Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai

Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai opened its gates on 13 April, beginning of six months of global exchange and dialogue centered around the theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”.

Expo 2025 provides the world with an opportunity to come together in one place to explore the theme of “life.” It fosters interaction among people with diverse values from around the world, resulting in new human networks and creative endeavours. Expo 2025 shares hopes for a brighter future with the world by overcoming current global crises, protecting people’s lives, and reflecting on life and lifestyles.

158 countries and territories and 7 international organisations are participating in this Expo, which is the most extensive international representation ever seen at an Expo in Japan.

Designing Future Society for Our Lives

The theme, "Designing Future Society for Our Lives", makes individuals think how they want to live and how they can maximise their potential. This theme also aims to drive co-creation by the international community in designing a sustainable society that supports individuals’ ideas of how they want to live.

In other words, the Expo asks a straightforward question for the first time: “What is the happy way of life?” at a time when new social challenges, including expanding economic gaps and heightened conflicts, are emerging, while science technologies are evolving—including AI and biotechnology—that present changes to humankind, such as extended life spans.

"Saving Lives", "Empowering Lives", and "Connecting Lives" are the three subthemes of the Expo. Japanese culture has long been based on the belief that any material, from all living creatures to even a pebble along the road, has an inherent life. With this in mind, the Expo welcomes the consideration of ‘life’ not just for human beings but also in a broader sense of diverse creations and nature that surround humans.

Saving Lives focuses on protecting lives. This subtheme may be associated, for example, with countermeasures against infectious diseases through improvements in public health, ensuring safety through disaster readiness and disaster risk reduction initiatives, and harmonious coexistence with nature.

Empowering Lives focuses on enriching the lives of individuals and expanding their potential. Related topics may include, for example, high-quality remote education by using ICT; the extension of a healthy life span through appropriate exercise and diet; and the maximisation of human potential through the use of AI and robotics.

Connecting Lives focuses on getting everyone engaged, building communities and enriching society. This subtheme may relate to subjects including, for example, the power of partnership and co-creation, advanced communications enabled by ICT, and the design of a data-driven society.

The concept of Expo 2025 is “People's Living Lab.” This concept represents the Expo’s approach toward putting its theme into practice and serves as a guideline for the practical implementation of projects. The most distinctive characteristic of the Expo is the endeavour to give a realistic picture of a future society not just through thought, but also through action. This endeavour is being launched before the Expo, by inviting diverse participants to come together with various initiatives to tackle challenges with solutions that help achieve the SDGs, both on and off the Expo site.

The Expo site is located in Yumeshima, an artificial island located on the waterfront in Osaka that offers visitors a view of the Seto Inland Sea. The Expo is promoted as being connected to the world through the surrounding sea and sky, with programmes taking advantage of the site’s location.

With an area of 1.55 km2, the site has a pavilion area in its centre, with waters in its southern part and greenery in its western part.

Unity in diversity - If the Expo site, as a place of union between diverse cultures and lifestyles, can not only celebrate rich diversity but also provide visitors with experience of connection beyond the divide, the Expo succeeds in sharing hopes for a brighter future. For this purpose, the iconic Grand Ring that towers over the Expo site, serving as the symbol of the site, is designed to advocate diversity based on the principles of ‘decentralisation’ and ‘dispersion’, embraced by the Organiser since the candidature. This is combined with ‘connection’ between diverse beings so that visitors can experience unity in diversity and one world shared by innumerable diverse beings.

One Sky - ‘One Sky’ is a symbol of ‘connection’ between diverse beings. Everyone around the world is looking up at the same sky. The ‘One Sky’ connects all parts of the world. It is what people all over the world share. The one sky thus represents unity in diversity.

Expo of the sea, sky and earth - The site for the Expo is surrounded by the sea and includes an enclosed part of the sea. Mirroring the sky, the enclosed sea cuts a portion out of the ‘One Sky’, towards which visitors raise their eyes. On the ground, the site is dotted with diverse pavilions and various natural features in a decentralised, dispersed layout.

Clear line of flow and diverse areas arranged in a decentralised and dispersed manner - The main flow line, through which all parts of the Expo site are accessible, is designed to form a loop to provide both clear navigation and diverse viewpoints. The site is dotted with plazas of various sizes along the main flow line, adding different tones to the visitor experiences. The plazas are used for various events filled with excitement.

To bring the theme of the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai to life, eight Signature Pavilions have been conceived as visionary spaces for visitors to contemplate and experience Future Society. Each Signature Pavilion is aligned with a different theme and has been created under the supervision of a renowned producer. Find out more about the Signature Pavilions.

For weekly updates on Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai, the Government of Japan publishes the KIZUNA newsletter.

The design of the official mascot of Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai, Myaku-Myaku, is inspired by the Expo logo combined with water – the symbol of Osaka. With no fixed form, Myaku–Myaku is fluid; its red parts are able to be split apart, and its watery body can change shape freely with endless variations.

Designed by mountain mountain/Yamashita Kohei, the mascot was selected following a call for proposals that received 1,898 design proposals. A total of 33,197 name suggestions were then submitted to the Expo Organiser. The chosen name - Myaku-Myaku – meaning something passed down from generation to generation – was announced on the occasion of the 1,000-day countdown to the opening of the Expo.

The Osaka-Kansai region was home to the foundation and capital of the Japanese nation for over a thousand years. It therefore has many resources for historical tourism, including World Heritage sites, national treasures, historical buildings, and important cultural resources.

Additionally, the region boasts various traditional performing arts, including the Ningyo Joruri Bunraku puppet theatre, Kamigata kabuki, and Noh, and has also long enjoyed a nationwide reputation as home to various styles of comedy, including Kamigata rakugo and manzai.

Called the “kitchen for the entire nation” since the Edo Period (17th to 19th century), Osaka has developed such diverse forms of cuisine that it is known as the city of people extravagant in food. Sports including baseball and football also characterise the region.

In industrial terms, the region is characterised by the concentration of businesses and research institutes in a wide range of fields, including the environment, life sciences, and manufacturing, as well as being home to traditional crafts and artisanship. The region leads Japan with its mastery of the most advanced technologies, including the latest technologies which will help achieve Society 5.0. The region also embraces the culture of eagerly creating new, unprecedented things, as seen in the fact that the region was the world’s first to introduce futures contracts.

In terms of its relationships with the rest of the world and Asia, the region serves as an Asian hub for international trade and transportation. It boasts a wide variety of geographic features, from mountains to plains, blessed with rich natural environments that enable people to enjoy seasonal changes in scenery unique to Japan. These natural, cultural, and historical features have made the region a “golden route” or a popular destination for both domestic and international tourists, along with Tokyo.

Information provided by the Expo Organiser