絵本里見八犬伝
This is a late Meiji-period Japanese picture book (ehon) published in 1887 by Nakamura Asakichi, who also edited it, illustrating the Satomi Hakkenden adventure story for a popular readership. The four pictures are black-and-white woodblock-style prints with Japanese text columns beside the figures; a designer might take their dense hatched textures, patterned robes, and bold swordsman poses as models for dramatic monochrome graphic design.
