Mention the word "art" to the average Japanese pop musician and the response is likely to be a roll of the eyes, a sharp intake of breath and a lot of mumbling.
This isn't to say that the Japanese pop scene doesn't have loads of groundbreaking artists. Cornelius, DJ Krush and Buffalo Daughter, to name a few, have produced releases that push pop and hip hop into uncharted territories and qualify them as more than just a youth culture commodity. It's just that modesty or, more likely, a painful sensitivity to street cred keep most of them from saying so.
Takuji Aoyagi is refreshingly capable of such a confession, and luckily, he has the talent to make it more than just pretense.