Contribution on Swiss television on the visit to Switzerland of manga artist Keisuke Sawaguchi (contribution via picture link).

Keisuke Sawaguchi illustrated six stories. Starting with the journey to Switzerland, by plane and train.

Mangas are comics or graphic novels that are deeply rooted in the culture and society of Japan. The origins of this art form go back to the Middle Ages – and bridge the gap to the present day. What would a trip through Switzerland look like in the eyes of a manga artist? At the invitation of Switzerland Tourism ST, Keisuke Sawaguchi visited various regions for six days in July 2022, strolling through Basel and Bern, taking in the mountain scenery in Mürren and on the Schilthorn. Always to hand: a pen and a notebook. Stroke by stroke, he captured formative impressions and subjects such as peaks, chalets and landscapes. The creative collaboration also attracted the attention of Swiss television, which interviewed the well-known native of Japan at the end of his trip.

For the manga artist it was his first trip to Europe, so he felt a bit nervous and unsure at the beginning: “But as soon as I arrived in Switzerland, that quickly subsided – I really liked it.” He also recorded this rollercoaster of emotions in the mangas he subsequently drew on behalf of ST.

Communicating with millennials through manga

Six short stories emerged from the drafts, which were shared across social media channels in November 2022. Twitter is the most important platform for manga. Here, Keisuke Sawaguchi has almost 180,000 followers – mainly millennials from Japan. And it was precisely this group that was meant to be addressed by this extraordinary campaign.

The stories are set in Basel, Bern, Mürren and on the Schilthorn.

Thanks to many tips and personal highlights in this form, many young people got to know Switzerland from the perspective of a manga artist. And a landing page set up especially for this purpose provided additional information about the places visited. This new form of communication was well received: in total, Sawaguchi’s work generated 2.5 million impressions on the website.

In 2019, Switzerland recorded 389,000 hotel overnight stays by guests from Japan. In 2020, the figure was 39,000, and in 2021 it was still 16,000. The manga campaign helped to bring Switzerland back into focus as a travel destination in Japan after the pandemic years. Just as the manga about Johanna Spyri’s “Heidi” did in the 1970s.