Best Creative Agencies in Tokyo (2026)

Introduction

Tokyo has 11 creative agencies and idea studios worth a close look in 2026, ranging from Wieden+Kennedy’s long-standing Harajuku office to small teams that build their own software, games and installations. They were chosen for recent work, 2025 and 2026 recognition, and the range of problems they take on.

Dentsu and Hakuhodo still set the scale of the market. TBWA\HAKUHODO was Campaign’s Japan Creative Agency of the Year in November 2025, and Dentsu is credited as the agency on the TV, online film and film craft Grand Prix winners reported from the 2026 ACC Tokyo Creativity Awards. Smaller shops had a strong year as well: Whatever’s game Silent Cleaning for Kao won a Bronze Lion at Cannes and two ACC Golds, and Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo brought in a new chief creative officer and president in May 2026.

Every firm below has a Tokyo studio or office that we confirmed from its own site, a press release or a current recruitment listing. The list is unranked, since the right choice depends on your brief, your budget and how you like to work. Network houses from Dentsu, Hakuhodo and ADK sit on our advertising agencies page.

The best creative agencies in Tokyo

1. Whatever

Creative studio · Roppongi · whatever.co

Whatever works across films, games, apps, installations and brand design, with studios in Tokyo, New York, Taipei and Berlin. Its 2026 was led by Silent Cleaning, a 3D horror cleaning game made for Kao, which won a Bronze Lion in Entertainment Lions for Gaming at Cannes, two Golds at the ACC Tokyo Creativity Awards and the Grand Prix at YouTube Works Awards Japan.

Other recent projects include a new logo and brand visuals for Woven by Toyota, a redesign of Crunchyroll’s mascot Hime, and the Mrs. GREEN APPLE exhibition Wonder Museum. The studio also makes its own products, such as the AR app everies, and is behind the stop-motion samurai film HIDARI, so check how client work and in-house projects share its time.

2. Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo

Independent (Wieden+Kennedy network) · Harajuku · wktokyo.com

Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo opened in 1998 and works from Jingumae as part of the independent global agency. In May 2026 it appointed David Colman, previously at W+K London, as chief creative officer, and Eleanor Thodey, previously at W+K Amsterdam, as president.

Its current clients include Nike, IKEA, Match Group, MLB, Amazon and Eli Lilly. The 2025 “Hometown Heroes” manhole covers for MLB ran with no paid media, and the agency reports about $49 million in global earned media and more than 136,000 in-person visitors. It also has a cultural adaptation lead, which is useful for global brands adjusting work for Japan.

3. The Breakthrough Company GO

Unlisted, founder-led · Motoazabu · goinc.co.jp

GO was founded in 2017 by Takahiro Miura and Ryoma Fukumoto after they went independent from Hakuhodo and Dentsu. It has about 50 staff and describes itself as a creative solutions firm, supporting new business development as well as promotions. In May 2025 CyberAgent’s internet advertising division announced a business alliance with the company on branding and creative strategy.

Its “Namidame Sticker” for FamilyMart won an ACC Gold in PR in 2025, along with Silver in Design and Bronze in Branded Communication. Earlier work includes “NOT A HOTEL Connected House”, which won the ACC Grand Prix for Creative Innovation in 2022. Other named clients include WWF and ECOALF.

4. PARTY

Experience design company · Daikanyama · prty.jp

PARTY combines storytelling and technology across four practices: brand, spatial, service, and arts and entertainment. It runs two Tokyo sites on Sarugakucho in Daikanyama, plus a base in Itoman, Okinawa, and it also operates a startup studio fund.

Projects on its site include Pantene’s #Hair WeGo, Jump Festa for Shueisha, Terminal 3 at Narita Airport, and work for Expo 2025 Osaka with noiz architects. Its client list also takes in Kokuyo, LIXIL, Kagome and DENSO. PARTY suits briefs that end in a place or a product as much as in a campaign.

