tokyo_2020_19

Tokyo 2020 Olympics Mascots - Miraitowa and Someity

Miraitowa is the official mascot of the 2020 Summer Olympics, and Someity is the official mascot of the 2020 Summer Paralympics. Both events are scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan. The checkered design on both mascots was inspired by the Tokyo 2020 official logo, while Someity's pink design was inspired by cherry blossoms. Both fictional characters have various superpowers, such as teleportation.

Created by Japanese artist Ryo Taniguchi, the mascots were selected from a competition process which took place in late 2017 and early 2018. A total of 2,042 candidate designs were submitted to the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, which selected three pairs of unnamed mascot designs to present to Japanese elementary school students for the final decision. The results of the selection were announced on 28 February 2018, and the mascots were named on 22 July 2018. Miraitowa is named after the Japanese words for "future" and "eternity", and Someity is named after someiyoshino, a type of cherry blossom. Someity's name also references the English phrase "so mighty". The mascots are expected to help finance the Tokyo Games through merchandising and licensing deals.