Ryūgū-jō

[8] In the Meiji era, akahon ehon [ja] or "redbook picture books" of the 1880s,[11] as well as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's (1886) print are examples of Ryūgū illustrated above water, but they are lacking in textual detail on whether it is a sunken city or not.

[13] The akahon illustrations were appropriated by Masayuki Kataoka's English translation (1886), which describes the Dragon Palace as visible "far below" the water, to which the man carried by the reptile "descended".

Here the "Dragon Palace" is illustrated as a complex of buildings atop an island, with fishes clad in kimono walking about the sandy shore.

[21] "The walls of the Palace were of coral, the trees had emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries" (Chamberlain),[22][c] roughly coincides with the inner chambers being fashioned with sangoju kin no tagui (珊樹樹金の類, lit.

[27] The use of materials such as pearl or crystal on the exterior is given in Brauns' translation (Englished by Lang), alongside the interior hall being illuminated by fish scales.

[28] Masayuki Kataoka's English translation (1886)[14] describes a Dragon's Palace with a crystal dome, which a researcher considers a novel, unfamiliar feature.

[d][29] Kataoka's translation, upon comparison, differed greatly from the text of the akahon picture books, though he had blatantly appropriated and reworked their illustrations.

[31] A notable feature of the Dragon Palace according to the "feudal" (otogizōshi) versions is the view to the "four seasons on four sides",[20][17][e] though this has been eschewed in Chamberlain's translation.

[f][17] However, the view to the four seasons is incorporated in Mrs. Ozaki's translation: cherry blossom in bloom to the east (spring), buzzing cicadas to the south (summer), multi-colored maple leaves to the west (autumn), and snow-covered ground to the north (winter).