Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s 55 Cats on the Tōkaidō: EP. 2 Shizuoka East

Ready to continue our journey through Kuniyoshi’s 55 Cats on the Tōkaidō?

Last time, we travelled from Edo to Kanagawa. Now we enter eastern Shizuoka, a landscape shaped by rivers, harbours, wetlands, and rising mountains. As the scenery grows more complex, so do Kuniyoshi’s puns — bolder, messier, and sometimes genuinely puzzling.

We resume with a dancing calico cat. It wears a tenugui towel over its head, and its tail splits into two — the unmistakable sign of a nekomata, the fork-tailed cat demon. Put together, this becomes ‘mike no nekomata’, the calico nekomata, shortened to ‘mikema’, which slides neatly into Mishima. It’s one of Kuniyoshi’s more elegant combinations of image, folklore, and sound.

Beside it, a white cat locks eyes with a black namazu catfish, a creature believed to live in swampy waters, numa. From that, we get Numazu. Some might think of the English word ‘catfish’, but Japan at the time was learning primarily from Dutch, where ‘katvifch’ referred to an unrelated fish. The similarity is coincidental. Since namazu were also thought to cause earthquakes, and cats catch fish, Kuniyoshi may be hinting at a wish to subdue seismic danger — though here, the two simply stare each other down.

Next, a fierce tortoiseshell cat snarls. The caption ‘dora’ likely comes from doraneko, stray cats who must fight to survive. Survival fills the belly — hara — giving us the post town Hara.

Below that, a buchi cat licks its belly, captioned ‘buchihara’, nudged into Yoshiwara. It echoes both the Fujisawa cat from the last episode and the previous ‘hara’ pun. Was Kuniyoshi repeating himself, or deliberately pushing the joke? We’re about to find out.

Another hungry cat drools over a plate of tempura, eager to stuff it into its hara. This gives us ‘pura-hara’, which nudges toward ‘ura-hara’, another reading of Kanbara. That makes three belly jokes in a row — perhaps intentional excess, perhaps playful exhaustion.

For Yui, a cat holds a tai, a golden-eye snapper, a prized fish from this coastal region. Along this stretch of the Tōkaidō, much of the catch passed through Numazu, so the exact phonetic leap is unclear. But a cat holding a snapper is a classic symbol of good fortune, and ‘yui’ can also mean ‘to connect’. Maybe Kuniyoshi is hinting at a link between place and prosperity.

Nearby, a white cat sleeps so deeply it refuses to wake — literally ‘okizu’. Change the voiced ‘zu’ to the unvoiced ‘tsu’, and we arrive at Okitsu. Surprisingly direct, especially after the previous gymnastics.

Next, a spotted cat bites into katsuobushi. The caption ‘kajiri’ simply describes the act of gnawing. A tiny sound shift turns it into Ejiri, as quick and sharp as the bite itself.

Then we see another spotted cat, fully absorbed in chewing on a small fukuro bag. Its arched back and focused expression show total obsession — muchū. Described as ‘fukuro ni muchū ni natteiru’, Kuniyoshi clips the phrase into Fuchū.

Beside it sits a hariko papier-mâché cat among the real ones. It may also suggest manekko, an imitator or ‘copycat’. Together, image and idea lead directly to Mariko, one of the most literal puns in the series.

That completes the first half of our journey through Shizuoka Prefecture. Next time, we continue westward, where the cats grow livelier, the jokes sharper, and the road even stranger.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like the video, subscribe for the rest of the Tōkaidō journey, share it with anyone who enjoys wordplay or Japanese art, and leave a comment with your favourite cat from this stretch. See you in the next post town.
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Utagawa Kuniyoshi
歌川国芳
Cats Suggested as the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road
其まま地口　猫飼好五十三疋　(そのままじぐち みゃうかいこうごじゅうさんびき)
1848
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