On March 28, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau announced the Grand Prize winners for "Mio & Tsukushi," the official mascots of "OSAKA-POP," an initiative aimed at increasing inbound tourism, and the Grand Prize winner in the Art Cosplay category of the International Cool Japan Awards, at the Osaka Prefectural Government Office Main Building.
The "Mio & Tsukushi" and "Art Cosplay" categories were open to the public last November, receiving 678 submissions from 20 countries and 354 from 15 countries, respectively.
The Grand Prize winner for "Mio & Tsukushi" was a work by Miwa Yamamoto, a first-year vocational school student from Osaka Prefecture. "I created it based on the concept of lively Mio-chan and quiet Tsukushi-chan," Yamamoto said. The Grand Prize winner in the "Art Cosplay" category was a work by Antonina from Russia. The judges for "Mio & Tsukushi" were Lim Kah Wai (director, scriptwriter, editor, and producer), Kenichi Fujimoto (professor at Mukogawa Women's University), Kazuya Kise (animator, animation director, and animation director), Toru Yoshida (animator), Yusuke Kitanishi (Intelligent Systems public relations), and Takayoshi Kanzawa (professor at Takarazuka University). "The number of applications exceeded our expectations, making the selection process difficult. The reason for selecting the Excellence Award winner was to consider the balance of elements such as the illustration's suitability as an animated character and its ease of cosplay," commented the judges. Yamamoto's "Mio & Tsukushi," selected for the Grand Prize, will be used as the official Osaka POP character on the Osaka POP official website and related web media. The characters are also expected to be adapted into animations and merchandise. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau, established last April, aims to increase the number of international tourists to Osaka from the current 2.6 million to 6.5 million over the seven years leading up to 2020. In addition, the official website, which was launched on November 1st last year, received 72,844 visits from 91 countries around the world in the three and a half months since its launch.
