In this iconic and extremely rare print, Miyamoto Musashi (1583-1647), famed as a sword master and inventor of the two-sword style of fencing (nito-ryu), is shown plunging his sword into a giant whale off the coast of Higo (present-day Kumamoto prefecture).

For another impression in the collection of the Royal Scottish Museums, Edinburgh (lacking the extra black bokashi on the centre and right-hand sheets), see Robert Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi 1797-1861, (The Netherlands, 1998), p.88, no.69.