1 Yen

The Bank of Taiwan was not a central bank in the conventional sense — it operated as a colonial financial institution under Japanese imperial administration, handling currency for Taiwan, parts of southern China, and at various points the Japanese-occupied Pacific. This 1 Yen note falls within a wartime production window during which Japanese military expansion dramatically increased paper money supply across occupied territories, often outpacing any meaningful reserve backing.

Printing responsibility during this series shifted as wartime pressures on metropolitan Japanese print facilities mounted. Notes from the later end of this range show detectable differences in paper quality and print registration — a known characteristic of the type, not a defect specific to individual specimens.