Danza the Tanuki of Sado Province

This woodblock print depicts Danzaburō Tanuki, a legendary shapeshifting raccoon dog from Sado Province, renowned for his wealth and moneylending activities. The name Danza is an abbreviated form of Danzaburō. In traditional Japanese folklore, the character is also known as Danzaburō Mujina. During the Edo period, tanuki and mujina, the latter referring to the badger, were often regarded as the same animal.

The origins of Danzaburō's legend are closely connected with the history of gold mining on Sado Island, now part of Niigata Prefecture. According to one explanation, the name originally belonged to a merchant who bred and sold tanuki. Their skins were used to make bellows employed in gold mining operations, making the trade potentially profitable.

Local folklore, however, also preserves the story of Danzaburō as a powerful tanuki who lived in Aikawa, one of Sado's principal gold-mining settlements. He was celebrated for his extraordinary business acumen and ability to accumulate great wealth. Some accounts claimed that he could transform ordinary leaves into gold coins. According to another version, Danzaburō assumed human form, worked in the gold mines, saved his earnings, and eventually became a wealthy moneylender. So many people sought loans from him that long queues formed outside his establishment.
Kyōsai illustrates this latter version of the legend, transforming Danzaburō's moneylending business into an elaborate, multi-figure comic scene.

The central character sits before towering stacks of cash boxes filled with gold koban coins. He calmly smokes tobacco while observing the activity around him. His seat rests upon his own enormously enlarged scrotum, a characteristic feature of traditional Japanese depictions of tanuki. This grotesque motif derives from a popular saying about the tanuki's scrotum being capable of stretching over an immense area. Such exaggerations were widely employed in Japanese folklore and satirical prints.

Danzaburō is surrounded by his family. Nearby, a mother nurses a small child, while a son occupies himself with reading a book. The son's enormous scrotum provides a separate comic episode: it has been draped over a long pole, and the moneylender's servants are carefully washing it with water and brooms. This extraordinary scene occupies much of the upper half of the composition, introducing domestic details into an otherwise fantastic setting.

The lower part of the print depicts the actual financial transactions. Several visitors have come to Danzaburō on business. One presents a written debt agreement, while three bundles of gold koban coins lie nearby, possibly representing the repayment of a loan. Another visitor, apparently a new borrower, is affixing his seal to a loan agreement.

Kyōsai thus combines several narrative elements: the legendary shapeshifter's wealth, the daily operations of a moneylending establishment, the domestic life of the tanuki family, and the absurd spectacle of the servants at work. The fantastic physical characteristics of the figures are treated as an entirely natural part of everyday existence. The contrast between the serious conduct of financial business and the absurdity of the surrounding circumstances forms the basis of the print's humour.

The motif of tanuki with exaggerated scrotums also appears in works by other nineteenth-century Japanese artists. Utagawa Kuniyoshi explored the subject repeatedly, notably in Dōke Tanuki no Mariuta (道化狸のまりうた) and Aratamete Tanuki no Tawamure (あらためて狸のたはむれ), dating from 1844–1847. Related imagery can be found in Baishōtei Hidemitsu's Yayū Gomuyō (夜遊御無用) and in Utagawa Yoshikazu's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (東海道五十三次, 1853). Kyōsai himself returned to the subject in Tanuki no Tawamure (狸の戯), published in 1864.

Danza the Tanuki of Sado Province exemplifies the distinctive combination of folkloric fantasy, social satire, and richly detailed comic storytelling characteristic of Kawanabe Kyōsai's art.