Takahashi Shōtei studying art, Shotei and Terazaki Kogyo founded the Japan Youth Painting Society in 1889. In 1907, as a successful artist, he was recruited by Shōzaburō Watanabe to contribute to the Shin Hanga ("New Prints") art movement in Japan. Watanabe helped to fulfill the Western demand for Ukiyoe woodblock prints which would be similar to familiar historical masters of that genre, including Hiroshige. In about 1921 Shotei added the artistic name of Hiroaki. In 1923 the Great Kanto earthquake (and subsequent fire) destroyed Watanabe's facilities; this included all Shin Hanga woodblocks. Thus, Shotei recreated prior designs destroyed in the Great Kanto
Poetry Kanto Nishihara Katsumasa with an advisory board consisting of Shuntarō Tanikawa, Kazuo Kawamura and William I. Elliott, but in 2011, issue number 27, Botsford became sole editor. In 2005 the look of "Poetry Kanto" changed, with the professional designer/publisher's services shifting from Tokyo to Kamakura, the headquarters of the small but growing literary publisher Minato-no-hito (literally "a guy at the harbor", taken from the title of Tarō Kitamura’s poem). Since 2005, "Poetry Kanto" has featured a wide and diverse range of poets such as Gwyneth Lewis, Ilya Kaminsky, Beth Ann Fennelly, Vijay Seshadri, Harryette Mullen, Ellen Bass, Rigoberto González, Ayukawa Nobuo,