Taking prints of Tomomori as fairly typical of the majority of depictions of Heike warriors in the nineteenth century, I will now examine two aberrations. The character of the monk Mongaku presents a curious case in the nineteenth century popular print, as he does in the Heike Monogatari itself, for he is treated as neither completely priest nor warrior, but as something in-between. As with Tomomori, it is Mongaku's single-minded fierceness that the nineteenth century print audience respects, and that its designers give them in one image after another. In these images, Mongaku is little different from any of the Heike warriors, powerfully built and hairy, with bulging eyes and fierce expression, the epitomy of intensity. On the other hand, Mongaku is one of the very few Heike characters who is a subject for imagistic punning in the nineteenth century. It is no doubt his ambivalent position, somewhere between the place of the worldly warrior and that of the ascetic monk, that allows him to be the only character in the Heike to remain a source of parody in nineteenth century prints.

Though not quite the irrevelent parodies (mitate) of the eighteenth century, nineteenth century kyodai-e or 'brother pictures' were similarly plays with legendary figures and contemporary situations. A kyodai-e would match a character from a famous drama or historical event with a modern figure, courtesans as Chushingura warriors, or street characters with heroes. Significantly, the comedy in these images would be at the gap between the exalted figure and the everyday one, with both figures represented. This is in sharp contrast to the eighteenth century mitate-e, in which a single god or historical figure is represented comically in a contemporary situation. Such difference, again, points at the veneration of the warrior in the nineteenth century, as opposed to irreverent eighteenth century depictions. In such images, warriors and other established figures of tradition are allowed to retain their exalted, distant position, and the comedy is on the present, in its "low" re-enactment of the historical precedent.

The image to the left, for example, is a kyodai-e of Mongaku, with an image of a summer festival ice vendor in a yukata with climbing carp compared to an inset of Mongaku doing his famous penance beneath the icy waterfall at Kumano. Like the carp in the waterfall on the kimono, Mongaku succeeds after multiple attempts in overcoming the impossible demands of his three week waterfall penance, while the melted ice that the vendor disposes of compares perhaps to Mongaku kept warm in the icy water by Fudo Myo-o, or perhaps again to the impossibility of his task, here of keeping ice on a summer day. Again, unlike the eighteenth century paodies of Atsumori we have seen, this kyodai-e in no way ridicules Mongaku, but rather shows that his present incarnation is a debased and less heroic version, a vendor whose only fierceness is his frustration that his ice is melting before it is sold. Not the past reinterpreted through the lenses of the present, as with Atsumori mitate-e, such kyodai-e suggest the impossibility of the present to live up to the heroic past.

There is, however, at least one image of Mongaku that is a clear parody of the famous story of his penance. Called "The Fashionable Floating World Gourd" (Ryukou Ukiyo Hyotan), the image is a picture of the Mongaku penance scene composed entirely of gourds. Mongaku, with a gourd-shaped head, toro and legs, stands by his famous waterfall before gourd vines and leaves--and even the helpers of Fudo Myo-o who descend from the sky on a gourd cloud are composed of gourds, with vines for hair. Far from cutting parody, however, this type of image is simply a form of visual play such as its artist, Kuniyoshi, excelled in. Said to be a collector of gourds, Kuniyoshi also produced similar prints comprised entirely of another of his loves, cats, as well as human portraits made enitrely out of other human beings. Yet though the print may have no deep satiric intent, it is nonetheless interesting to note which themes are deemed worthy of play, and which too serious to toy with. Among Kuniyoshi's enormous output of such asobi-e ('play-pictures') only one other, a "koma-e" of Atsumori and Kumagae as spinning tops, uses the events of the Gempei Wars as a topic of fun.

The case of Mongaku is, in this sense, the exception that proves the rule. When treated as a Heike Monogatari warrior, Mongaku receives the veneration gives to other warriors, and is portrayed as a figure of great power. However, his ambivalent status as an ascetic monk engaging in political muckraking places him in a different situation, one capable of being played with. Such play would not have been possible at this time with a Gempei warrior of true samurai status.

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