Murakami's style, called Superflat, is characterized by flat planes of color and graphic images involving a character style derived from anime and manga. Superflat is an artistic style that comments on otaku lifestyle and subculture, as well as consumerism and sexual fetishism.
Like Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami takes low culture and repackages it, and sells it to the highest bidder in the "high-art" market. Also like Warhol, Murakami makes his repacked low culture available to all other markets in the form of paintings, sculptures, videos, T-shirts, key chains, mouse pads, plush dolls, cell phone caddies, and $5,000 limited-edition Louis Vuitton handbags. This is comparable to Claes Oldenburg, who sold his own low art, high art pieces in his own store front in the 1960s. What makes Murakami different is his methods of production, and his work is not in one store front but many, ranging from toy stores, candy aisles, comic book stores, and the French design house of Louis Vuitton. Murakami's style is an amalgam of his Western predecessors, Warhol, Oldenberg and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as Japanese predecessors and contemporaries of
anime and
manga. He has successfully marketed himself to Western culture and to Japan in the form of Kaikai Kiki and GEISAI.
Interviewer Magdalene Perez asked him about straddling the line between art and commercial products, and mixing art with branding and merchandizing. Murakami said,
"I don’t think of it as straddling. I think of it as changing the line. What I’ve been talking about for years is how in Japan, that line is less defined. Both by the culture and by the post-War economic situation. Japanese people accept that art and commerce will be blended; and in fact, they are surprised by the rigid and pretentious Western hierarchy of ‘high art.’ In the West, it certainly is dangerous to blend the two because people will throw all sorts of stones. But that's okay...I’m ready with my hard hat."
"Smooth Nightmare" is an example of a popular Murakami painting in the Superflat style. It exhibits one of his recurring motifs of the mushroom. The mushroom repetition is a good example of Murakami's work's connection with themes of the underground and alternative cultures.
In November 2003,
ArtNews reported Murakami's work as being among the most desired in the world. Chicago collector Stefan Edis reportedly paid a record $567,500 for Murakami's 1996 "Miss ko2", a life-size fiberglass cartoon figure, at Christie's last May. Christie's owner, François Pinault, reportedly paid around $1.5 million in June to acquire "Tongari Kun" (2003), a fiberglass sculpture, and four accompanying fiberglass mushroom figures, that were part of an installation at Rockefeller Center. In May 2008, "My Lonesome Cowboy" (1998), a sculpture of a masturbating boy, sold for $15.2 million at a Sotheby's auction.
In September 2010 Murakami exhibited some of his works at the Palace of Versailles in France, filling 15 rooms with his sculptures.
File:Takashi Murakami at Versailles Sept. 2010.jpg|Murakami being interviewed by film crews, behind him is the Oval Buddha GoldFile:Takashi Murakami Exhibit at Versailles 2010 (1).jpg|Tongari-Kun (Mr Pointy) inside the State rooms of the PalaceFile:Takashi Murakami Exhibit at Versailles 2010 (2).jpg|Flower Matango in the Hall of MirrorsFile:Takashi Murakami Exhibit at Versailles 2010 (3).jpg|Kaikai displayed next to a statue of the King Louis XIVFile:Takashi Murakami Exhibit at Versailles 2010 (4).jpg|Kiki in the same room