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The fifteen volumes of ''Hokusai manga'' combined include roughly 4,000 pages of illustration. The first ten volumes were published between [[1814]] and [[1819]]. The next two came out more than ten years later, in [[1832]]-[[1833]], and [[1834]], respectively. The publication date for volumes 13 and 14 are unknown; the final volume was published posthumously in [[1878]], nearly 30 years after Hokusai's death, but, unlike volume 14, carrying his signature.
The fifteen volumes of ''Hokusai manga'' combined include roughly 4,000 pages of illustration. The first ten volumes were published between [[1814]] and [[1819]]. The next two came out more than ten years later, in [[1832]]-[[1833]], and [[1834]], respectively. The publication date for volumes 13 and 14 are unknown; the final volume was published posthumously in [[1878]], nearly 30 years after Hokusai's death, but, unlike volume 14, carrying his signature.
Scholars have variously described the work as possessing elements, or aspects, of a painter's guide to how to depict various subjects; a playful depiction of human society; and of simply "random sketches."
==The Term "Manga"==
In attempting to define, describe, or translate the term "manga" in ''Hokusai manga'', many scholars, including [[Tsuji Nobuo]], [[John Rosenfield]], and the bilingual ''Dictionary of Japanese Art Terms'', describe it as "random sketches," or otherwise emphasize the free self-indulgence aspect of Hokusai's act of creation, characterizing the work, to one extent or another, as being essentially collections of sketches of various different subjects which Hokusai felt like drawing at the time. Contrary to common misconception, however, Hokusai did not coin the term. Rather, it first appeared in the late 18th century as an abbreviation of ''manpitsu-ga'', a pictorial version of the ''manpitsu'' genre of essay-like rambling, meandering, writings. The term also appears in China, though with somewhat different connotations or meanings. Earlier works employing the term in their titles include an 1814 collection of [[bijinga|images of beautiful women]], ''Manga hyakujo'', and ''Kôrin manga'', a catalog of works by painter [[Otaga Korin|Ogata Kôrin]], compiled and published in 1817, on the 100th anniversary of his death.
In the Edo period, therefore, it becomes clear that the word "manga," rather than having any meaning having to do with narrative (storytelling), was a term for works containing a great number of images depicted in a variety of styles. One 20th century manga artist, Ishinomori Shôtarô, attempted to emphasize, or recapture, this meaning by writing the term manga as 萬画, meaning literally "ten thousand pictures."
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