World Expo 2025 – Osaka, Japan

The World Expo has run in some form or another for the last century or more. The modern World Expo occurs every 5 years, and in 2025 it is being held in Osaka Japan. I was fortunate enough to be in Japan during the expo, and had two days to look around and write this brief account on some of the things I saw at the event in Osaka.

The expo opened on the 13th April 2025, and runs for 6 months. I arrived there within the first 2 weeks of the opening, so everything was still fairly new and fresh. A couple of countries had not yet completed their pavilions (notably India), but most pavilions were in operation.

The crowds were fairly large given the opening weeks, though not as large as during public holidays in Japan as shown on TV networks. Still, there is a lot of lining up required to get into pavilions, particularly some of the more spectacular ones, so even going for 2 days did not mean I could visit anywhere near all the different pavilions.

Online and Cashless

You need to buy your tickets online, and everything at the event is cashless. So you need a credit card, or you need the official expo app, or some other form of online payment method to buy anything once you are inside.

Part of the online experience is that you also get to register online (once you enter) for one pavilion, to save you having to queue. That sounds fine in theory, but the reality we found is that no matter how early we tried to register, almost every popular pavilion was full. So you need to line up a lot. I did get to register for a couple of pavilions very late in the evening though.

Further, there are a few special pavilions that only allow you to enter if you pre-register, making it impossible to get access unless you are very lucky. Buying tickets early gave you the ability to go in a draw for tickets to certain pavilions, as a bonus. Once again, I found I was unlucky and did not win any of these draws.

As a result, I can only report on pavilions I could get access to on the day.

The Theme

Each World Expo has some theme that the counties are meant to answer in some way. Osaka 2025’s theme is “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, with sub-themes of “Saving Lives”, “Empowering Lives” and “Connecting Lives”.

To be honest, not all countries seemed to follow this theme. My own country (Australia) seemed to have no relation to any of those themes at all. Apparently Thailand faced criticism for this same reason.

Anyway, let’s head off to the expo.

The Mascot

Before we dive in we should discuss the expo mascot this year. This is Myaku-Myaku, a red and blue blob with a lot of eyes.

Myaku-Myaku is designed to be fluid and shapeshifting, symbolising the brilliance of life and adaptability. That is what the internet says anyway. Though odd looking, people seem to love him. The Japanese even gave a gold (I assume coloured) one to the president of the USA when they visited recently to discuss tariffs.

Entry

Getting into the expo is a journey in itself. There are huge queues, and it is like going through customs at the airport. You have to take all metals off you, take off jackets, put them through an x-ray machine, put drinks on the counter where they are scanned in some way for explosives or something.

But this is Japan. People don’t push or jump the line, they just wait patiently and slowly move forward. It was not a bad experience, and was done very efficiently and in a friendly manner.

There are a lot of rules displayed on entry. I like rules. I know some people in the world aren’t happy unless they can break rules; this expo is not for you.

Inside the Gates

The expo is huge. Be prepared to walk. A lot.

There is a spectacular “ring” that circles the expo; a wooden structure that also provides some shade and seating below.

There are plenty of places to buy food and drinks within the expo, though expect expo prices. There are also places to throw out your rubbish (with helpful staff showing you how to recycle your rubbish correctly; for example, throwing out a half-filled bottle of soft drink involved removing the lid and putting that in one bin, tipping the remaining contents into another bin for liquids, removing the label off the bottle and putting it in another bin, and then putting the bottle itself into another bin.This was great to see, and probably a bit of an eye opener for lazy foreigners who tend to just throw everything in the “trash”.

But we didn’t come here to eat food or dispose of rubbish. Let’s look at a few of the pavilions.

Pavilions are in the order visited by me, not in any specific order of importance. I apologise in advance if I could not go to your pavilion, or I was not impressed by your country’s exhibits.

🇪🇬Egypt

Egypt’s pavilion was not overly large with a small queue (it was early in the day) so it seemed a good start. As with many of the pavilions, staff consisted of a number of natives to the country involved, though some pavilions did include Japanese staff too.

Inside they talked a little (in English, to the chagrin of the Japanese I was travelling with) about hieroglyphics and the history of their language.

