meet myaku-myaku, expo 2025 osaka’s mascot with rolling eyeballs and sunflower-like head

Myaku-myaku is the official mascot of expo 2025 osaka

Expo 2025 Osaka in Japan has gone all-out family-friendly with a fluffy, kind-looking mascot that boasts a plushy body with a sunflower-like head and rolling eyeballs. Named Myaku-Myaku, the official mascot of Expo 2025 Osaka is slowly becoming the ambassador of the capital. For the Expo, the plushy mascot aims to attract visitors to boost its tourism and gather viewers, exhibitors, and investors in one place to introduce technologies, economies, and plans to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. By creating a friendly character to remember, Expo 2025 Osaka, which will run from April 13th to October 13th, 2025, and its mascot may succeed in convincing visitors of all ages to come to the city and spend some time around Osaka and the global event.

Recently, the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition has released a new campaign featuring Myaku-Myaki in hopes of promoting the advance sale of admission tickets, which will start on November 30th, 500 days before the opening of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan. In a series of campaign images, the plushy mascot with rolling eyeballs and a sunflower-like head gets into a fun and zesty vibe as it dances and jumps for joy against a backdrop of blue and sunset skies. Catchphrases were created to generate interest in Expo 2025 Osaka, with the main one being ‘EXPO 2025 is coming!’ and other sub-catchphrases geared toward families, businesspeople, and those who were able to attend Osaka’s Expo in the ‘70s.

images by Expo 2025 Osaka

A plushy mascot with a backstory and set of skills

To make Myaku-Myaku relatable to the audiences of Expo 2025 Osaka, the plushy mascot, designed by picture-book artist Kouhei Yamashita, has been given its own identity. Myaku-Myaku is believed to have been born in a small spring somewhere in Kansai and has the ability to transform into various shapes and always ‘find a rainbow after the rain.’ The mascot enjoys interacting with all creatures and things, as evidenced by its national tour around Japan, promoting Expo 2025 Osaka, and can be considered friendly, goofy, and at times, clumsy. In another description by Expo 2025 Osaka, Myaku-Myaku is said to have been born from the unification of cells and water.

The plushy mascot’s bulbous sunflower-like head comes from a cell that divides and increases, while the blue part is thought to be water. As the team states, Myaku-Myaku seemed to have been finding who it wanted to be and tried to transform into various shapes until it ended up imitating human beings. The end result is a lifelike, kind-looking mascot whose source of energy is to go outside, enjoy sunlight and interaction with nature and people, and love rainy days and soak up rainwater into its body. For those flying to Osaka for Expo 2025, it is expected that Myaku-Myaku will welcome the visitors with open arms alongside its rolling eyeballs and sunflower head.

Myaku-Myaku is designed by picture-book artist Kouhei Yamashita