He was born as third son of Watanabe Yozo in 1883. He was adopted by Asakura Tanehiko in 1893, and he entered Upper Elementary School in Naoiri district on April (Taketa was Naoiri district at the time). He entered Tokyo Art School Sculpture Optional Course at 20 years old in 1903 and he created Shinka (Evolution) in 1907 as the graduation work, then he entered a postgraduate course. After that, he created prize winner one after another such as Yami (Darkness) and Roen (Old monkey) on October in 1908 at 2nd Ministry of Education art exhibition, moreover he completed Hakamori (Gravekeeper) on October in 1910. The works that are in Taketa at present are as follows. The statue of Tokinonagare (Flow of time) that was created on October in 1917 was installed in 1971 in front of Bungo Taketa Station. Sugiyama Atsuma no kyozo (Bust of Sugiyama Atsuma) in 1937 and Bunbu no zo (The statue of the literary and military art) in 1940 are in Taketa high school. Tsubasa ni tsuzuke (Follow『the wing』) in 1943 is in Taketa City Hall. Seitan (The birth) in 1946 is in Taketa City General Sports Park. Sanso (3 aspects) in 1949 is in Taketa Culture Center. Taki Rentaro zo (Statue of Rentaro　Taki) in 1950 is on Ruins of the intermediate outworks of Oka castle. Fujimaru keibu zazo (Sedentary statue of Fujimaru police inspector) in 1957 is in Saiko temple. Then, Kyogimae (Before competition) in 1959 is installed in Taketa high school respectively. He was the carving and modeling artist and he was a leading figure in the Japanese art world for Meiji, Taisho and Showa, and he established the Japanese modern times carving and modeling technique in this way. He continued to keep consistently the minute expression posture that put heart and soul into the realism depiction like naturalism, and was called "Oriental Rodin".