5000 Yen

The P#105 series was introduced as part of Japan's 2004 comprehensive redesign, the first major overhaul since 1984. One specific engineering decision sets this note apart from most contemporaries: the hologram is pearl-shaped and uses a pearl-like luster finish, a deliberate reference to Japanese aesthetics that also made it technically harder to replicate than the strip holograms common elsewhere at the time.

Japan's National Printing Bureau is among the handful of state printers worldwide that manufactures its own security paper in-house, meaning the substrate and ink chemistry are not independently sourced — a counterfeiting deterrent that never appears in the printed security feature list.