Mascots chosen by children for Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Paralympics unveiled

Not at all bad. And nice that children chose them.

Surprisingly not as awful as I'd expected. Looks like a Transformer combining a tulip and a chess board.

Outstanding design! Usually olympic mascots are ugly and forgettable, but Japan kids have got this spot on! Boy mascot should be called Ninja-Kun, Girl mascot should be called Sakura-Chan. They will be super popular with foreigners who visit, and mascot sales will help fund the olympics.Cant wait to buy the mascots and for 2020!

ganbare Japan: "Outstanding design! Usually olympic mascots are ugly and forgettable, but Japan kids have got this spot on!"

Okay... I figured you were joking around on another thread the other day, and now it's confirmed. You're right that they are not that forgettable, but that is unfortunate in this case, not good. And it IS good that the kids have chosen, but you have to remember that that is how it will be seen -- the choice of children (as in Japan). It'll go something like this:

Person 1: Who the heck's idea was THIS?

Person 2: The government's. Chosen by children.

Person 1: You said it!

"Boy mascot should be called Ninja-Kun, Girl mascot should be called Sakura-Chan."

Yeah, because they colours don't already enforce old-fashioned gender stereotypes enough. How about "Brave-Samurai Yamato-kun!" and "Flowery, Delicate Sakura-chan"? Only a slight step beyond what you're suggesting.

"They will be super popular with foreigners who visit"

As an oddity.

Good choice. They are definitely the least horrible of the three horrible choices.

Mascotty McMascotface

I like them. I think all mascots look strange at first, and even longer. I never could figure out the mascots for the London and Rio Olympics. We'll get used to these.

There were mascots at Rio and London?

I’m obviously not in the target market....

The London ones looked like bottle openers. However, that is still better than what a lot of people thought the London logo looked like....

If the idea is to promote Japan and sell merchandise like crazy to pay for the games, I'd have had a Yayoi Kusama dotty pumpkin on legs. Her shows are incredibly popular.

Yeah they look good, far better than some of the other choices

Wonder why they need such funny mascots for the games?  They really seem very unnecessary. Probably mascots should be a few athletes who got medals in the past.  As a result make athletes good luck.

The London ones looked like bottle openers.

Or, as some saw it, members of The Simpsons doing unspeakable things to each other. Brrrr!

Anyways, good choice for 2020 and well done to the kids.

Chosen by kids for kids.

I'm not changing my avatar.

"School children, really? Should be B or C," tweeted one user

In every poll of adults I saw (including the one on this site) option C won every time, but the kids seemed to hate it. Let's see if the parents (with jobs and incomes) open up their wallets to buy the option A merchandise.

Here is the poll Japan Today did showing the other options. (Before people go altering the results, at the time of posting it's 39% Option C, 35% Option A, 26% Option B.)

https://japantoday.com/category/poll/Which-set-of-designs-for-the-2020-Tokyo-Olympics-and-Paralympics-gets-your-vote-

Seems like the direct link won't work. It's the poll done on Dec 11 2017.

https://japantoday.com/category/poll?page=2

These characters have an incredibly high potential to become toys for MCDonalds Happy Meal Sets at some stage of their promotion. How exciting.

I guarantee there are some parents scheming to take those fans away from their kids to sell on Yahoo Auction or Mercari.

Love it, fits the anime theme well.

If those ugly designs were to disappear from their foreheads, they’d be a bit more tolerable.

Hey Toasted Heretic

The Simpsons in flagrante delicto was the London logo, not the mascots. They were also rendered in 1980s stylee highlighter pen fluoro pink and fluoro green, which turned people off even more.

The mascots were one-eyed bottle openers with legs. I think the acid test for any mascot is whether your average three-year-old would want to stand next to it and have his/her picture taken. The London mascots would just freak them out.

https://www.olympic.org/london-2012-mascots

What is with the round eyes? Most of the world does not have them, plus too fake Disney looking. Children here are as controlled by the media as they are in the West.

I can't wait for the Olympics to be banished from the surface of the planet.