Also a common theme in this expo was the use of 360-degree video projected onto walls. Another room showed 360-degree video of the history of Egypt, the pyramids (obviously) through to modern day Egypt.

Overall, a cool pavilion, and a good start to the first day.

🇸🇳Senegal

Senegal (a country in West Africa) had a small pavilion, showing some of the things they make (leather goods as I recall).

One of the great things about the expo were that so many countries exhibited, even smaller (and in some cases quite poor) countries. It was exciting to experience all the different cultures, the sights, the sounds, and in some cases the smells (some pavilions cooked local dishes that you could buy).

🇷🇸Serbia

Unfortunately I didn’t get to go into the Serbian pavilion. But as you can see, it was a very large pavilion, and was very popular.

I did take a photo of these statues outside the pavilion. I do not know the story behind them, but there were more inside the pavilion I believe.

Yoshimoto Kogyo

An odd one, but Yoshimoto Kogyo is the nation’s largest comedy-oriented talent agency and production company. They had a pavilion, called the “YOSHIMOTO Pavilion Waraii Myraii”.

Basically it was a huge smiling red face, where they held comedy shows for the public to enjoy.

Gundam

Gundam is a world famous anime franchise about giant robots (mecha). There was actually a Gundam pavilion at the expo. Try as I might, I could not get tickets to enter this pavilion. As a huge Gundam fan this brought me immense sadness.

However, I did discover that there is something there for even the poor people like me who weren’t blessed to enter: outside the pavilion is a life-size Gundam statue!

Wait around long enough and you will even get steam jets shooting out the exhausts!

Worth coming to the expo just to see this!

🇮🇩Indonesia

Indonesia put a lot of effort in their pavilion, and answered the theme extremely well.

You are greeted with a wall of wooden masks, and an explanation (I think it was in English and Japanese) about their origins.

You then walk through the Indonesian forests, littered with Indonesian animals in artistic form.

Inside there were projections of Indonesian water, fish, and a 3D map of Indonesian cities, showing their connection with nature and a sustainable future. Sustainability was a bit thing at the expo.

Indonesia did a great job.

Water Feature

There is a musical water feature that plays every hour. Well worth waiting around for.

🇲🇹Malta

Given my heritage, we had to go to Malta. It was a small pavilion, that consisted of some ancient statues, and a long large-screen video showing the beauty and history of Malta.

It was average, but if you want to see some nice beaches you might enjoy the video.

🇩🇰🇫🇮🇮🇸🇳🇴🇸🇪Nordic Circle

The five Nordic nations, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, came together for this pavilion.

The pavilion was all about sustainability, with exhibits made from recycled paper and information about sustainability and the green transition. Which was all well and good, but unfortunately it was also a rather dull experience.

I don’t really recommend.

🇨🇿Czech Republic

The Czech Republic had a very large pavilion made of glass, with a multi-floor staircase around the edge leading the visitors to the rooftop.

The walls were covered with art and glass sculptures. Much of the art seemed to involve naked people. The following images may not be safe for work.

On the roof we were greeted by the Czech’s own mascot, René. René was a lot of fun, named after the legendary Czech glassmaker René Roubíček.

You could also play a Czech sword fighting game that felt a lot like playing a video game, but by pulling strings.

A great pavilion all up.

🇬🇧United Kingdom

Walking along and seeing this phone booth, you instantly knew what was approaching.

It was the UK’s pavilion.

Unfortunately, try as we might, and we tried, we could never get in. They kept telling us to come back later as they were full. I’m sure there is an immigration joke there, but I’m not touching it.

It was a shame we couldn’t get in. I can tell you though they were selling Fish and Chips. What’s more British than Fish and Chips? I wonder if they sold mushy peas too?

Roots of Life

The “Roots of Life” pavilion focuses on the evolution and history of life, particularly the 3.8-billion-year journey of life on Earth. Young earth creationists should probably avoid this or their minds may explode.

This is very much a visual art exhibition.

It was particularly popular with young children because it was so visual and interactive.

An enjoyable pavilion in the open air. I recommend a visit.

Pasona

The Pasona Group is a Japanese multinational corporation. This pavilion was known as the Pasnoa NATUREVERSE.

