This print depicts Yamamoto Kansuke Haruyuki (1501-1561) in his final moments during the fourth battle of Kawanakajima (1561). After his battle strategy failed, General Yamamoto Haruyuki is said to have taken up a yari spear and rushed into battle to regain his honor. Here the general is pictured standing atop of the head of a defeated enemy after retreating from battle. Haruyuki's elaborate armor is pierced with arrows and blood flows from his wounds. He leans against his yari spear as a second warrior offers him a bowl of water. Soon following this, to avoid death at the hands of the enemy, he committs seppuku - ritual suicide. In order to prepare for seppuku, he is said to have retreated from the battlefield to a secluded area such the one depicted in the print.

The Sengoku Period (circa 1467-1568), usually translated as the Warring States Period, was a prolonged era of civil war between numerous feudal domains. Lack of effective central leadership led domain lords to vie for larger areas of influence, and to create territories that were independent of outside rule. This situation remained until Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), worked together to effect a unification of the country under central rule. Characterized by ruthless ambitions and contested territories, the legends of the Sengoku Period maintained the themes of strength, honor, bravery, and loyalty established in the classical period and Genpei War (1180-1185). The prints here depict an era of grotesque violence and ingenious military tactics; warlords slaughtered their rivals families, and collected their enemies heads. Brilliant military strategies unfolded as smaller infantries toppled much larger armies using traps, diversions, and recently imported firearms. It was a time of gekokujō, , which can be translated as the low overcoming the high, and the ultimate victor of the Sengoku Period, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was a man born to humble beginnings with no samurai lineage. These prints celebrate men like Hideyoshi, whose aggression and strategic genius brought them great status.