From behind his shaggy beard, affable British-born Canadian woodblock printmaker David Bull ended our interview at his studio in western Tokyo with what sounded like a challenge.
The Japanese-language media, he said, "would never write about the stuff I've told you today. Never. No way. They find words in the middle of what I've said to write the story that they wanted — that's what journalists do."
"Could The Japan Times do any better?" he seemed to be asking. Could we portray this present-day successor to those printmakers of the Edo Period (1603-1867) who made ukiyo-e ("floating world") artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai famous, without resorting to convenient preconceptions?