Gesaku writer and journalist. Influenced by his fish seller father, he liked gesaku books since an early age and became a student of Hanagasa Bunkyo. He published Ansei Kenbunshi (The Record of the Ansei Period) (1855) and Kokkei Fujimoude (Hilarious Pilgrims to Mt. Fuji) (1860), with which he received recognition as a gesaku writer. After the Meiji Restoration, based upon Juppensha Ikku’s work, he wrote Seiyo Dochu Hizakurige (Shank's Mare to the Western Seas) (1870-76), which became a sensation. He also became a press writer for Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun in 1874, and founded many newspapers including Kanayomi Shimbun (Kana Newspaper) in 1875. Through writing gesaku, he expressed the people’s lives in the Bunmei Kaika period, and was a leading figure in the popular literature world in the Meiji era.