 Japan's three leading print designers of the nineteenth century—Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada—paired each Tōkaidō rest station with an intriguing, cryptic design.Due to the harsh and punitive Tenpō-era reforms which attempted to impose a strictly defined morality, prints of celebrity actors, courtesans, and entertainers were outlawed during this time.Crafted to outwit the artistic restrictions imposed by the reforms, the woodcuts in the Parallel Series became popular visual puzzles that were frequently reproduced.