Ukiyo-e Journey
An interactive ukiyo-e handscroll follows a traveller through 53 places in 10 chapters, from Shiretoko’s first sunrise of the year to a winter moon over Ryūkyū on New Year’s Eve.
How to use it
Like a Japanese picture scroll, it unrolls from right to left. Scroll, drag or swipe to walk (or the arrow keys; space for a longer step); it also walks by itself, at 1x, 2x or 4x, and the pause button stops him. The round dial is the time of day: drag its hand, or tap the face. Beside it, the length of a day. Click a stop on the route map to jump there.
“Sound” turns on the sound of the place and the music (off until you press it). “Save image” saves the picture on the scroll now; “Copy link” copies a link to this stop.
How it is made
The look follows the woodblock landscapes of Hiroshige and Hokusai: ink keylines, flat colour, bokashi gradients, paper grain, a block for each colour. Code draws the pictures as you scroll and synthesises the sound as you listen. The work uses no photographs, recordings or AI images. The rain, the water, the insects, the wind, the shakuhachi and the koto are modelled from physics and from measurements of real recordings.
The compositions are original; no print is traced, scanned or reproduced. The prints studied are public-domain impressions in the open-access collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago — chiefly Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and Remarkable Views of Bridges in Various Provinces, and Hiroshige’s Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces — with Hiroshi Yoshida’s Japanese Wood-block Printing (1939) for the printing.
The haiku were written for this work. The translations convey their meaning without matching the syllable count.
Please note
This is a work of art, not a guide. The route is an artistic one, not a real itinerary: the seasons move along with the places, and buildings, festivals, plants and animals are simplified and placed where the picture wants them. It is not a historical or geographical reference.
It is provided as it is, without any warranty.
Credits and licences
Coastline: Natural Earth (public domain). Brush font: Yuji Syuku (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Built with Vite.
Not connected with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Natural Earth or any author whose work is named here; naming them implies no endorsement.
Copyright and sharing
© 2026 LifeVen LLC. The font and the map data keep their own licences.
You are welcome to enjoy it and share it. When you share screenshots, saved images or recordings, please credit “Ukiyo-e Journey by LifeVen” and link to this page.
Please do not copy the work or its code and publish it as your own.
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About LifeVen
Ukiyo-e Journey is made by LifeVen. We design and build websites, apps and interactive experiences like this one. Interactive work