Redesigned Japanese passports to be issued this month

Japan has redesigned Japanese passports to feature woodblock works of ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Art pieces such as “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” and “Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji” will be printed onto the pages of new passports as an anti-forgery measure, according to the Japan Times.Japanese citizens who apply for the passport from Tuesday will receive passports with the new designs.

According to the Japan Times, the five-year version of the passport will include 16 of Hokusai’s works, while the ten-year version will contain 24.

The passport’s outer cover will remain the same but will have more secure IC chip in order to keep the passport holder’s information safer and harder to get a hold of.

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also announced Wednesday that Japan will change the way original family names are written in passports to show both of the holder’s original and current surnames more clearly.

“The current way of using parentheses makes it hard to understand,” Motegi told a press conference.

The Foreign Ministry is studying review options, including the addition of an explanatory note of “original family name,” to implement the change in the latter half of this year.

The ministry is also considering making checks of the family register the only requirement for the passport holder’s previous family name to be written along with the current surname, according to Motegi.

Japan also plans to use “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” on a new ¥1,000 bill it will put into circulation in 2024, on the reverse side of a portrait of industrialist Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931).