5. monopo

Global creative agency · Sendagaya · monopo.co.jp

monopo is based in Tokyo, with sister offices in London, New York and Paris. It covers brand design, communication design, experience design, content production and events, and it also runs POWERED.BYTOKYO and ATELIER.

The UNIQLO UT global campaign for 2025 covered music, film, stills, store materials and social video. Other work includes nwm by NTT sonority, with an activation at MoMA PS1 Warm Up, and North American communication for the ONE PIECE Card Game, as well as projects for Shiseido, Suntory, Nike SB and Bose. It is a natural fit for Japanese brands going abroad.

6. UltraSuperNew

Independent · Shibuya · ultrasupernew.com

UltraSuperNew calls itself an independent creative agency “born and raised in Harajuku”, and its Tokyo office now sits in Higashi, Shibuya. It also lists offices in Singapore, Colombo and Amsterdam. Campaign named it Independent Agency of the Year for Japan and Korea in 2021 and 2022, praising its clear focus on Gen Z and millennial audiences.

Its work page lists TDK, Mizuno, Duolingo, Canva, Uber Eats Japan, Porsche, Spiber and Mitsubishi FUSO, among many others. The agency has worked with Skyn over several years on making condom advertising more ordinary.

7. mount inc.

Design practice · Jingumae · mount.jp

mount was established in March 2008 and has 18 members, led by representative Im Jeongho. It offers advisory support, brand strategy and execution across web, graphic, video and spatial design. The company reports more than 176 awards at shows including Cannes Lions, D&AD, ADC and The One Show.

Award-winning work it names includes Kokuyo’s “Curiosity is Life”, Daimaru Matsuzakaya’s “Hyakuyozu” and shupatto. With a team this size, expect close senior involvement, and ask early about capacity for long-running accounts.

8. Bascule

Project design studio · Azabudai · bascule.co.jp

Bascule, founded in 2000, designs projects across broadcast, live events and interaction. It had 25 staff in January 2026, with its head office in Azabudai, TOKYO NODE LAB at Toranomon Hills Station Tower and an office in Osaka. Motoi Ishibashi, formerly of Rhizomatiks, became an external executive officer in July 2025.

In June 2026 it launched TerraCaster with Nippon Television, a project showing Earth as it is today from a view of space, and in September 2026 it announced a “physical AI” entertainment project through radio. Earlier work includes the KIBO space broadcast, the online concert This is Arashi Live 2020.12.31, and Touch-and-Go Coffee for BOSS.

9. Rhizomatiks

Part of Abstract Engine · Ebisu · rhizomatiks.com

Rhizomatiks is a Tokyo creative collective exploring how people and technology relate, with work spanning R&D, art and live performance. It sits within Abstract Engine alongside Flowplateaux and Panoramatiks, and its studio is in Higashi, Shibuya, close to Ebisu.

Recent projects include Perfume’s “edge” for tv asahi’s Music Station Super Live 2025, Hayato Sumino’s piano recital “Klassik Arena”, and Fencing Visualized, which went into live use at the World Fencing League in Los Angeles in April 2026. It also showed at Artissima in 2026. Its output leans towards art and performance, so it is best approached with a brief that has room for experiment.

10. AID-DCC

Creative company · Shirokane · aid-dcc.com

AID-DCC is a craft-led creative company with offices in Shirokane and Osaka. A project led by one of its directors was named in the Good Design Best 100 in 2025, and another project it worked on won an excellence award for promotion sites at the 13th Web Grand Prix that December.

Its recent work includes “Smile touch” for Good Smile Fes 2026, the official site for the TV anime Ghost in the Shell, and a campaign site and transit advertising for Osaka University of Economics. It also worked on a preview for the opening of Hunting World’s Omotesando store. That mix makes it a sensible call for entertainment and anime clients.

11. Takram

Design innovation firm · Jingumae · takram.com

Takram describes itself as a full-stack design partner, with projects running from wagashi to space. Its Tokyo studio is in Jingumae, and it also lists offices in London, New York and Shanghai.