This was a magnificent exhibit. It focussed heavily on state of the art technologies in health. In particular, IPS. What’s IPS? Here’s a definition I just stole off the internet:

“Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, are a type of pluripotent stem cell derived from adult somatic cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem (ES) cell-like state through the forced expression of genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of ES cells.”

So basically, it was about how these cells can be used to fix human hearts and other bodily parts. Sounds like science fiction, but apparently it is not.

A big part of the exhibit involved Astro Boy (Mighty Atom in Japan). There was a cartoon involving Astro Boy saving the world, but (spoiler) surviving.

Fear not, Astro Boy was saved in the future by a new heart using IPS! He became Neo Astro Boy!

There was actually live demonstrations of IPS cells working in a human heart. This was very impressive.

The final room consisted of a projected video on large moving blocks. The still below does not do justice.

This is a highlight pavilion of the expo.

🇨🇳China

China’s pavilion was spectacular. A massive structure that was tasteful, respectful and modern.

The pavilion was so stylish it is worth seeing it from another angle.

Waiting in line you are greeted by a robot talking in English, Japanese and Mandarin (maybe other languages, I’m not sure). Unlike Elon Musk’s robot, this one wasn’t operated by a person behind the scenes pretending the robot was autonomous.

This huge mural showing historical paintings was actually a giant screen with moving images in the style of historical paintings. Just beautiful.

Another round screen was so large and impressive a photo does not do it justice. So here is a video.

China had some ancient artefacts on display. The exhibits had these transparent overlays on the display glass that you could interact with. So thin, they were quite impressive.

Here’s a short video showing how you could interact with the display.

As you walked up the spiral sloping floor to the top levels there were these stylish projections of scenes of China.

On the wall were carvings of Chinese related themes. This one stood out though, as it showed Sun Wukong (Monkey, for those who remember the TV series) with Astro Boy (a Japanese character). Friendship between China and Japan, quietly and stylish represented in a wall carving.

China had an AI Large Language Model you could play with. It was trained to believe it was Sun Wukong (Monkey, from the TV series, or for those who know the original Chinese text, from the book Journey to the West).

I asked an obvious question and got an amusing answer back.

China also had a display about their moon landings. This included the ability to look at some small moon rock samples.

There were big Chinese security guards around the moon rocks. They did not look like the type of guys you wanted to wrong.

The exhibit had portals showing videos talking to Chinese astronauts at the International Space Station. It was a shame they weren’t live, but I guess you can’t have the poor astronauts just sitting in space all day in front of a camera waiting for some annoying Aussie to come and ask them for bubble tea (given that is the only Mandarin I know).

China’s pavilion was spectacular. I would say it was my highlight of the entire two days, and I recommend anyone going to the expo to try their best to see this pavilion.

Robot Experience

The Robot Experience is an initiative to implement and demonstrate a variety of next-generation robots within the Expo site. It is a small exhibit with some interesting technologies. Here are a few.

This was a self-balancing motorbike. The guy demonstrated pushing the bike over and it would balance itself and come back up. Very impressive. Looked pricey.

The ELOVE.

This was similar to the MOTOROiD2, though less cool looking. Probably more practical and reasonable priced.

Then there was a robot called Smiral.

So, Smiral would look for people smiling, and if they smiled, they donated 1 yen to a charity. The arms moved about. It was cute. You could see a screen of what the robot saw, and it would put a ring around your face if you smiled.

And finally there was the AI Suitcase.

This was clever and a great AI application. It is a suitcase for blind people that could also act like a seeing eye dog, and take the blind person to their destination, avoiding obstacles etc.

🇺🇸United States of America

Guess which country?

The USA is obsessed with their flag. It is plastered all over this rather uninspired building, and on poles outside and other surfaces. As tasteless as Trump’s gold-covered Oval Office at the White House.

Nationalism rarely ends well. Think Nazi Germany. No offence to the good people of the USA, but this had little interest to me so I didn’t bother to line up and visit. I’m sure it was very good, and had a lot of flags.

The nude statues to the left were France. Unfortunately I missed seeing France or even getting a proper shot of their pavilion.

