Ukiyo-e artist; a pupil of Toyokuni I. He used the names Saihosha, Ichiyusai and Chuoro among others. He was one of the three Utagawa artists who shared popularity at the end of the shogunate. An inordinate lover of cats, Kuniyoshi made many comic pictures with cats as their subject, and goldfish, carp and tortoises too are given human character by him. There are also works that amount to pure play with form, in which human bodies are arranged to make up a human face; his invention was boundless.