Miss Osaka-shi

Miss Osaka-shi represents the city of Osaka and she is by the artist Takizawa Kōryūsai II. Her personal name is Miss Naniwa and her kimono bears the Osaka shishō (Osaka City Crest).

Miss Osaka-shi featured prominently not only in the formal farewell celebrations in Japan, but also in a number of early high-profile receptions in California, Washington DC and New York City. She was placed in the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey in August of 1928.

Miss Osaka-shi retains a nearly complete set of accessories, lacking only her passport. However, her lacquer accessories all bear the agehacho (butterfly) designed for Miss Osaka-fu, rather than the Osaka City Crest.

Miss Osaka-shi is perhaps the most mysterious of all the Friendship Dolls. Though bearing the Osaka City crest on her kimono, she bears none of the physical characteristics of the six Kyoto-made city dolls. 

A deeper investigation reveals that in September of 1927 a Kyoto-made doll wearing a different kimono was presented at a series of events in Osaka as Miss Osaka-shi alongside the Tokyo-made doll Miss Osaka-fu (now in Columbus, Ohio). However, in the quick series of events that led up to their departure for the US, this Kyoto-made Miss Osaka-shi suddenly disappeared only to be replaced by the current Tokyo-made doll currently at the Newark Museum for the final send-off ceremony at the Nihon Seinenkan (Japan Young Men’s Hall) on November 4, 1927. Further complicating this scenario is that her back does not bear the requisite Tokyo Wholesale Doll Traders’ Association label, providing further evidence of a very last-minute, unexplained switch.