🇵🇪Peru

The people I was travelling with were very excited about seeing Peru (or Machupicchu in particular).

The pavilion was small, but had a good crowd. Unfortunately, it was a fairly forgettable pavilion, with some of the usual videos of the Nazca lines, and a few artefacts.

🇲🇾Malaysia

The Malaysian pavilion had quite the outside presence.

They first had some fake shops set up in the old style of Malaysia. It was cute, and something the Malaysians are obviously very proud of.

Interestingly, the entire pavilion smelled of Malaysian food. It turned out that at the end of the tour they were cooking and selling Malaysian food. It was very popular for this alone.

The centre of the pavilion had this large woven tree.

Malaysia very much followed the guidelines set out by the theme, and large parts of their pavilion concentrated on smart city planning and the future.

There was an impressive 3D smart city model you could look at in detail too.

There was also an animated movie about this little girl and her grandma, which had to do with the future and recycling.

Overall a great pavilion.

🇧🇷Brazil

Here we have Brazil. Interestingly, the pavilion name is only in Japanese, which was unusual at the expo.

Brazil’s theme was something about water flowing through life. I didn’t really get it, but it was interesting. A lot of white plastic bags in the main room.

A lot of blow-up people around the place.

If you wait a while you get some action.

Other areas of the pavilion included videos and an area you can paint yourself (or your friend).

An odd pavilion, but enjoyable nonetheless.

NULL²

NULL² was an art exhibition, both inside and out. The outside of this pavilion had walls that shook with loud bass sounds. It was a little alien, but very cool.

We got here early and waited for tickets, as you don’t know when they will give them out. Fortunately for us we didn’t wait long, and got tickets for an afternoon showing.

I couldn’t take photos or video inside, but it is a visual art exhibit with loud sounds and flashing lights and mirrors. Impressive, in a modern art way.

Osaka Healthcare

I only took a brief look at the Osaka Healthcare pavilion. One thing there was the Human Washer.

Apparently this was first shown at the 1970 Osaka Expo, and has now become a reality. I’m not sure how much of a reality, as I don’t think you can buy one.

Washing the mind and body. That sounds like a great experience.

🇯🇵Japan

As Japan are the hosts of the expo you’d expect their pavilion to be very good, and follow the theme they set out for all exhibitors.

Japan’s pavilion was all about life and cycles. It had 3 sections: Factory, which was about producing products; Plant, which was about bacteria that eat plastics; and Farm, about making materials. Something like that.

They even had some interesting facts about Mars, with a Mars rock you can view and take photos of.

There were these huge, green, Hello Kitty models on the wall. But all a little alien. Can you guess why?

It turns out they each represented a different type of algae! Each useful for different purposes. The uses were explained in these charts.

The Factory area depicted a factory making a biodegradable chair.

And there was a section showing all the different products that could be made, including this soccer ball.

Overall a great pavilion, though perhaps a little too cerebral for some visitors.

🇦🇺Australia

Our last visit was to our home country’s pavilion, Australia.

The outside of the pavilion had a stage where musical acts would occasionally play, and people enjoyed a drink or two.

So, when you first walk in, you walk through the Aussie bush.

Though some of the trees have screens in them with animals, such as the koala.

Next, you got to see the Aussie sky at night, You should be able to see the Southern Cross. They also showed how indigenous people view the constellations. Commentary was in Japanese and English.

Finally, there was a mass of displays showing the bush.

And the beaches of Australia.

Overall it was ok. It felt like it was only half of what it should have been. It was light on indigenous culture and it had nothing about the cities, or landmarks like Ayers Rock or the Opera House. I’m not sure it did a great job of selling Australia to the world as a result. And I don’t think it really answered the theme of the expo.

But it didn’t embarrass us.

Conclusion

Unless you have a lot of money, most people only get to one or two World Expos in their lifetime. I was fortunate to get to see this one.

The expo is well worth it. Tickets are actually not very expensive (we actually got even cheaper tickets buying before the expo was opened). And there are some amazing sights and sounds to experience. To take full advantage I’d suggest going for at least 2 days.

I hope you enjoyed my tour of some of the pavilions of World Expo 2025. If you get the chance, go take a look yourself.