The Man'yōshū ('Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves'), Japan's oldest imperial poetry anthology, is compiled with 4,516 poems spanning classes and regions. It includes oral folk songs (azuma-uta), Eastern soldier verses, love exchanges, and myth-derived court poems, using early man'yōgana script. The collection preserves rural dialects, local legends, and pre-Buddhist Shinto folklore.

The anthology elevates folk song forms (sakimori uta, border guard poems) to canonical status, influencing all subsequent waka and haiku poetry. Poets like Yosano Akiko later revived man'yōshū's rustic voice to challenge refined court conventions, showing how folk authenticity repeatedly revitalizes Japanese poetics. The work remains central to understanding poetry- folklore fusion.