Murakami doesn't just appropriate existing characters—he also creates his own anime-style avatars. The first and most important of these was DOB, whose name is derived from the existential question that plagues toddlers everywhere: Dobojite dobojite? ("Why? Why?"). DOB has an O-shaped face and ears bearing the letters D and B. In early versions, like this painting from 1994, he looks a lot like Mickey Mouse, and that's no accident. Murakami has said that he created DOB as an "inquiry into the secret of market survival" and into the "universality" of characters like Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the anime icon Doraemon (a cuddly, catlike robot from the future). Murakami's DOB can be read as a critique of the Japanese cult of kawaii (cuteness), which he sees as an expression of postwar Japanese impotence—a retreat into infantilism. But the point was also to create a character that could successfully infiltrate that market. Like Disney, Sega, Sanrio, and other corporate "parents," Murakami has fought hard to protect his character's copyright. In 2004, he sued the children's clothing company Narumiya International for its use of a mouselike figure that resembled DOB and reportedly received a settlement of tens of millions of yen*.

Correction, April 17, 2008: The article originally stated the reported settlement was for tens of thousands of yen.