281 Anti Nuke came into being in 2011, in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The first sign of his existence was not a man but a little girl in a pink polka dot raincoat.

The stickers that started to appear on the streets of Tokyo, bearing the slogan I hate ☢ rain, were the calling card of the artist that is fast becoming known as the “Japanese Banksy.” But who is 281 Anti Nuke? The artist’s real name is Kenta Masuyama. Hailing from near Fukushima and a father himself, Masuyama was so moved by the events of 3/11 that he began his campaign to provoke the Japanese people to question the actions of their government over the crisis.

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, the issue of nuclear technology in Japan has been a highly-charged political issue. 281 Anti Nuke chose the medium of stickers due to the speed of production and application, so as to more quickly spread his “anti nuclear power plant” message. More recently the artist has begun to confront wider issues in Japanese politics and society.

Many of 281’s designs reference political art produced in response to the Cold War, from the activist-art of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to his reimagining of Dmitri Vrubel’s iconic Berlin Wall painting, My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.

You can find out more about 281 Anti Nuke in his own words in an interview in The New Yorker and also watch a short Japanese-language documentary about the artist by VICE Japan:

Images courtesy 281_Anti Nuke and Roth Management.