As a child, Akira Yamaguchi spent countless hours hunched over his desk, doodling the many space-age rocket ships and humanoids he encountered in his bedroom anime collection. The young artist, however, also remembers feeling a sense of guilt whenever he attempted to mimic more traditional Japanese art forms by past masters like Hokusai.
"It's probably a uniquely Japanese way of thinking, but I felt it was blasphemy," says Yamaguchi, 35. "For me, classical art was something for the elite and not to be meddled with by commoners like me."
This underdog mentality towards the established art of his homeland, however, would in fact be the catalyst for Yamaguchi's own career. He developed a radical approach to Japanese art that combined Western oil painting techniques with a traditional compositional style, originating in Kyoto, known as Yamato-e (literally, Japanese images).