"Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol." Takashi Murakami
An art critic wrote about him: "Fine art and pop culture combine to reflect the complex superficiality of contemporary Japanese life - often reduced to cartoonish intensity."
hmm.
Anyway. In the 1990s, Murakami founded the Superflat movement in an attempt to expose the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture." The artist plays on the familiar aesthetic of mangas, Japanese-language comics, to render works that appear democratic and accessible, all the while denouncing the universality and unspecificity of consumer goods.
Go enjoy.