Ishida's keen observations of Japan's turbulent “Lost Decade” (1991 - 2001) strongly informed the content and themes of his paintings. The country's economic boom of the 1980s ended with a recession in 1991 that carried over into the 21st Century. Consequently, young adults who graduated from universities within this ten-year span faced much greater difficulties securing employment; thousands of recent graduates were unemployed or underemployed. The heightened pressure and anxiety they experienced led them to become labeled by society as the “Lost Generation”. Concurrently, Japan underwent multiple social and political crises that further intensified its existing problems: the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo Metro system by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo; the decimation of urban infrastructure following the 1995 Kobe Earthquake; and, the 1997 Kobe Child Murders committed by a fourteen-year-old boy.