We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don't completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.

Contemporary art and manga - what is the same about them? Nothing, right? The manga industry has a lot of talented people, but contemporary art works on more of a solitary model. No one embarks on collaboration in contemporary art in order to make money. But in the manga world, everyone is invested in collaboration. The most important point is that the manga industry constantly encourages new creations and creators.

I would like to live to 120, because conceptually, people can survive to 120. Every 20 years, it changes. So maybe, in the next 20 years people can go to space. I don’t know what the next revolution will be. I want to watch.

I'm very sad to be compared with Warhol and The Factory, because I have no drugs, you know. We have no drug culture in Japan! Maybe it's because our attitude toward labor is totally different.

Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol.

I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.

New York City is still the art capital - every time I'm in New York, I'm thinking about competition.