Ukiyo-e artist. Born in Honjo, Edo, the son of a keeper of the shogunal storehouses. His childhood name was Katsunosuke; he also signed Hoensha and Shinseiro. He learned Japanese painting from Shimooka Renjo and Kawanabe Kyosai, and lacquer painting from Shibata Zeshin; around 1874 he studied Western painting for a time under the Englishman Charles Wirgman. In 1876 Daikokuya began publishing his Views of Famous Places in Tokyo in the Western manner. He devised the kosen-ga, or “ray picture”, a new kind of nishiki-e that took in the Western handling of light and shade, and made landscape prints with it. He also worked in satire, and painted a good deal in later life. He was active as a newspaper illustrator too, with the comic “ponchi-e” that satirised the life and society of Tokyo. During the Sino-Japanese war he made many war prints in the ray-picture manner.