All hail Myaku-Myaku, Japan’s new mascot overlord and viral superstar.

The slightly drippy, red-and-blue humanoid — based on the unsettling, multi-eyed logo for Osaka’s Expo 2025 — has been recruited to represent the event. Though the design for the character was announced back in March, it wasn’t until two weeks ago that its name was revealed and we got to see its final globulous form.

Despite some initial grumbling from the always-gloomy internet bulletin boards, charmed and terrified social media users alike quickly embraced and remixed Myaku-Myaku. (Fitting as the character can mutate into ... any shape it wants.) A fair amount of people chose to imagine the mascot as a benevolent blob, drawing fan art of Myaku-Myaku helping the blind or playfully imitating dogs. Popular English-language book series Koala English utilized Myaku-Myaku to teach bite-size lessons about expressions and adverbs.

However, most just stared into Myaku-Myaku’s many eyes and saw terror reflected back. Popular fan drawings shared online portrayed it as a kaijū (monster) on the level of Godzilla, ready to pounce in a horror game, and as an animated yōkai (ghost) of yore.

As a result, Myaku-Myaku sightings have been in demand on social media. Folks who chanced upon the creature walking around at events excitedly filmed their encounters, to the delight of their followers. I think it’s safe to say that Japan has its first hit mascot of the post-state-of-emergency era.

Like video games and food, mascots stand as one of Japan’s finest contributions to soft power, and the social media age has made it easier to appreciate this art form. Myaku-Myaku is the latest in a string of winning yuru-kyara that look fairly huggable but possess wildcard energy. This lineage includes the livewire pear fairy Funassyi, chaotic otter Chiitan and the uncanny spokesmascot for Nara, a half-deer, half-Buddha creation named Sento-kun. The concept for that last one was famously loathed when he debuted in 2009, but the character has since grown in popularity and some sharp-eyed netizens have picked up on a connection, with one even drawing Sento-kun and Myaku-Myaku in the style of Francisco Goya's gruesome painting “Saturn Devouring His Son.”

Myaku-Myaku’s proper debut coincided with a different anniversary. Last week marked the one year anniversary of the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics — I know, I forgot all about it, too. One of the relics of that time were the Games’ official mascots, Miraitowa and Someity. Both were perfectly palatable to the masses, but that may have been the problem — they weren’t all that memorable.

Not so with Myaku-Myaku, who offers an unnerving cuteness that Miraitowa and Someity didn’t. Given all the buzz that surrounded the Philadelphia Flyers’ googly-eyed, orange-haired character Gritty, we may be looking at the next stage in mascot evolution: And it’s one in which chaos reigns.

And who can’t help rooting for the underdog? Misfits are a point of pride these days and it seems like Kansai has embraced Myaku-Myaku in all its gloopy glory. Seeing as how the Olympic duo (what were their names again?) never got this kind of attention, we can also count it as a win for Osaka in its long-running rivalry with the capital.