Funayama, along with Go Mishima, Tatsuji Okawa, and Go Hirano, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.
[1] From the 1970s until the late 1990s, Funayama disappeared from public life, and did not publish or circulate art for over three decades.
No further works were submitted by Funayama which, combined with his presumed advanced age, led his contemporaries to assume he had died.
[2] He was an acquaintance of the writer Yukio Mishima, who would visit Funayama while in Kansai.
[2] Funayama is noted for his depictions of "macho-type" men, often in extreme scenarios involving BDSM, torture, and graphic violence.