A student of Hamada Shōji, Shimaoka Tatsuzō was also well known in Japan as well as abroad. He enrolled in Tokyo Technical College in 1939 and started a three-year apprenticeship with Hamada in 1946 after a military deployment to Burma. The only son of a third-generation braidmaster, Shimaoka is most associated with inka, a technique created through cord-impressed inlay. He formed this method in 1950 while working at the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramics Research Station, where he was asked to recreate Jōmon-style earthenware as teaching materials. Shimaoka specialized in tableware and vases. Stylistically, most of his pieces resemble Hamada’s. He was named a Living National Treasure in 1996 and awarded the Order of the Rising Star in 1999.