Born in 1977, Nakata is a former professional footballer. He currently lives in Tokyo. After retiring from sports, Nakata spent seven and a half years traveling Japan’s 47 prefectures to learn about Japanese culture. In 2015, he established the Japan Craft Sake Company and began pursuing enterprises related to traditional Japanese crafts and sake. Nakata is a visiting professor for the College of Business Administration at Rikkyo University and the Honorary Director of the National Crafts Museum (Kanazawa).

Born in 1973 in Gunma Prefecture, Sakai is based in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) and teaches in Yamagata Prefecture. He received a doctorate in metalsmithing from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 2003. From 2013 to 2018, he served as an instructor at the Kanazawa Utatsuyama Crafts Workshop. Since 2019, Sakai has been an associate professor of crafts in the Department of Fine Arts at the Tohoku University of Art and Design.