By the time Takashi Murakami received his Ph.D. from the University of Nihonga, in 1993, he had much to say about the state of contemporary art in Japan. “It’s a deep appropriation of Western trends,” he commented at the time. In fact, much of his own work aimed to satirize and ridicule. In the mid–90s, Murakami created a sculpture of a naked anime character with spiky blonde hair and a trail of semen that formed a circle around him. Although the work got attention, it was not always well-received. Then came Murakami’s “Superflat Manifesto” and his foray into popular culture. Now celebrating its 90th anniversary, Higashiyama Cube, one of Kyoto’s most important museums, has chosen Murakami for a large retrospective. He will be presenting 170 works, many of them new and never before seen in Japan. —Elena Clavarino