Born in Japan and raised partly in the U.S., Ogata graduated from Harvard and MIT. His art videos have been presented at museums world-wide. His screenplays received funding in Germany and the Netherlands, and he appeared weekly as a comedian on VARA Dutch national TV for 3 years. As a writer-director, his debut feature “Cast Me If You Can” was released theatrically in 16 cities in Japan and San Francisco, and published as a novel. He has also guest-lectured at universities and at YouTube Space Tokyo. More recently, his collaborative comedy “Trick or Treat: I LOVE America!” was awarded for Best Creative Idea and Best Cinematography at the Rome Web Awards in 2015 and invited to K Web Fest (Seoul, Korea), Sicily, Berlin and Miami. Currently, he is preparing to launch his new cross-cultural sketch comedy series "Yukata Cowboy."