There were two distinct regional styles of traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking, the dominant Edo school and the Kamigata-style (for the region including the cities of Osaka and Kyoto).
The most obvious difference involved the range of subject matter. Edo prints included beautiful women, geisha, courtesans, young lovers, erotica, domestic scenes, cityscapes, landscapes, nature scenes (especially birds and flowers), actors, military scenes, historical allegories, parodies, ghosts and demons, genre scenes, and still life. In stark contrast to this wide variety of subjects, Kamigata prints portrayed actors almost exclusively.
The two regional styles of actor prints (yakusha-e) were derived, in part, from different methods of acting. The great Ichikawa Danjûrô I (1660-1704) created the aragoto ("wild business") manner of Edo acting, which involved tales of bravado and heroism that seemed well suited to the temperament of Edo, the center of shogunate and military power since 1603. In contrast, Sakata Tôjûrô I (1647-1709) developed an acting methodology that combined a gentle sensuousness with an amusing helplessness that became a standard for wagoto ("soft style") acting in Osaka, the mercantile center of Japan.
Both styles of play writing and acting were found in Edo and Kamigata, and certain stage characters were especially popular because they were performed with a mixture of the two styles. Nevertheless, the tendencies in each region were evident and were generally reflected in their printmaking.
There were other differences between the two domains. Among these was the sheer volume of the Edo prinmaking industry — prints from Edo outnumbered those published in Osaka by a margin of at least 20 to 1. In addition, quite a number of Edo artists were able to make their living primarily from their printmaking, whereas in Osaka a tiny handful of artists were able to do so. The "amateur" status of the highly skilled Osaka designers, coupled with the small number of prints, made for a unique genre of printmaking.
