Character for one of Tokyo 2020’s four NIPPON Festival programmes conveys recovery and charm of Tohoku region to the world
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) on Wednesday unveiled the design of a 12-meter-high puppet which will make appearances during one of the four main cultural programmes organised by Tokyo 2020 for the Cultural Olympiad. Puppets and mascots are popular symbols in Japanese culture, so Tokyo 2020 has created a giant puppet, named MOCCO, to symbolise the strength, resilience, and kindness of people in the disaster-affected Tohoku region. MOCCO will be displayed at multiple festivals in the region to collect messages written by local people, and eventually it will be taken to Tokyo with the messages. The initiative is expected to unite people affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and demonstrate to the world the charms of the Tohoku region, which is still recovering.
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) on Wednesday unveiled the design of a 12-meter-high puppet which will make appearances during one of the four main cultural programmes organised by Tokyo 2020 for the Cultural Olympiad. Puppets and mascots are popular symbols in Japanese culture, so Tokyo 2020 has created a giant puppet, named MOCCO, to symbolise the strength, resilience, and kindness of people in the disaster-affected Tohoku region. MOCCO will be displayed at multiple festivals in the region to collect messages written by local people, and eventually it will be taken to Tokyo with the messages. The initiative is expected to unite people affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and demonstrate to the world the charms of the Tohoku region, which is still recovering.
Under the leadership of creative director Michihiko Yanai, several renowned Japanese artists collaborated to come up with an outline of the programme and the design of MOCCO. Kankuro Kudo, a renowned Japanese screenwriter, director, actor and Japanese Academy Award winner, proposed the name MOCCO. Naoki Matayoshi, a Japanese comedian, screenwriter and Akutagawa Prize winner, came up with the story concept. Children in the disaster-hit prefectures of Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi, inspired by the story, helped design MOCCO by contributing drawings that they created in workshops held in the three prefectures.
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