The Man'yōshū is an anthology of Japanese waka poetry. It was compiled in the eighth century (during Japan's Nara period), likely in a number of stages by several people, with the final touches likely being made by Ōtomo no Yakamochi, the poet whose work is most prominently featured in the anthology. The Man'yōshū is the oldest anthology of poetry in classical Japanese, as well as the largest, with over 4,500 poems included, and is widely regarded as the finest. The collection is distinguished from later anthologies of classical Japanese poetry not only by its size but by its variety of poetic forms, as it includes not only the 5-7-5-7-7 tanka form, which by the time of the Kokin Wakashū had become ubiquitous, but also the longer chōka form (which included an indefinite number of 5-7 verse