The British Museum hosted the largest exhibition on manga ever held outside Japan, immersing visitors in the genre’s global appeal and cultural crossover. The campaign aimed to attract a younger, more diverse audience and reposition the museum as contemporary and relevant.

The exhibition showcased a range of themes, from gender to adventure, across both real and imagined worlds. For the hero image, we featured Asirpa from Golden Kamuy, a strong female character from Japan’s Ainu community, which has historically faced marginalisation. This choice highlighted the diversity of manga and expanded perceptions beyond mainstream titles. We also used fluorescent orange, a colour often featured in black-and-white manga, to break away from the British Museum’s traditional campaign aesthetics.

Outdoor guerrilla installations in Shoreditch and South London showcased manga styles and objects from the exhibition, creating buzz and engaging non-traditional audiences. Promotional materials, such as right-to-left booklets, reflected manga’s unique storytelling style, further enhancing authenticity and excitement within the manga community.

The results were groundbreaking:
- The exhibition attracted the most diverse audience for a paid British Museum event.
- 27% of visitors were first-timers, 43% were aged 25-34, and 34% identified as BAME.
- Posters on the London Underground drove 29% of visits, while Shoreditch graffiti accounted for 10% of visitors from the Entertainment Culture Segment.
- Ticket sales exceeded targets by 20,000.

Perhaps most significantly, a third of attendees said their perceptions of the British Museum had changed as a result of the exhibition, suggesting manga successfully unlocked a new audience of atypical visitors.