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The story
Images of handwritten signage at Asian Games venues in Nagoya, Aichi, have been circulating online, and overseas reactions calling it “hilarious enough to die laughing” were reposted to 5ch. The thread quickly moved past the signs themselves and into questions about the event’s management — namely, why it ended up handwritten at all — with some praising a setup that didn’t involve ad giant Dentsu, and others questioning how a roughly ¥370 billion budget could produce this. Opinions split between those calling the handwriting a reasonable improvised fix and those seeing it as proof of sloppy advance planning.
What people said
At least print them out on a home printer or at a convenience store.
They're single-use anyway, what a waste.
What, blow it up to whiteboard size and print it?
Re: #34
Hand the job to some guy who says "just do it, it's easy" and he'll print the AI image on an A4 printer, it'll come out tiny, and people will complain anyway.
Or are you going to print it in sections and manually piece together something whiteboard-sized? That'd probably take like ten times longer than just writing it out by hand.
And obviously there was no way to pre-order proper printed posters from a vendor either, since the match pairings weren't finalized yet.
So how much would it take then, lol. More than the Expo?
Walk me through the math on why it's "not enough."
Can you only think in all-or-nothing terms? This event's quality doesn't match a ¥370 billion budget.
Even with all that lead time, if Aichi Prefecture tried to run this themselves, no amount of manpower would cover the coordination work, and they wouldn't even know who to ask for what. Ad agencies know that stuff from years of experience — that's the whole point of using one.
Toyota's strict about not wasting money though.
It'd probably run an extra ¥30 billion and be plastered with Toyota ads everywhere, but honestly, the quality would end up incredible.
Want some garlic with that?
(riffing on the famous ramen-shop line "Would you like garlic?")Why not just prepare it in advance?
Even in Aichi, don't train stations have tons of those…?
Better a clumsy, above-board operation than a slick one riddled with crime, right? (a nod to Dentsu's Tokyo Olympics bid-rigging scandal)
No no no no, they're clearly writing it to look deliberately handwritten/rough.
Seriously, is this okay???
Is a My Number Card required???wwwwwwwwwww ("My Number Card" is Japan's national ID card; strings of "w" are Japanese text-laughter, like "lol")
The workers are volunteer old-timers and people hired through Timee (a Japanese app for same-day gig work).
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The 2026 Asian Games, held in Nagoya, Aichi, is a massive event with a budget of roughly ¥370 billion, but news that its signage was handwritten sparked a wave of reactions on social media. In the thread, opinions split between critics arguing the execution doesn’t match the budget, and defenders arguing that plain, no-frills management carries fewer risks than a flashy operation led by a major ad agency. Note that specific figures for the total budget and the companies involved varied from post to post, and since this is secondhand chatter from 5ch, it should be taken with some caution. Handwritten signage is also a fairly common on-the-spot fix — like swapping out a sign at the last minute — and doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall quality of the event’s management.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G board) thread “[Image] Korean commenter: “The Asian Games stadium signage is handwritten, I’m dying laughing lol”.”
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