China is an ever-expanding art juggernaut, abetted by a market eager to seize on its prolific output. Indian art is booming, led by charismatic conceptual sculptor Subodh Gupta, who has drawn comparisons to YBA figurehead Damien Hirst. Korea's unconventional scene entices with front-page scandals, from curators faking academic credentials to slush funds for multimillion-dollar works by Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein. Yet contemporary art in Japan remains somewhat overshadowed by the nation's cutting-edge design and architecture, funky fashion, and Michelin-approved nonpareil cuisine.

Change, however, is in the air, as a new generation of commercial galleries in Tokyo creates an opening for emerging artists while reinventing established names. Zenshi, founded in 2005 in the Kiyosumi Art Complex next to major dealers Tomio Koyama, Hiromi Yoshii, and Taka Ishii, focuses on a subcultural aesthetic, which informs the colorful paper-cuttings and freakish portraits of Tai Ogawa, who debuted at the gallery in April. In the city's trendy Nakameguro district, also home to Mizuma Art Gallery, AOYAMA | MEGURO takes a conceptual approach with video and installation artist Koki Tanaka. Across town, in the Suginami ward, Mujin-to Production promotes artist group Chim↑Pom — pupils of irreverent mixed-media artist Makoto Aida — whose projects include traveling to Cambodia to blow up luxury goods with recovered land mines. Elsewhere, in Toshima, Misako & Rosen recently featured Chaguin, a collaborative project between Yoshitomo Nara and Hiroshi Sugito, as well as the stylish figurative work of Shimon Minamikawa.

ARATANIURANO, which opened in the upscale Ginza district in 2007, balances its program with dreamy paintings and sculptures of totemic figures by Izumi Kato (included in last year's Venice Biennale) and the lyric, autobiographical paintings and drawings of 26-year-old Youichi Umetsu. In January 2008, Azabu gallery Take Ninagawa devoted its packed premiere exhibition to the bricolage-style fantasy-scapes of New York-based artist Misaki Kawai, and then scored a coup with its ongoing three-part solo show of seminal '80s collagist and rock artist Shinro Ohtake. Even superflat kingpin Takashi Murakami is in on the act, unveiling his Kaikai Kiki Gallery this past March. The gallery followed its debut group show, which included new cosplayer paintings by otaku artist Mr., with the first solo show in Japan for Rei Sato, who overlays photographic prints with wispy line drawings.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Murakami relaunched his biannual GEISAI competitive art fair for artists without gallery representation in May, after a year's hiatus. This followed April's inaugural 101 Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair, which featured young local dealers, as well as New York's ATM Gallery, with paintings by Kyoto artist Saeko Takagi, and Peter Kilchmann from Zürich, who brought a suitcase of art works by Rita Ackermann.

101 Tokyo Contemporary coincided with the third Art Fair Tokyo, a blitz of openings at the Kiyosumi Art Complex, and an exhibition in commercial space by the newly established young-gallery association New Tokyo Contemporaries. While it remains to be seen how far this momentum will carry over internationally, there's no doubt that Tokyo art watchers are enjoying the new influx of events and exhibitions.

-Andrew Maerkle