Japan Unveils High-Tech Banknotes Combining Tradition with Innovation

For the first time since 2004, Japan has revealed brand new banknote designs that celebrate the nation’s culture, traditions and achievements.

Major newspaper The Mainichi Shimbun reports the new notes were unveiled at Tokyo’s Currency Museum and are now also on display at the Bank of Japan Otaru Museum in Hokkaido, the nation’s northernmost prefecture.

The 10,000-yen note ($75 or €68) features famed industrialist Shibusawa Eiichi, known as ‘the father of capitalism in Japan’. Among other economic reforms, he founded the nation’s first modern bank with—appropriately enough—the power to issue its own banknotes. The back of the note depicts the Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building, a landmark of one of Japan’s most prestigious business and financial districts.

The face of the 5,000-yen note is Tsuda Umeko, a famous educator who founded one of Japan’s oldest and most prestigious higher education institutions: Tsuda University. A celebrated scholar, she was also Japan’s first female exchange student, travelling to the United States in 1871. The back of the note celebrates wisteria, one of the nation’s most beloved flowers, which are often shaped into immense floral tunnels and displays that bloom throughout April and May.

The 1,000-yen note features physician and bacteriologist Kitasato Shibasaburo, who made significant contributions to the study of infectious diseases and their impact on public health, and was the first president of the Japan Medical Association. The back of the note reproduces the world-famous woodblock print ‘Great Wave off Kanagawa’, the best-known part of the ‘Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’ series, synonymous with Japanese art and culture.