He was born as the heir to Masayoshi Takagi, the last lord of Tannan Domain in what is now Osaka prefecture.

[1] He remained at the university for his postgraduate study in entomology, particularly interested in butterflies and longhorn beetles.

He was devastated when he lost much of his collection of insect specimens and his books amidst an air raid during the Second World War.

He disappeared suddenly with potassium cyanide capsules he was keeping to collect insects on 8 July 1948.

His suicide note read, 'it is utterly futile to try to find me, so pray do not try to do so; I shall just merge with nature and become part of it again'.