A Colorful Look and a New Feel

For 25 years the face of Shotoku, the prince of sagely virtue who drafted Japan's first constitution more than a dozen centuries ago, has calmly but sternly graced Japanese bank notes. But the prince is being deposed. On Nov. 1, he will be replaced on 10,000 yen notes (about $40) by a more modern figure, Yukichi Fukuzawa, an important figure in the Westernization of Japan in the 19th century. On 5,000 yen bills, where Shotoku had also ruled, goes Inazo Nitobe, an official in the old League of Nations. The new face on a 1 ,000 yen note is that of a newspaperman and novelist, Soseki Natsume, who died in 1916.

The current bank notes were around for so long they had become an easy target for counterfeiters. The new ones will be tougher to fake. They each have a spray of colors, 15 for the 10,000 yen note alone, and larger watermarks. For the blind, they will bear their value in braille. One problem with the new bills is that vending machines, where the Japanese buy everything from railroad tickets to whisky, will have to be converted to accept the new currency.