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The story
It has come to light that an 85-year-old couple living in Osaka City donated a total of ¥400 million to the memorial park being built on the former Expo site, and have requested that a giant statue of the official mascot “Myaku-Myaku” be installed there. Reactions on 5channel were split, ranging from lighthearted jokes like “Kengo Kuma’s probably going to get involved” to opinions that disaster relief should take priority.
Hoping to contribute to the redevelopment of Yumeshima, the artificial island in Osaka’s Konohana Ward that hosted the Osaka-Kansai Expo, an Osaka couple — Keihachi Fukunishi, 85, and his wife Akiyo, also 85 — donated a total of ¥400 million to the city. Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama presented them with a letter of appreciation at city hall on the 24th.
In June this year, the couple offered the ¥400 million donation to the city, requesting it be used for the “Memorial Park Zone,” where part of the Expo’s symbolic “Grand Roof Ring” will be preserved alongside a new memorial hall. Among their wishes is the construction of a giant statue of the Expo’s official mascot character, Myaku-Myaku.
At the presentation ceremony, Mayor Yokoyama said of the donation, “We will do everything we can to put it to good use and pass the Expo’s legacy on to the next generation,” as he handed over the letter of appreciation.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Thought the exact same thing
Kuma's got a bear's nose for this lol (his name "Kuma" is a pun on the Japanese word for "bear")
This'll just end up paying for Kengo Kuma's food and drinks, watch
Bad timing — Japan's dealing with earthquakes and flood damage right now
Just wait, Yoshimura's about to hype this up big time lol
Earthquake and flood countermeasures are a separate matter — those have been ongoing for a while already
Re: #89
That work is also currently in progress
I want to donate ¥400 million when I die and get a giant statue of my favorite character made too lol
Can't wait until you're dead for that, gotta do it before you die, correction time lol
Might actually happen if it's a local mascot character
Though a character with zero connection to the place would probably get rejected
Osaka's still stuck in Expo mode
Never see it in Tokyo though lol
True. Every couple of months there's a news story like "a 70-something from Kobe…" or "a couple from Nishinomiya (sometimes Ashiya)…"
Doesn't that happen in Tokyo?
I remember Aomori City once got a ¥500 million donation from a generous benefactor in Kyoto, citing some personal connection — there really are generous people out there
This is probably going to cost something like ¥4 billion
wouldn't you guys totally lose it lol
I'm not counting on my parents' money anyway
I'd just think "wow, this parent's really an idiot" and let them do whatever they want
Maybe you're just the kind of kid your parents think a Myaku-Myaku statue would be more worthwhile than
That's the kind of stylish money-spending I want to do too
I'd rather it become a Myaku-Myaku statue than have my kids fight over the inheritance
Why don't you guys donate then
Not ignoring them at all
Osaka's sent plenty of people to support disaster relief in Kumamoto, and over ¥35 million in donations has already been raised
Background and Key Points
Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025 ran on Yumeshima, a reclaimed island in Konohana Ward, and its symbol was the Grand Roof Ring, the world’s largest wooden structure, part of which is being preserved as a memorial park with a new hall. Myaku-Myaku, the Expo’s official mascot, was chosen by public vote in 2021 from among finalists and is styled as cell-like blue-and-red blobs meant to evoke both water (Osaka’s rivers) and the amoeba-to-human idea of “cells connecting across time.” In Japan, large personal donations (tokushi kifu) to municipalities for named civic projects are a long-running tradition, especially common in Kansai, where cities regularly report gifts of ¥100 million-plus from elderly residents wanting a lasting local legacy; Aomori, Kobe, and Nishinomiya have all had similar cases cited in the thread.
The thread’s actual fault line wasn’t over the couple’s generosity, which nobody attacked, but over the appropriateness of timing and use — using ¥400 million for a mascot statue while Japan is handling earthquake and flood damage elsewhere. That was met with pushback that disaster-response budgets are separate, ongoing municipal spending unrelated to a donor’s earmarked gift, and that Osaka has already sent personnel and over ¥35 million in donations to Kumamoto.
What’s easy to miss: this money isn’t taxpayer funding being redirected — it’s the donors’ own gift, restricted to the Memorial Park Zone per their explicit request, and the city can’t legally reroute it to disaster relief even if it wanted to. The Kengo Kuma jokes are pure speculation; no architect had actually been named for a Myaku-Myaku statue at the time of this report.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “Elderly Osaka Couple Donates ¥400 Million, Requests Giant Myaku-Myaku Statue: “A Symbol to Pass Down to Future Generations”.”
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