Man'yoshu

Man'yoshu (万葉集 Man'yōshū) or Anthology of a Myriad Leaves is the first great Japanese poetry anthology, compiled by the poet Otomo no Yakamochi around 759.

The most important poetic forms in the anthology are the choka (long poem), consisting of alternate lines of five and seven syllables, followed by a final line of seven syllables; and the tanka (short poem), consisting of 31 syllables, written in five lines according to a pattern of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is one of the poets featured in the work.

The anthology is written using a syllabary called man'yo-gana, in which Chinese characters serve as phonetic symbols of syllables rather than of words.

See also: Man'yo-gana, Kokin'-wakashu, Shin-kokin-wakashu