Takashi Murakami looks forlorn. Sipping water from a bottle in a small office above Gagosian gallery a few days before his exhibition opens, Murakami is slumped in his Raf Simons hoodie. He has been chosen for the coveted Oscars show at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills outpost, when all the celebrities are in town. And indeed Pharrell Williams, Tyga, and Maria Sharapova would all attend his opening a few days later.

It’s my fault really. I’ve just asked him about his dog, Pom, who has been a staple leitmotif in Murakami’s work. In fact, the gallery downstairs displays a small painting in which a thought bubble pops up next to an anime style self-portrait of Murakami and Pom, whom he took in from the street over eight years ago. “When I can’t go on living alone, you are next to me. Nobita has Doraemon. I, Takashi Murakami, have POM. Thank you for being there,” Murakami’s avatar is thinking.

“Pom actually has cancer now, so she might die soon—so that's why this came up,” Murakami says through his translator, Yuko. “I have no experience with cats or dogs; I was not feeling for that kind of animal. [Before Pom,] I was feeling for the turtles and the fish, but a dog is very special. It’s like family, but I never knew that. So when, with Pom, the doctor said cancer, my feeling was, Oh my God. I was crying a little bit.”

Such a vision of the 57-year-old artist might surprise a casual fan. The characters that populate Murakami’s work are so ebullient, they look like they might burst out of the paintings and sculptures that Murakami creates. There are thousands of hopped-up flowers, the overstimulated imps Kaikai and Kiki, and the technicolor Mr. DOB—who is actually a critical take on the relationship of Japanese artists to Western symbolism. That same casual fan might be surprised that Murakami’s work is quite critical of the art world’s structures.