The natural disaster that The Great Wave off Kanagawa is often incorrectly thought to depict is a tsunami.
Hokusai’s print shows boats battling a huge breaking wave, with Mount Fuji in the background. Its dramatic shape and scale have led many modern viewers to label the image a tsunami, especially because the print is frequently reproduced in discussions of tsunami hazards.
A tsunami, however, is generated by a major displacement of water, usually from an undersea earthquake, landslide, or volcanic event. In deep water it is generally a long, low wave rather than a sharply curling breaker like the one shown in Hokusai’s composition.
The image is more commonly interpreted as a wind-driven ocean wave, sometimes discussed as an unusually large or rogue wave. The title says only “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” giving no indication that Hokusai intended to represent a tsunami or document a specific disaster.