TOKIMUNE
SHIHAN

I've always loved creating.

As a child, I drew constantly. I invented creatures, places, stories and entire worlds. It wasn't just about drawing individual things: I wanted to imagine how they existed together, what their atmosphere was like and how they could feel part of the same universe.

I loved the idea of building an atmosphere from nothing and making someone feel something without having to explain too much.

Music became another way of doing the same thing. I took part in music projects and composed a dark ambient album when I was 16. It was another way of building spaces and feelings, this time through sound.

For several years, I drifted quite far from that creative side.

But the desire to create never quite disappeared.

With the arrival of artificial intelligence, I found a new set of tools. Images, concepts, stories, worlds, audiovisual pieces, identities.

I'm not particularly interested in asking an AI to ‘make something beautiful’.

What interests me is directing it.

Understanding how it responds, pushing it, combining tools and using design, programming, automation and technology to create something with intention.

At the same time, my own projects and businesses were bringing me face to face with problems that were less artistic and much more practical:

repetitive processes, fragmented information, customers waiting for answers, systems that don't communicate, too many tasks depending on people, and tools that force businesses to adapt to them.

When I couldn't find a solution that worked the way I needed, I started building it.

First for myself.

Then I began to notice the same problems appearing again and again in other businesses.

That's how ONAGA SIX began.

It didn't begin because I wanted to start ‘another agency’.

It began because all those disciplines ended up meeting in the same place:

identity, design, development, creative direction, artificial intelligence, automation, systems and experimentation.

Different tools for solving the same problem:

how to turn an idea into something that actually exists, works and has an identity of its own.

Sometimes that becomes a brand.

Sometimes a website.

Sometimes a system that removes hours of work.

Sometimes an audiovisual piece or an experimental idea.

I'm not interested in making things just because they're fashionable or ‘look professional’.

I want to understand what we're building and why it should exist.

I'm not interested in committing to just one tool, either.

I'd rather learn enough about each one to direct it.

In a way, I'm still doing what I did when I drew worlds as a child:

first I imagine how it should feel.

Then I try to find a way to make it real.