Japanese ‘Manga Art’ encompassing the revitalisation project of 11 Residents Takaikamishima.

Over Thirty Murals depicting characters from manga decorate buildings fronting the harbour of Takaikamishima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea in Ehime Prefecture. The murals are the face of an initiative aimed at keeping the 1.34 Square Kilometres island on the map by turning it into a hub of manga culture.

However, once thought to be a never-viable project, took a radical transformation on 27^th. April, 2025, when several dignitaries delved into the noble cause of setting up a school, in this 11 Residents Island.

Takaikamishima Manga School marked another step towards Takaikamishima becoming what longtime island visitor Osamu Hasebe hopes will be a centre for manga known around the world.

“If students from here go on to become professional artists, I think this will become a kind of sacred place for manga“, Hasebe said during the school’s opening ceremony.

Housed in Takaikamishima’s renovated former elementary and junior high school, which was closed in 2023, the manga school has three classrooms and a manga reference room. In March, the school began accepting student applications for a series of weekend classes, scheduled for early summer, teaching the basics of manga.

In the 1950s, Takaikamishima, officially called “Takaikamijima”, had a population of around 300. Around 70 families made a living on the island through fishing and agriculture, according to the notes made by Kimura on a website introducing the island under the manga initiative.

In 2007, when Hasebe was invited by Kimura to visit the island, he fell in love with it. The population at the time was just 51. The pair since then have tried to revitalise the island by holding events, but the number of visitors they attracted was fleeting. They wondered what they could do to keep attracting people to the island.  In a bid to stop Takaikamishima from becoming uninhabited and attract visitors, the pair started the manga initiative in 2016 with a mural inspired by the manga “Dr. Koto’s Clinic”, painted on the wall of the island’s community center.

To accommodate the increase in visitors, Hasebe opened the “minshuku” lodging facility Nataore no Ki in 2017, converting an abandoned home. In October last year, Hasebe jointly opened the island’s only cafe, Manga Tei, with Masanori Baba, 50, who had been a company employee in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan. The island’s first new residents in 15 years relocated in April 2024 — Baba, his wife, and their two young daughters. In search of a lifestyle change, Baba answered a call from the island looking for people willing to relocate and help with revitalization efforts.

Along with running the minshuku and cafe with his wife, Baba is involved in a myriad of activities, including heading the island’s neighborhood association and volunteer fire brigade. He hopes to see Takaikamishima’s population triple in his lifetime. For that to happen though, the island needs an economy. He hopes that the manga school, minshuku and cafe will bring students and tourists to the island and with them, opportunities.

Takaikamishima is one of 256 so-called remote islands, where living conditions are harsh and populations are in decline, which Japan has targeted for support in infrastructure and revitalisation under the Remote Island Development Act.

Takaikamishima became part of the town of Kamijima in 2004. Kamijima Mayor Toshiyuki Uemura welcomes the approach taken by Hasebe and Kimura to overcome the island’s challenges. “It’s hard for people who live on islands to come up with ways to develop the community“, he said.

Team Maverick