While manga has come to mean "comics" in modern Japanese, the word was used in the Edo period to mean informal drawings, possibly preparatory sketches for paintings.

Part of the preface reads:[2] This autumn the master [Hokusai] happened to visit the Western Province and stopped over at our city [Nagoya].

And there over three hundred sketches of all kinds were made – from immortals, Buddhas, scholars, and women on down to birds, beasts, grasses, and trees, the spirit of each captured fully by the brush.The final volume is considered spurious by some art historians.

[3] The initial publication is usually credited[4] to Eirakuya Toshiro (永楽屋東四郎) of Nagoya[5] whose publishing house was renamed to Eito Shoten in 1914.

The traditional view holds that, after the outburst of production, Hokusai carefully selected and redrew the sketches, arranging them into the patterns we see today.