There was a certain thrill in stepping into the Tokyo Art Book Fair 2025, a place where imagination gathers in big numbers and where thousands of visitors roam each year in search of the unexpected.

Thanks to the generous invitation of Hidden Champion, Tokyo WALLS joined the first week of the fair, held from December 11 to 14. We found ourselves among 281 exhibitors (publishers, artists, local and international participants), each carrying their own world in a stack of pages. And somewhere between that vast diversity, Tokyo WALLS found its small place, illuminated by the signature street aura of Hidden Champion.

Hidden Champion has long been a pillar in the landscape of urban creativity: a name built through years of collaborations, books, and magazines devoted to action sports (skateboarding, BMX, surfing) and urban art. Sharing their booth felt both natural and inspiring. Throughout the fair, we exchanged ideas with their team about publishing, photography, and the delicate craft of capturing movement, culture, and identity in print. We knew our approaches were complementary with different styles, different histories, but the same instinct: to give a stage to the energy of the streets and to the artists who shape them.

Beyond the excitement of the fair itself, what mattered most was the exposure it gave to the artists featured in the Tokyo WALLS volumes. Conversations naturally drifted away from the books and toward the talents behind them, their past exhibitions, their upcoming projects, the singularity of their style. Visitors discovered not just pages, but people; not just prints, but stories. And in each exchange, it felt as though the books acted merely as a doorway, while what truly stayed in the readers’ hands was a fragment of the artists’ identity.

Standing alongside Hidden Champion at this landmark fair allowed Tokyo WALLS to grow, to learn, and to feel part of a larger creative conversation. And as the weekend came to an end, we carried home not just memories, but the renewed conviction that books remain one of the most beautiful ways to connect people through art.