In comparison with the color woodblock prints that were manufactured in the big cities such as Edo and Osaka, the Nagasaki print differs in many ways. The often, rather naive style of these prints gives them a 'primitive', rustic impression. But like their counterparts in Edo, the Nagasaki prints lack the pretension of fine art. For a small amount of money it was possible for a traveller to Nagasaki to purchase a Nagasaki print and so cherish the memory of these curious Westerners for a long time. In this way the Nagasaki print served as souvenir prints, and were an inexhaustible source for all kinds of stories about the 'red-haired barbarians'.

In contrast to the Ukiyo-e print, the Nagasaki prints show in general a limited palette because the colors were painted by hand or applied with the so-called stencil method (kappa-zuri or kappazuri-e). Nagasaki prints are seldomly signed and also publisher marks are added sporadically. The earliest woodblock prints from Nagasaki include city maps which were already produced in the early 18th Century.

Among the earliest publishers are Hariya, followed by Toshi Maya and Yamatoya Bunkindõ, the latter known for the largest production of designs. In the historical development of the Japanese print, the Nagasaki print has a special place and shows in its own striking manner how the Dutch, for a long time the only Westerners allowed to stay in Japan, were observed through the eyes of the Japanese.

The woodblock prints of the publisher Yamatoya, who already started publishing Nagasaki-e from the early 19th Century, started (especially in technical terms) to show more affinity with the Edo print. An example of this development is the Nagasaki print depicting an American Warship at sea in dramatic action. Like the woodblock prints from the other Ukiyo-e genres, more blocks were used during the printing process for the rendering of colors.