On his deathbed at 88, one of the most prolific artists in history begged for ten more years, or even five, so he might finally become a real painter. This episode explores the relentless, eccentric life of Katsushika Hokusai, creator of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from his birth in Edo in 1760 to a mirror-maker's family, a boyhood job in a lending library, and an apprenticeship as a woodcarver, to his years in the Katsukawa school drawing kabuki actors and courtesans of the floating world.

We follow his expulsion for secretly studying rival schools and forbidden European copper engravings, the pivot to landscapes and working-class subjects, and the publicity stunts that built his name, including a 200-square-meter Daruma painted with a broom and a chicken chased across paper before the shogun. We then cover his battles with carvers and pu ...