Takashi Murakami's Mr. Oval 'Splash' reversible bucket hat from ISSEY MIYAKE MEN, Spring/Summer 2000. This iconic piece comes from the highly coveted collaboration between Naoki Takizawa and Takashi Murakami for ISSEY MIYAKE MEN. It features a splash from Murakami's 1998-1999 'My Lonesome Cowboy' period alongside Mr. Oval on top. It is also reversible, having a white side. It is in good condition.

"In the painting 'Zuzazazazaza' (1994), zuzazazaza is the sound of a baseball player sliding into base, as it would be written in manga, the stylized squirt is a direct reference to Edo period graphic works, in 'an attempt to elevate contemporary anime to the status of canonical Japanese art.' Murakami suggests a direct line of historical descent between the flatness of the prints of the famous 19th century artist Katsushika Hokusai, and the 1970s television animation of Kanada Yoshinori. From the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1980s Kanada Yoshinori was the genius of special effects animation, in particular his explosions for the animated movies 'Galaxy Express 999' (1979), and 'Sayonara Galaxy Express' (1988). Murakami states his 'fantastic journey in search of "super flatness" began with Yoshinori Kanada's animation.' Particularly important in the works of Kanada is the strange style of timing structure.

'I do not think it is an overstatement to say that Yoshinori Kanada added a time axis to his 2-D on-screen compositional skill to open the doors to an entirely new paradigm in art history. Replication of the structure of 'beauty' he has constructed - this is the concept behind my splash painting creation.'

Although extremely famous in the otaku world, he isn't recognized in the Japanese art scene or the world of art criticism.

Other splash paintings include 'Milk' (1998), and 'Splash' (2000), 'Aqua Blue Splash' (1998), and 'Green Milk' (1998), which also conjure up the strong sexual element of 1960s Pop Art, David Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash' (1967) for example, a sexual excitement at a new age of consumption, and the 'money shot' of contemporary pornography. A certain sexuality, linked as well to the otaku subculture by Murakami, is an important aspect of the Super Flat in its mixing of art, popular culture and subculture [...]."