Takayanagi was raised in Tomioka, a city in Gunma Prefecture. He briefly attended university in Japan before deciding to pursue a career in cinematography in the American film industry; he was inspired by Masters of Light: Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers, which he saw in a bookstore. He migrated to the United States around 1996 in order to attend film school at California State University, Long Beach at the university's Film and Electronics Arts Department, although he could not speak English at the time. He later attended the AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles and graduated in 2002. His short film Shui Hen, a graduate project he produced at the AFI Conservatory, won the 2003 Palm Springs International Film Festival's award for Best Student Cinematography. In 2004, he was awarded the American Society of Cinematographers' John F. Seitz Student Heritage Award.