About — Travel Smart Japan

About

Travel Smart Japan is a professional inbound media agency — a team of specialists producing fact-based, cinematically-crafted films for Japan's hospitality, tourism and heritage industries.

Mission

Fact-based storytelling. Cinematic craft. One team.

We build every film on a spine of verifiable facts — from railway schedules to cultural customs — then translate that spine into cinematic stories that reach affluent, mature travelers in North America, Australia and beyond.

Leadership

Meet the people behind the lens.

Head of Marketing & Navigator

Liza

Liza is not simply the face on camera — she is TSJ's Head of Marketing. She holds a Master's degree from Waseda University, one of Japan's most respected institutions, and has lived in both rural Kagawa and metropolitan Tokyo, giving her firsthand understanding of Japan from two ends of its cultural spectrum.

She brings a rare dual perspective: the on-screen presence of a professional talent, and the strategic mind of a marketer. Every video she narrates is designed backwards — from what a discerning traveler in the US, Australia or Canada actually decides to watch, save, and act on.

Background

· Master's degree, Waseda University
· Global model for Casio (G-SHOCK campaigns)
· On-air appearances on Fuji TV and other major networks
· Fluent in English and Japanese
· Bicultural background (Kagawa · Tokyo)

At TSJ

· Led marketing that grew Instagram from zero to 25,000 followers in six months
· Narrator of the top-performing Short (1.3M views — Shinkansen guide for foreign travelers)
· Directs voice, tone and audience-fit across all TSJ productions

Founder & Producer

Koh Matsuki

Koh Matsuki is a former business journalist at Nikkei (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun), where he spent years covering Japan's inbound tourism industry, railway sector, and corporate infrastructure. He brings a rare kind of depth to hospitality marketing — the ability to see how Japan's businesses actually work from the inside.

At TSJ, he designs the editorial architecture of every project: the facts, the sequence, the framing. Every film starts with a spine built from verifiable industry knowledge — and it is that spine, more than any single scene, that makes the storytelling credible to both discerning viewers and the Japanese partners we work with.

Background

· Former business journalist at Nikkei (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun)
· Covered Japan's inbound tourism industry, railway sector, and corporate infrastructure
· Kwansei Gakuin University alumnus
· Fluent in English and Japanese
· Founder of Proxy Watcher, an independent corporate governance research firm

At TSJ

· Designs the fact-based editorial spine of every film
· Leads all commercial negotiations with Japanese corporate clients
· Bridges the language of Japanese business and Western creative discipline

The Team

The people who make every deadline hit.

Editor

US-native Video Editor

A native American editor based in Japan. Ensures every frame, every cut, and every subtitle resonates with Western sensibilities — because a Japanese editor rarely can.

Operations

Bilingual Project Team

Bilingual staff with N2+ Japanese proficiency, managing communication with Japanese clients, location scouting, contracts, and schedules — so nothing slips between languages.

Extended

Local Fixers & Crews

A trusted network of cinematographers, sound recordists, and local fixers across Japan — from Hokkaido to Okinawa — deployed as each project requires.

Company

Operator: Proxy Watcher Inc. (Travel Smart Japan division)
Address: 3-14-2 Ueno, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0005, Japan
Corporate no.: 4010001223198

Parent

Proxy Watcher

Independent research advancing board oversight and shareholder democracy in Japan's capital markets.

proxywatcher.jp →