Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun 

This is the first publication of the Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun (Yokohama daily newspaper), printed with movable wood type on one page. It was one of the first daily newspapers to be printed in Japan during the Meiji era. 

This newspaper is printed in mincho-tai, which is written in standard writing as opposed to cursive, and approximates to serif font in English. Until then, Japan had been using calligraphic styles of writing such as sousho and using woodblock printing techniques, despite the presence of moveable type. The use of woodblock allowed the scripture to remain calligraphic and artistic, while movable type required more of a structure to the letterforms. Following the increasing contact with western culture in the Meiji era, printers began implementing moveable type (called katsuji or kappan in Japanese), causing  a transition from cursive to standard letterforms, as demonstrated by this newspaper. 

In addition, modern Japanese is read from right to left vertically, but left to right horizontally. In this newspaper, the title, which is written horizontally, is read from right to left. The shift in reading direction began when Japanese people were increasingly exposed to English text, which read from right to left. This newspaper demonstrates this shift in adopting western culture of the Meiji era, because it employs printing techniques from western culture, but still uses the traditional Japanese reading order.