Gyotaku

Short answer: Gyotaku (from gyo, 'fish', and taku, 'impression') is the Japanese practice of printing fish. The oldest known gyotaku, Kinshibori no funa ('Crucian Carp from the Kinshibori Canal'), is dated to 1839.

It records a crucian carp caught in Edo (now Tokyo) by Sakai Tadaaki, ninth lord of the Shōnai domain, and is kept at the Tsuruoka City Museum of Local History. Nippon.com reports that the Shōnai region around Tsuruoka in Yamagata Prefecture is considered gyotaku's birthplace. The domain encouraged its samurai to fish from the rocky shore as training, and they used prints to record their big catches. There are two main methods. In the direct method (chokusetsuhō), ink or paint goes on the fish and paper is pressed over it, which gives a mirror image. In the indirect method (kansetsuhō), thin damp washi paper is molded onto the fish and color is dabbed on with a silk-wrapped pad called a tanpo, like a rubbing. After photography spread in the postwar period, colorful 'art gyotaku' grew into a style of its own. Researchers have also used old gyotaku as historical records of fish sizes and species. The footage shows the technique on an octopus, which is inked, printed on paper and finished with a red seal stamped on the print. Gyotaku is traditionally done with fish, and octopus and squid prints are also common.