Next stop:
Expo Osaka 2025

Since last November 23, 2018 we have known that Osaka is the city selected by the BIE (Bureau International des Expositions), in Paris, to host the World Expo 2025, which will take place from next April 13 to October 13, 2025, under the theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”.

Expo Osaka 2025, has kept its year of celebration despite the fact that its predecessor, Expo Dubai 2020, delayed its opening until 2021, due to the paralysis of the world as we knew it, by the, well known, Covid-19. 

Irresistible bid

The official video of Osaka’s bid went viral in the networks by showing the mock up of the Expo on the Kansai Region, full of virtual assistants with avatars from the Pokemon collection. And Pikachu as the official mascot, dismissing the video with Shinzō Abe, former prime minister of Japan, assassinated on July 8, 2022. An event that shocked both the Japanese country, with a very low rate of death by firearms, and the international community.

Shinzō Abe had already shown his sympathy for his country’s animated banners in the past, when he appeared dressed as Mario Bros to present the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Myaku-Myaku: Official Mascot Expo Osaka 2025

Despite its success, Pikachu was replaced by “Myaku Myaku”, an official mascot made especially for Expo 2025, which was not exempt from the usual memes on Twitter.
 The video of the candidacy was removed from Youtube, although we can still find it on Nintendo‘s Facebook, to the delight of fans of the saga.

Osaka repeats 

That’s right, this is the second time in history that Osaka has been chosen to host the world’s fair. The first time was in 1970, at the world-class Osaka General Exposition, commonly known as Expo ’70.

An Expo where Japan was able to demonstrate its growth during the 1960s, with strong development in the city of Osaka, driven in large part by the Expo itself. And that now contrasts with a more sedate Japan, confident of its privileged position in the technology industry, which aspires to excellence in social and sustainability.

Japan, standard bearer of technology and digital art

Japan is the pioneer country in betting on digital art, creating in 2018 the MORI Building Digital Art Museum teamLab Borderless (Tokyo, Odaiba Island); the first digital art museum in the world, built on 10000 meters of visual and interactive experience. Its incredible images went around the world, breaking the Guinness record for museum visitors dedicated to a single artist in 2019. Giving a vital place to digital art, becoming a mass appeal for the first time. 

TeamLab Borderless has recently closed its doors until 2023, to relocate to central Tokyo, as part of the Toranomon-Azabudai project. Undoubtedly, another project in the works, which will wrap up the tourism experience around Expo Osaka 2025.

Historical inventions

Since the first edition of the World Expo, called the “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations”, held in London in 1851, inventions as varied and conclusive for everyday life as the zipper, the television, the telephone (fixed and mobile), ketchup, popcorn, the bra or X-rays have been presented. But…

What to expect from the Osaka Expo 2025?
The great challenge of the pavilions participating in the Expo 2025

The average tourist in Japan has, in addition to the natural intrigue of the traveler towards its traditional culture and gastronomy, a clear devotion to technology, anime, otaku culture and the advanced vision that the country projects towards the rest of the world. And this will not only not change, but will multiply at the Osaka Expo. 

Thus, content creators, such as the designers of the Participating Pavilions, have the responsibility to maintain an unprecedented technological and creative level, in order to stand out from the cultural offerings of the futuristic country par excellence. 

Having worked on Dubai 2020 and seen an Expo from the inside, I have a personal expectation of an extraordinary and spectacular Expo Japan 2025, from the macro to the micro. 

Starting with the exhibits themselves, which will feature monumental immersive installations, AI data rendering sculptures, a parallel virtual expo for world viewers, virtual galleries and the inclusion of the NFT concept, robotics, quantum computers, facial recognition, personalized virtual avatars through the various pavilion installations via RFID; to the more usual services, in a way never seen before: like menu cards in augmented reality, and the star: flying cabs. 

The flying cab

Undoubtedly, one of the most anticipated innovations for Expo Osaka 2025 is the practical use of the electric flying car, which is planned to be presented with a fleet of cabs providing airport shuttle service in Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Okinawa Prefecture. 

The flying car was already presented at the Geneva Motor Show in 2018, with on-demand sales and delivery in 2019 to a limited audience, as its starting price was estimated at €500,000. However, Osaka’s plan is to incorporate functional flying cab routes, both in and out of town, starting in 2026 

Innovation and Culture: The Fundamental Pillars of any World Expo

World Expos are the most important cultural event on a global level, condensing three great worlds, which make them a unique enclave in each of their editions: The Museum, the Exhibition and the Event. 

 Thus we find the dedication and time of the museum development, applied to a temporary exhibition, which lasts 6 months. This allows the magical combination of creativity and innovation, without fear of technological obsolescence. 

In any case, World Expos not only do not have the problem of time against the machine, but their ephemeral nature is one of their greatest allies when it comes to taking risks, being influenced by present and future trends, and presenting the latest models of all kinds of inventions, which can go down in history in an anecdotal way, or be consecrated as vital after their exhibition. 

But not only that, each Universal Fair gives the country that hosts it the opportunity to demonstrate its technological power and its advances in innovation with respect to the rest of the world, being the global spotlight, not only during its celebration, but throughout its design, development and implementation.

Simultaneously, each Expo has a central theme focused on addressing the concerns and challenges facing society at the time. This, in turn, is usually divided into several sub-themes that the Pavilions of each official participant (countries and organizations) embrace and adapt to their own culture in order to integrate them into the overall message of the Expo. The theme of Osaka 2025 is: Designing Future Society for Our Lives, through the sub-themes: Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, Connecting Lives.

Thus, Expo Osaka 2025, aims to show us a future scenario in which, in addition to presenting the usual technological advances, presents a society that has achieved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by world leaders last September 25, 2015, in a 15-year development plan. In other words, Osaka will show us the ideal society of the future 2030.

We can only begin to imagine where the investigation of all these innovations will take us. Until then, we’ll keep working to take digital art one step further – see you at Expo Osaka 2025!