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 ¡ª 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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