Case studies of recent tsunami impacts have proven to be extremely useful in understanding the geologic processes involved during inundation and return flow, and refining the criteria used to identify paleotsunami deposits in the geologic record. Here, we report on erosion, deposition and associated landscape change resulting from the March 11, 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami along a nearly 4.5km shore-normal transect on the coastal plain near Sendai, Japan. The study area on the broad, low-relief prograding coastal Sendai plain comprised a sand beach backed by ~3m high sand dunes and a forest, a wetland, the Teizan canal, agricultural rice fields, buildings and roads.Field observations focused on measurements of tsunami flow characteristics (height and direction), mapping of erosion features and assessing sediment deposition based on shallow trenches at 50–100m spacing. Recorded tsunami inundation heights reached up to about 11m above mean sea level within the first 500m from the shoreline and then ranged between 3 and 5m for the next 2km, gradually decreasing to about 3m close to the inundation limit. The tsunami deposit generally thinned landward from an average maximum ~30cm thick sand deposit in the coastal forest to a thin mud drape several mm thick near the inundation limit. A discontinuous sand-dominated sheet was prevalent to about 2800m from the shoreline where mud content then gradually increased further landward eventually resulting in a mud-dominated deposit ranging from 3.5cm to a few mm thickness. The overall thinning and fining of the deposit was often interrupted by localized features that led to complex sedimentological relationships over short distances.Satellite imagery taken on 14 March 2011, 3days after the Tohoku-oki Tsunami shows prominent foreshore incisions with 100s+meters spacing alongshore, a foredune ridge that underwent severe erosion and development of a prominent shore-parallel elongated scour depression. Our field survey in early May 2011 revealed that the foreshore recovered quickly with rapid post-tsunami sediment deposition from incident waves, whereas the dune–ridge complex had undergone only minor re-working from eolian processes.