Geki Magohachi (mid 15th-early 16th centuries) was a minor figure in the military history of Japan who enjoyed popularity during the Meiji period (1868-1912). Yoshitoshi depicts him here dodging blazing bullets, which were not common in Geki's time. By placing Geki in a modern context with updated costume and rifle fire, Yoshitoshi accentuates the historical connection between samurai like Geki and modern soldiers. Geki contributed to the Kôyô Gunkan (completed 1616), a history of the Takeda clan that detailed military tactics, which later became an important document for historians. After the downfall of the Takeda, Geki served Uesugi Kagekatsu (1556-1625), a descendant of Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578), the arch-nemesis of Geki's previous master, Takeda Shingen (1521-1578). Geki's change of allegiancesets him apart from most of Yoshitoshi's other warrior subjects, who remained loyal to their masters until their own death.

The Meiji Restoration (1868) ended the Tokugawa shogunate (military bureaucracy) and the reign of the samurai, but the popularity of samurai legend and lore remained. While Meiji administrators began developing a new style of government based on European models, Japanese artists learned techniques of Western art, employing them to a greater or lesser extent. Warriors and the ideals they represented remained a major subject of Japanese prints, especially as Tokugawa censorship laws were lifted and artists were free to chronicle current events. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) embraced journalistic veracity; an eyewitness to several major battles, his prints after 1868 are striking in their realism and unflinching depictions of war time. Yoshitoshi and other artists illustrated the last stand of the samurai, a war fought on the southern island of Kyushū, creating bloody and often romantic images of a martial culture in peril. The heroes of these prints were not the imperial Japanese army, who triumphed in the end, but the samurai rebels, who fought fiercely to maintain the power and ideals of their clans.