In this playful Meiji-style kōkan hanga pastiche, Pepe stands aghast as a parade of Western technological wonders invades the Japanese landscape. A skeleton gentleman tips his hat beside a smoking locomotive, another drives an early automobile, while a macabre hot-air balloon floats above—each figure rendered as a humorous vanitas, evoking both progress and mortality. Overhead, a newly installed electric bulb and telephone signal the arrival of modern communication. Mount Fuji rises calmly in the background, anchoring the scene in traditional Japan as Pepe becomes the bewildered witness to a nation transforming at unprecedented speed.