Japanese Olympic Committee Uses Anime Characters To Promote Games, With Mixed Results

The Japanese Olympic Committee has licensed several of the nation’s most iconic anime characters to serve as goodwill ambassadors to promote the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in general and Japan’s athletes in particular. However, many anime fans are angry at having their beloved characters used for this purpose.

What Happened: The committee has been tweeting images of anime characters including Astro Boy, Dragon Ball, Goku, Luffy, Naruto, Sailor Moon and Shin Chan as part of its social media marketing. The characters have the word “Japan” emblazoned parts of their clothing, and the messaging points to favoritism of the local team.

SoraNews24.com reports the tweet featuring Sailor Moon reads, “I hope to see medals shining beautifully like the full moon on everyone’s chest. Ganbare Nippon.” The latter phrase translates as “Go Japan,” a common expression used by Japanese fans watching their athletes at international sporting events.

The Sailor Moon tweet also includes a link to a JOC website for sports fans to send encouraging messages to the Japanese Olympic team’s athletes.

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What Happened Next: The licensing of the anime characters occurred in 2016, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the growing controversy in Japan about going forth with the Olympics, which were postponed last year because of the health crisis. The pandemic has yet to show any signs of abating in Japan, particularly in the Tokyo area where reports of increasing infection levels have dominated the news.

Public opinion in continuing with the games is mostly negative. A poll of Tokyo residents by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper found 60% of respondents called for the cancellation of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Anime fans on Twitter TWTR were mixed in their reactions to using the characters to promote the games.

Anime blogger L.B. Bryant was displeased, tweeting, “How badly have you screwed up your job if you can't even get Japanese fans behind a message of support from Sailor Moon?!”

Writer Mishima Kitan was even more upset, tweeting, “F*** the Japanese Olympics Committee for using Sailor Moon to support the Tokyo Olympics (which is bound to be a f***ing fiasco).”

But not everyone was gloomy. The anime fan account Boruto Livetweet was happy to see one particular character being used, tweeting, “It’s still cool that Naruto is one of the Olympic Ambassadors. This will be excellent for the overall brand!”

And Illinois-based writer Jordan Havlik was watching his budget in tweeting, “Is there anywhere I can get the Tokyo Olympics 2020 shirts that have Goku, Luffy, Naruto, Usagi, and Astro Boy on them without paying over $100? All I want is official licensed sports memorabilia with anime characters on them. The Team USA shop is boring as hell.”

Photo: Astro Boy image courtesy of Japanese Olympic Committee.