Japan took over Taiwan as its first colony in 1895. The colonial government in Taiwan soon established an elementary school (kōgakō) system for Taiwanese children in 1898. The National Language (i.e. Japanese; kokugo) was considered the most important subject taught. Until Japan ended its rule in Taiwan in 1945, the colonial government had issued five editions of the Japanese readers. These Japanese readers were abundant in illustrations. Taiwanese were depicted in different ways in each edition. What were the basic variations that outlined the images of Taiwanese in the five editions of Japanese readers? What kind of “self-images” did the colonial educators intend the Taiwanese children to acquire? How were these images related to actual social scene? Can we grasp changes in the cultural policies adopted by the colonizer through the images of Taiwanese illustrated in those readers? These are the questions this article sets out to answer. A careful examination of these readers reveals that the images of Taiwanese shifted between what Taiwanese were commonly known to be and what Taiwanese should become in the eyes of the colonial government. It is a story of reality and norm. In the first edition, the images of Taiwanese reflected to a great extent what Taiwanese usually were, although normative attitudes can be detected. Thus, we see women with bound feet, men wearing plaited hair (a queue) and traditional Taiwanese (Manchu-Chinese) clothes, but girls of tender ages were not foot-bound and opium-smoking was nowhere to be seen. The Taiwanese appearing in the second edition had new images-men and boys cut their hair short (Western style), while women and girls no longer bound their feet. This did not reflect the real situation at that time. Although men would soon discard the traditional hair-style, the practice of foot-binding took longer time to disappear. The third edition illustrated Taiwanese boys in Western clothes, and the so-called “Japanese lifestyle” (naichi fū) also gained visibility. For instance, Taiwanese children started wearing kimono. In other words, the “self-image” of Taiwanese children was “Japanized” to some extent. The fourth edition began to appear in 1937. Soon there would come the fifth (and final) edition in 1942. The images of Taiwanese illustrated in these two editions were strongly normative. The Taiwanese wore either Western clothes or kimono, living a Japanese way of life. This was the period (1937-1945)when the colonial government fervently carried out the movement of “making Taiwanese the imperial subjects” (kōminka undō). In textbook illustrations, it became almost impossible to discern who was Taiwanese and who was Japanese. In sum, the Taiwanese depicted in earlier editions of Japanese readers reflected more of the social reality on the island, while later ones more of the images expected of the colonized by the colonizer. The images of Taiwanese illustrated in the Japanese readers also reveal to a large degree the cultural policies adopted by the colonial government at different stages during its 51-year rule of Taiwan. The policies started from one that respected Taiwanese native customs (kyūkan onzon) and ended in one that campaigned to make Taiwanese into “true Japanese”.