Born in Okayama in 1962. After graduating from the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Letters of Chuo University, Akagi started work at a publishing company as a magazine editor. After that, he moved to Wajima in 1988, and he became an apprentice to a base-coating master of Wajima lacquerware, Susumu Okamoto in 1989. Finally, in 1994, Akagi decided to go independent. Selected as one of the “twelve contemporary Japanese lacquerware artists” at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, he gained international recognition. In 2004, selected pieces of his artwork became part of the collection at the Die Neue Sammlung, a design museum in Germany. In 2012, at the request of the exhibitor, his works were displayed at the exhibition “Things: Plain & Simple” at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts. When Noma, a Danish restaurant bestowed with the title "Best Restaurant in the World," decided to set up a pop-up restaurant in Tokyo for a limited time in 2015, Akagi created bowls and cutlery for them, making headlines.