Sanuki area (Kagawa prefecture) is not only one of the most important soy sauce manufacturing areas, but also the birthplace of Kobo Taishi (Kukai). Although I've been operating a soy sauce company there, I never knew the existence of soy sauce art, which might have been started by Kukai…what a thoughtless, foolish man I was! Such feelings of regret struck me when I first saw Mr. Ozawa's " Museum of Soy Sauce Art " at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. But, wait, something is odd and shaky…after asking a staff member, I knew that everything was Mr. Ozawa's creation, an imaginary "parallel world". I burst into laughter, and the indescribable feeling of satisfaction after examining them again and again; that was the true catharsis given by art. Moreover, that made me hold the hope that, as a president of local soy sauce company, I could participate in some way in plotting or directing it, and the joy I felt from this hope was similar to what I got later from knowing his other projects, such as Nasubi Gallery projects or Sodan Art. "Why can't we, a soy sauce maker, be a sponsor to it!" Though I realized I should do this, I contacted Ota Fine Arts rather gingerly through the help of Sano Gallery, and this was the start of our planning to actually open the Sanuki Museum of Soy Sauce Art. Kobo Daish (Kukai) was an incredible genius: after traveling in Tang dynasty (AD 618-907) and diving into the secret of "True Word", became the greatest calligrapher in Japan. He opened up numerous temples, created hundreds of Buddha statues, had wells and reservoirs made and restored. There would be absolutely no wonder if he were the originator of the technique involving soy sauce painting. I heartily hope that our Sanuki Museum of Soy Sauce will add another humorous page to the Kobo Daishi legend.