From Tokyo to Europe: Bringing Japanese Artists to New Audiences

CARTON started in Tokyo in 2016 with a simple instinct: Japanese artists deserve to be seen beyond Japan. Ten years and one relocation later — the company has been based in Vienna since 2025 — that instinct is still the whole business.

"Artist" is deliberately broad for us. It's meant anime creators, manga artists, illustrators, digital artists, and musicians, and the form of the work has changed accordingly — a booth, a gallery wall, a stage, a fair, whatever fits what the artist actually makes. We've arranged guest artist appearances at major European conventions (DoKomi, Connichi, FantasyBasel, Vienna Comic Con), presented work at contemporary art fairs (Art Market Budapest), and produced concerts for musical artists, including GHIBURI's official artists. Through Tokiopod, our own retail channel, the fans who encountered an artist in person can still find their way to something to take home.

None of this works as a one-time booking. It works because we come back — to the same conventions, the same cities, the same artists — and because we handle what makes a Japanese-European collaboration actually functional behind the scenes, so the artist's only job is to show up and make the work.

At this exchange, we'd like to meet two kinds of people: Japanese artists, in any of these disciplines, who haven't yet had a European audience, and Austrian or European partners — venues, promoters, labels, galleries — curious what a Japanese artist's work could bring to theirs.