Its portfolio includes branding for J.LEAGUE and GLOBIS, Panasonic’s VISION UX, the H3 Flight Status Indication System, the Serendie Design System and work for NOT A HOTEL and Goldwin. It also contributed DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM OF LIFE to Expo 2025. Takram fits best when a creative brief overlaps with product, engineering or business design.

What to look for in a Tokyo creative agency

Start with how the agency relates to the big houses. Dentsu and Hakuhodo often act as both creative and media partner, so a smaller shop may be working alongside one of them on your account or may need a separate media arrangement. Agree early who owns the idea, who buys the media and who speaks to the client.

Check what the team can build itself. Several firms here make software, games, installations or broadcast systems in-house, which suits ideas that depend on technology, while film usually involves a separate production company: the 2026 ACC film winners name production firms such as Geek Pictures and GMO ENGINE alongside the agency. Ask which parts of the work stay inside the building.

Size matters more than it first appears, since some of the most decorated teams are small. mount has 18 members and Bascule 25, while GO has about 50. Ask who will work on your account by name, and how the team handles several large projects at once. Overseas clients should also ask which language the day-to-day work will run in, and who handles translation and cultural adaptation.

Finally, look at how the agency handles review. Work that crosses languages, offices and client departments can lose time when feedback sits in separate email threads and file versions drift apart. An agreed place for the latest files, comments and approvals makes this easier on both sides.

How Fabric helps creative agency teams

Fabric gives an agency one workspace for its files, client feedback and team knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The agency setup suits shops running several accounts at once: one space per client, with briefs, assets, decks and call notes kept together.

Campaign films, game builds and design files can sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space. Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed recordings, and colour search finds visual assets by shade. When a team wants references like a past campaign, similar search surfaces related work from a selected file.

Client feedback runs through shared links. Share a file or folder with the client as a commenter, with no sign-up needed, and they can use annotations to leave timestamped comments on video and audio, draw on a video frame or an image, and highlight text in PDFs and documents. The team marks each comment completed as it is dealt with, so a round of feedback works like a checklist. There is more on the workflow in review and approval.

For finished work, any file or folder can be published as a web page. Published links are view-only, with optional download, which suits final delivery and pitch material. Password protection restricts who can open them, and link analytics shows when each named recipient opened a link and how long they spent with it.

On Team plans, self-writing docs can maintain a page for each client from meetings, Slack and the workspace itself, covering decisions, deliverables and open items.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans, and self-writing docs on Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best creative agency in Tokyo?

The right agency depends on the brief. On 2026 recognition, Whatever stands out for Silent Cleaning, which won a Bronze Lion at Cannes and two ACC Golds. Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo suits global brands, and The Breakthrough Company GO won an ACC Gold in PR in 2025 for its FamilyMart work.

Where do Dentsu and Hakuhodo fit in?

They and ADK are covered on our list of the best advertising agencies in Tokyo. This page concentrates on independents and integrated idea shops.

Does Wieden+Kennedy still have a Tokyo office?

Yes. Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo has been open since 1998 and works from Terraza Harajuku in Jingumae. It announced David Colman as chief creative officer and Eleanor Thodey as president in May 2026.

Which Tokyo agencies suit technology-led ideas?

Rhizomatiks, Bascule, PARTY and Whatever all build technology into the work itself, from live visualisation and broadcast systems to AR apps and games. Takram is a good option when a project also needs product or engineering design.

Which Tokyo agencies have offices overseas?

Whatever has studios in New York, Taipei and Berlin. monopo lists London, New York and Paris, UltraSuperNew lists Singapore, Colombo and Amsterdam, and Takram lists London, New York and Shanghai. Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo is part of a global agency network.

Related lists

Creative agencies in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Tokyo: Design agencies · Branding agencies · Advertising agencies · Social media agencies · Video production · VFX

Run your agency on Fabric: Fabric for creative teams · Fabric for agencies · Best client portal tools