Comment -  A picture book illustrating traditional 'Ancient Annual Events' throughout the year. The Manga book depicts the Meiji era interest in preserving Japanese traditions amidst the overwhelming incursion of foreign influences, liberalizations and upheavals in the midst of the Meiji restauration. Double image six (roku, 六 ) shows boys in classic attire playing traditional games. Two boys at the lower left panel "playing with spinning tops" ("koma o suru", "独楽をする"), as written on left panel. Both boys holding a pulling rope.

Upper left shows a boy, holding an edo kaku with a bold Daruma face. Two boys (upper right panel) are helping him to lift the kite. The larger boy pulls the line, another boy is kneeling, tending the coiled kite line loops, next to him is a traditional loop basket. Upper right panel shows "kite Flying (tako age, 凧揚げ). The edo kaku kite high in the sky (left panel,crossing over the image bounding box) shows a traditional design with the Japanese flag in the center and a striped background. This design is quite often to be seen (cf. Chikanobu, Ginko, Kaburagi,  Kyosai, etc.). The boy is controlling the flying kite, a dog beneath him, and loose loops of the kite line, partly wound up on a kite spindle just behind him. The little boy behind him (lower right panel) holds a stick up into the sky, with a small Hawk kite (tonbi tako, (鳶凧) tied to the stick with a small kite line.

Series - Series of twelve books with different titles as of last page imprint 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Artist - see Biography


Signature - "Sensai Eitaki-ga" (鮮斎永濯 畫), printed on the front cover


Publisher -  Matsuzaki Hanzo (松崎半造), Kyukodo Publishing House (求古堂) as of last page imprint


Image Size -  22.5 by 15cm (8 7/8 by 5 7/8")

Condition - Woodblock print; manga book (e-dehon); two panels with kites; printed on very thin Japanese paper in traditional "fukuro-toji", stub binding

Provenance - Estate of Kakunen TSURUOKA (1892-1977), San Francisco (USA)