1 Yuan

Manchukuo was a Japanese puppet state established in 1932 across the former Manchurian provinces of China, and its Central Bank functioned essentially as a branch instrument of Japanese imperial economic policy rather than an independent monetary authority. By 1944, Japan's military position was deteriorating sharply, and wartime paper shortages affected production quality across the entire Dainippon output for this series — later printings show noticeably thinner stock than earlier issues.

The watermark is the primary security feature, a relatively modest specification for a note already deep into wartime austerity conditions. Manchukuo's currency was officially pegged to the Japanese yen at par, a rate enforced by fiat rather than any credible reserve backing.