it came to the pace of daily life. The latest and the greatest usually came to, or began in, Tokyo first, and Osaka sometime later. If Tokyoites had been able to see television then, Osakans would still be listening to radio.

Osaka did not have the variety of news publications available to people in Tokyo. There had been a few news magazines but none did well. Consequently Osaka got most of its "big news" from Tokyo by importing Tokyo papers. It would take three days to a week for anything from Tokyo to arrive at Osaka by sea, the fastest and cheapest route.

While news nishikie in Osaka were clearly immitations of their earlier-starting Tokyo cousins, they had a farily clear field when it came to conveying sensational local stories of the "small news" kind. While some Osaka news nishikie merely digested Tokyo human interest stories, others reported original stories gathered from gossip and talk about, if not investigation into, local incidents.

Osaka did not have an approval seal system, but publishers were expected to get permission to sell their products. Some news nishikie publishers were called to account for their failure to obtain such permission. Other issues including the credibility of news stories, the accountability of writers and publishers who hid behind pen names, and plaguarism of stories from Tokyo newspapers and news nishikie.

All this came to a head in July and August 1875, by which time all early Osaka news nishikie series had already ceased publication, or were forced to stop publishing.

Disclosure stamps

Inventories of news nishikie published before the crackdown, and reprints, were subjected to rules that required the use of stamps to disclose the names of writers/editors, and the names if not also the addresses of publishers.

Suppression of "shinbun"

The word "shinbun" was suppressed in the names of earlier series Osaka news nishikie by several means, from replacing "bun" with "wa" or replacing "shinbun" with "zukai", to simply brushing out "shinbun" or "bun" on the print.