About This Print

In 1857 the same publisher, Tsutaya Kichizō, issued Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), which contained the print Dam on the Otonashi River at Oji Popularly Known as the 'Great Waterfall' (Oji Otonashi-gawa entai sezoku Otaki to tonau), shown below.  Fourteen years later he published Ikkei's Thirty-Six Views of Tokyo (the re-named Edo) whose last print in the series gives us an almost identical view of the waterfall on the Otonashi caused by the dam.   "By the 1960's the Otonashi River had been reduced to a concrete channel, but in 1985 a three year construction plan was begun to revive and beautify the 100 meter length of the river seen in this view and will be filled with rocks, bounded by strolling paths, pavilions and cherry trees."