TSUTAYA

TSUTAYA BOOKS is a bookstore and event planning company located in Daikanyama, Ginza and other central Tokyo locations throughout Japan.
Popular for its Starbucks and modern and tasteful stationery, it was originally a publishing house founded in 1773 by Tsutaya Shigesaburo (1750-1790), who sold works by many Ukiyo-e artists, including Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Sharaku.
Ukiyo-e is a division of labour between the painter, the engraver and the printer, and the publisher acted as a coordinator, giving them instructions about this and that. 

It was surprising to know that Tsutaya was originally a shop that dealt in Ukiyo-e and was associated with Hokusai and Hiroshige.

Ukiyo-e were inexpensive, said to have cost the same as a bowl of soba (buckwheat noodles). Ukiyo-e was a popular advertising medium, with vivid colours, and the texture of the uneven woodblocks was one of the pleasures of ukiyo-e. We don't know what it feels like because we just look at it in the museum now.

I think it would be interesting if Tsutaya started selling modern ukiyo-e. ....
It will be fun to try my best to make it with Hand Press.

When I mentioned Tsutaya at one Ukiyo-e shop in Jimbou-cho, the owner said, "You don't say Tsutaya-san, it's Tsutaju!" 

It's the typical impatient Edoite way of shortening names. 

The main character of the NHK Taiga drama (starting in January 2025) is actually Tsutaya Shigezaburo, or Tsutaju. (English version)

【大河ドラマべらぼう】第1回冒頭ノーカット映像 | NHK  (Japanese version)

I’m watching it with the hope that this could lead to a resurgence in the Ukiyo-e trend.