Two tattooed legends, blades out in the snow. This one goes straight to the heart of your brand. Both figures are heroes of the Suikoden — the Chinese Water Margin whose 108 outlaws, once Kuniyoshi drew them covered in dragons and demons, lit the fuse on Japan's entire tattoo tradition. And these two are the most tattooed of them all. Kumonryū Shishin — "Nine-Tattooed-Dragons" Shi Jin — is the very first hero the Water Margin introduces, his whole torso inked with nine writhing dragons, the walking origin-point of irezumi as heroic skin. Kaoshō Rochishin — the "Flowery Monk" Lu Zhishen — is the tattooed warrior-priest, a drunken, brawling holy man whose flowered back-piece gave him his name.

Here they clash in a danmari — the stylised "silent" pantomime, fought in staged darkness where the characters grope and grapple in slow, deliberate motion. Snow falls; two inked outlaws move through it like a dream. Danjūrō IX and Sadanji I take the roles, and if any single print in the collection embodies the tattoo lineage the whole brand rests on, it's this one.

The actor Ichikawa Danjuro IX (九代目市川團十郎) as Kumonryu Shishin (九紋龍史進) and Ichikawa Sadanji I (市川左團次) as Kaoshō Rochishin (花和尚魯智深) fighting in the snow (水滸伝雪挑, Suikoden yuki no danmari) 1886.

Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周, 1835-1900)