Despite changes in the make-up of Japan's inshore fish stocks, due to pollution and climate change, not to mention the activities of the fishing industry, most of the species shown in this scroll can be identified with a fair degree of confidence using a present-day handbook and other reference sources [see 1 and 2 below]. All of the major types of fish used in Japanese cuisine are represented: the sharks and rays; the sardine and other members of the herring family; the garfish and the distinctive sayori (aptly called "half-beak" in English); the yellowtail and other members of the aji family; the breams; the various mackerel, tuna and bonito; the gurnard and flying gurnard; the halibut and other bottom fish; three different varieties of fugu; and the sunfish, although in this last case (and in some others) the artist's imagination seems to have made the creature even more extraordinary than it is in real life.


Those identified include:

Ainame (greenling) Katsuo (ocean bonito)
Akakamasu (barracuda)-two varieties Kemujikajika (sea raven) Akodai (Matsubara stingfish) Kochi (bar-tailed flathead)
Amadai (red tilefish) Komonfugu (fine patterned puffer)
Bora (mullet) Kurodai (black sea-bream)- two varieties
Buri (yellowtail) Kurotogarisame (silky shark)
Butterfly fish or angel fish (Ma)aji (Japanese horse-mackerel)
Chikamekintoki (bull eye)- Madai or tai (sea two varieties bream)
Datsu (green garfish) Madara, tara (Pacific cod) - two varieties
Donko, Ezoisoainame Maiwashi (sardine or (brown hakeling) pilchard) - several varieties Ebi (prawn) Mambo (sunfish)
Ezomebaru (white-edged rockfish) Managatsuo (white pomfret) Frigate mackerel Meitagarei (fine spotted flounder)
Gisu (deep-sea bonefish) Mushigarei or hoshigarei (shothole halibut or spotted halibut)
Higanfugu (panther puffer) Nijikajika (elkhorn scorpion)
Hirame (bastard halibut) Nishin (Pacific herring)
(Hon)tobiuo (flying fish) Okitanago (Ransonnet's surfperch)
Hoshiei (pitted stingray) Saba (spotted mackerel)
(Hoshisemi)hobo (flying gurnard) Sayori (Japanese halfbeak) Hoshizame (gummy shark) Suzuki (Japanese sea-perch)
Ise-ebi (crayfish) Tachiuo (cutlass fish)
Ishidai (parrot fish) Torafugu (tiger puffer)
Kamasusawara (peto, wahoo) Triple-tail or dusky perch
Kanagashira (gurnard) Tsumarikasube (a type of ray)
Kasago (Japanese stingfish)- two Umitanago (Japanese varieties sea-perch) - two varieties
Unagi (eel)

1 Sato Takahira et al., Genshoku gyorui zukan - Kesennuma-shi uoichiba ni mizuagesareru gyorui [Illustrated guide to types of fish taken for the Kesennuma fish market], (Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, 1987)

2 Davidson, Alan, Seafood of South-East Asia, (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, 1976)