Medieval Japanese Lords Craft Unbelievable Social Posts in Canva

Canva, the online visual communications and collaboration platform, have just launched the second TV and digital campaign for the Japanese market from its ‘Make it Unbelievable’ brand platform. 

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. 

Created by UltraSuperNew Tokyo, the 90” humorous spot riffs on another film Takeshi Kitano is famous for: the samurai movie. 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 Gekidan 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.