UltraSuperNew Tokyo reunite Japan’s biggest celebrities for Canva in “Takeshi’s Peace Treaty”

Canva, the online visual communications and collaboration platform, have just launched the second TV and digital campaign for the Japanese market from their ‘Make it Unbelievable’ brand platform. Created by UltraSuperNew Tokyo, the 90” humorous spot riffs on another film Takeshi Kitano is famous for: the samurai movie.

Featuring for the second time two of Japan’s most famous actors, Takeshi Kitano and Gekidan Hitori, ‘Takeshi’s Peace Treaty’ goes back in time to demonstrate the unforeseen consequences of crafting amazing visual materials with Canva, making creativity accessible to all.

Paired again with Gekidan Hitori, both stars embody warring feudal lords from medieval Japan, finally agreeing to put an end to the hostilities. To celebrate the occasion, a proud Takeshi shows Gekidan Hitori a social media post he created on Canva—it is of such high visual standard that Hitori doesn’t believe Kitano made it himself and tells him so. After this act of disbelief, things take a turn for the worse and escalate to a dramatic degree, putting a whole nation’s stability on the line.

“We are delighted to bring Canva even closer to Japanese audiences through this campaign, once again starring the much-loved Takeshi Kitano and Hitori Gekidan, showcasing how Canva makes creativity and design accessible to all. Our hope is to show that with access to visual communication tools like Canva, anyone can design anything – even without prior experience — whether you’re an individual or member of a team . This campaign is also testament to our commitment of making Canva a locally-relevant brand for the Japanese audiences,” said Kagan Sen, Country Manager, Canva Japan.

Francois Claverie, Group Creative Director, UltraSuperNew added: “Gekidan Hitori narrowly escaped being buried in cement in our first film. You’d think that he would have learnt his lesson, namely that Canva lets anyone create unbelievably good designs… But here we are again.”

‘Takeshi’s Peace Treaty’ is running from today on digital and social media channels and on national Japanese TV from the 12th of August. Media is by IREP Co., Ltd.

Credits
Advertiser: Canva
Andre Pinantoan, Marketing, International Marketing & Growth
Kagan Sen, Country Manager, Japan
Carol Wu, Operation Lead, Japan
Atsushi Takahashi, Head of Brand Marketing, Japan
Ema Tanaka, Growth Lead, Japan
Shunta Sasaki, Content and Field Marketing Lead, Japan

Agency: UltraSuperNew, Tokyo
Group Creative Director: Francois Claverie
Creative Director: Andres Aguilar
Associate Creative Director: Oguzcan Kaganoguzbeyoglu
Copywriter: Noga
Art Director: ?Utsumi Tetsuya
Graphic Designer: Belle Sim
Representative Director: Tomokazu Murakami
Head of Strategy: Haruna McWilliams
Group Account Director: Yumi Esposito-Pueblo
Senior Account Manager: Yuko Nakamura
Account Manager: Asumi Yamayoshi
Producer: Daiki Shimizu
Producer: Alexander Tatsuki Watanabe

Production Company: Aoi Pro
Producer: Maho Ikeda, Takayuki Inase
Production Manager: Miku Iwasaki
Production Assistant: Nanami Sano
Director: Ryo Ota

Staff
Camera: Yoichi Kamakari
Gaffer: Hidenori Nagata
Production Designer: Aya Sato
Production Designer: Teru Yamao
Stylist: Hideyuki Kurosawa
Wig: Takaharu Arai
Make up (Takeshi Kitano): Keisuke Sakai
Make up (Hitori Gekidan ): Satoshi Yamazaki
Music: Setsu Fukushima