At the start of the year, one of the biggest questions in Japan was if Osaka’s World Expo, a multibillion dollar project under intense media scrutiny, would succeed.
It did — but perhaps not for the reason anyone expected. Visitor numbers slightly undershot targets, however, the event turned a larger-than-expected profit thanks to one thing: a blue-and-red multieyed Lovecraftian terror named Myaku-Myaku.
Myaku-Myaku was the event’s mascot and its breakout star. One report has the expo bringing in over ?3 trillion ($19.4 billion) to the area, some ?300 billion ahead of estimates as visitors queued for hours to snap up the character’s goods in record numbers. When first unveiled, the cosmic horror initially met with shocked reactions. Full disclosure: I was an early advocate of this reaction and thought the design would be a disaster.
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