Hokusais 53 Stations of the Tokaido 1801 is something completely different. It is his first. And it is one of the first at all.
It is different from his famous 36 Views of Mt Fuji, which are sublime artistic expressions distilling a long lifes work.
It is different from much of Hokusais other well known work, like his 100 Views of Mt Fuji. But in that series Hokusai still retained a lot of the humor and the caricature found here.
It is different from the many other well known 53 Stations of the Tokaido in that Hokusai does not focus on the landscape and the markers that Hiroshige and others showed.
Instead Hokusai focus on the events, the interactions between the travellers, the tales that you will share with your friends when you get back home.
It was a great and earlier contribution to the Tokaido literature.
