This week, a certain piece of news caused quite a bit of a stir on the Japanese side of Twitter, especially among gaming and anime enthusiasts. The official logo for Expo 2025, the next World Expo set to be held in Osaka, was revealed, and it certainly looks interesting. Here’s the full logo below:
As you can see, it immediately caught everyone’s attention due to its rather unique and unsettling appearance and shape. The intent behind the logo is to represent the vitality of life with a shape reminiscent of cells undergoing mitosis, and this is also reflected in the slogan that accompanies the logo: “the brilliance of life.” The “eyes” in the logo are actually a throwback to the sakura leaves from the logo of Expo 1970, which was also held in Japan:
Of course, it’s not easy to catch the reference at first glance. For many, the World Expo 2025 logo looked like a ring of flesh with eyes protruding out of it, and immediately the gamer crowd latched onto this fact, and began to create parodies. Games likes R-Type, Gradius, Life Force, Saya no Uta, Carrion, and more were suddenly trending on Twitter, alongside references to anime like Made in Abyss, and even the internet-produced SCP Foundation mythos.
Here’s a look at some of the fanart and parodies:
Original Shmup
シューティングのボスみたいだなと思ったので作りました。 pic.twitter.com/gQ2HA7qMEG
— 大江しんいちろう (@s_ooe) August 25, 2020
Funnily enough, R-Type series director and R-Type Final 2 director Kujo Kazuma also commented on the logo, saying that a Bydo enemy the team were working on actually looked somewhat similar to the logo. Other shoot-em-up-related insinuations regarding the logo as an enemy concluded that it would have likely split apart as it took damage, making it harder to fight and dodge.
Saya no Uta
万博ロゴがかわいくみえてきた…(頭ぐるぐる)
沙耶の唄トレンド入りすげ～～～ pic.twitter.com/vFWt6ZerFz— るつぼ🔞にじそ04当選◆10/17開催 (@rutubo_tti) August 25, 2020
Undertale
アニメーションとBGMをつけてさらにコロシテくんをUndertaleっぽくしてみました。 pic.twitter.com/IhNhngIsoP
— BOW-NINGEN (@ningen_bow) August 25, 2020
Bloodborne
命の輝きよ、泣いているのだろうか？ pic.twitter.com/VMjqLs1Z3C
— 寿司勇者トロ (@toro_yori_ebi) August 25, 2020
Spriter and animator M.Nishimura, whose work includes contributions to Octopath Traveler and Romancing SaGa Re:Universe, created an animated sprite for the logo. The Expo 2025 logo creature is often named “Inochi no Kagayaki”-kun (“The Brilliance of Life,” based on the slogan) or Koroshite-kun (meaning “kill me”).
俺もこのビッグウェーブに乗るぜーと描いてるうちにコロシテくんって名付けられてて笑うｗ pic.twitter.com/nyTIb8HTGt
— M.Nishimura (@hectNishi) August 25, 2020
Disgaea series character designer Takehito Harada also drew one of many anthropomorphisms of the Expo 2025 logo, such as below:
GZNK pic.twitter.com/gLUy5vGtD3
— 原田たけひと (@HARATAKE) August 26, 2020
Either way, it’s already very clear that the logo, no matter whether you find it appealing or off-putting, is already doing its job. It’s certainly a memorable logo that will stick around in people’s minds for a while yet.
