5 Yen

Japan's first centrally issued government paper currency arrived from Frankfurt at a moment when the Meiji administration had no domestic printing capability whatsoever. Dondorf & Naumann, better known for their playing cards and chromolithography work, were an unusual choice — the contracts went to German firms largely because British and American printers had already declined or quoted prohibitively. Chiossone, the Genoese engraver, had been hired through the Frankfurt connection and would later relocate to Japan permanently, eventually establishing the printing bureau in Tokyo that made foreign contracts unnecessary.

The series as a whole is notorious for sophisticated counterfeiting almost immediately after release, which accelerated the government's push toward domestic production.