 Whilst at high school between 1964 and 1967 he won awards and began to use lights in his work.In 1967 he became a student of Masachika Sugimura before moving to Tokyo, where he worked part-time at an artist's material shop and later as an illustrator and a designer for an advertising company.He established JIM with Yuhji Itsumi, Youichi Sai, and Takeshi Shino in Shibuya, Tokyo in 1972.