At a very young age, Japanese artist Shohei Otomo was drawing scenes from manga like Dragon Ball Z.

His mother maintains he did not need art lessons because "there was nothing to teach him … [his ability] was quite natural".

But he didn't dare attempt to emulate the work of his father Katsuhiro Otomo — the legendary artist and director best known as the creator of the sci-fi manga and animated movie Akira — as he considered it too difficult to draw.

In Australia for an exhibition at the Backwoods Gallery in Collingwood, Victoria, the younger Otomo remains eager for people to see him as more than just his father's son.

Otomo's artworks like this one, titled Yoroshiku, are dense with symbolism. ( Supplied: Shohei Otomo/Backwoods Gallery )

His intricate works in ballpoint pen can take up to a month to complete, but there is no room for mistakes, as one wrong stroke can ruin the illustration. Otomo believes these high stakes are what give his drawings intensity.

Katsuhiro Otomo has refused to weigh in on the merit of his son's work and offer his approval, but his mother Yoko explains "that's the Japanese way".

The stress of Tokyo

Otomo may have found imitating his father's work difficult as a child, but the illustrations he makes now are complex.

He studied oil painting at university, and turned to the humble ballpoint pen when he was unable to afford paints.

He sees using ballpoint pen as "the common way … a common language for all the people in the world".

The scenes he draws are heavy with symbolism and are inspired by the stress of living in Tokyo — a stress that Otomo finds suffocating.

"In Japan there are too many rules to live freely … it's a country that keeps a strict eye on freedom," he says.

That suffocation, though great fodder for his art, has proven too much for him. In June this year he left Tokyo to live in the countryside.

Neo-Tokyo is the setting for the film Akira, created by Shohei's father Katsuhiro Otomo. ( Supplied: Tokyo Movie Shinsha )

Underneath the surface

While Otomo says the people of Japan "don't need my drawings", his work has found an audience internationally, and his current visit to Australia is his third.

He's not quite sure what draws Australians to his work, as he considers it "not bright and carefree … it can be stressful [for the viewer]".

Backwoods Gallery curator Alex Mitchell says Otomo's work complicates the simplistic outsider view of Japan.

Old and new Japan clash and blur in works like Konichiwa, Japan. ( Supplied: Shohei Otomo/Backwoods Gallery )

"As a visitor who doesn't speak Japanese, it's easy to think that Tokyo is a city that is peaceful or well organised, everything runs [on time], everything works, and everyone's polite," he says.

"But underneath the surface there is a lot of unhappiness."

Otomo's illustrations suggest that a key part of that unhappiness is an internal conflict at the heart of Japanese culture.

Mr Mitchell identifies that conflict as being between traditional Japanese culture — represented by tea ceremonies and Zen Buddhism — and the modern country, dense with 7-Elevens and vending machines.

Intergenerational tension

The hero image of Ora Ora, Otomo's current exhibition, is Counterstrike — an illustration in which three children ruthlessly attack a salaryman.

The salaryman is a workaholic stuck in a dead-end corporate hell. This revenge fantasy comes in part from Otomo's belief that adults in Japan neglect children.

"It's sort of an attack on the materialism of modern Japan," Mr Mitchell says.

This image from Otomo's latest exhibition sees children take revenge on a salaryman. ( Supplied: Shohei Otomo/Backwoods Gallery )

Japan has an ageing population, and Mr Mitchell finds it interesting that in this work, Otomo uses the older man as a stand-in for contemporary Japan, and the young men as symbols of traditional Japan.

"What that's saying is that the ageing Japan has lost touch with its tradition — there aren't many kids around," Mr Mitchell says.

"Kids represent the tradition, even though kids are also the vanguard of contemporary culture, so there's another conflict within the work."

The strength of art

For the exhibition at Backwoods, Otomo ventured into the world of the 3D for the first time — painting a huge sumo wrestler sculpture with Yakuza-style tattoos.

The piece, There's Nothing You Can Do To Hurt Me, includes tattoos of well-known explosions: from Star Wars' Death Star to Apocalypse Now's napalm. There's also a vision from Otomo's childhood — a Dragon Ball Z attack.

The sumo wrestler Otomo has painted at Backwoods is his first ever sculptural work. ( Supplied: Backwoods Gallery )

Otomo says he made this work to show "the strength of art … that art has more power than a weapon".

"In a world where lots of people are killed, art has never killed anyone," he says.

It's hard to look at this work and not think of his father, who exploded most of Neo-Tokyo in Akira.

"Explosions are a very big part of the Japanese psyche as well," Mr Mitchell adds.

"From that perspective it's also an act of defiance against the West — just as much as Counterstrike was an act of defiance against inter-generational culture."