Osaka marks Expo anniversary

Osaka has started a weeklong anniversary program at Yumeshima Station, one year after Expo 2025 opened on April 13, 2025. (expo2025.or.jp) The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition scheduled “Expo 2025 Futures Station” for April 8 to April 14, 2026, above Osaka Metro’s Chuo Line Yumeshima Station. It paired that with a one-day “Expo 2025 Futures Festival” on April 12 at Expo ’70 Commemorative Park in Suita. (expo2025.or.jp) Organizers framed the anniversary as a legacy program, not a rerun of last year’s fair. The official release said the events would use stage performances, virtual reality footage, pavilion exhibits and a revived “One World, One Planet.” drone show to look back at the Expo and connect its ideas to “the next generation.” (expo2025.or.jp) The station event opened with displays of repurposed pavilion building materials and a booth offering an original stamp of Myaku-Myaku, the Expo mascot. Mainichi, citing Kyodo News, reported visitors arrived in Myaku-Myaku gear and posed for photos outside the station on April 8. (mainichi.jp) Expo 2025 itself opened on April 13, 2025 and closed on October 13, 2025. The Bureau International des Expositions said the event brought together 165 official participants — 158 countries and regions plus seven international organizations — and drew more than 29 million visitors. (bie-paris.org) That scale helps explain why Osaka is still programming anniversary events in April 2026. The Expo’s official theme, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” was built around technology, sustainability and international exchange, and the anniversary schedule keeps those same themes in circulation after the site’s closure. (bie-paris.org; expo2025.or.jp) The April events are also only the first part of a longer campaign. The association said a six-city “Expo 2025 Futures Tour” will run from July to October 2026 in Tokyo, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Niigata, Kanazawa and Takamatsu, followed by an “Expo 2025 Futures Summit” in October 2026, one year after the Expo closed. (expo2025.or.jp) Reuse has become one of the clearest post-Expo themes. The Expo organization has continued operating its “Expo Circular Market Myaku-Ichi!” platform for reusing building materials and equipment from the 2025 site, and anniversary coverage at Yumeshima highlighted those repurposed materials as a visible part of the afterlife of the fair. (reuse-materials.jp; mainichi.jp) For Osaka, the anniversary week turns the old gateway station into a memory site while the city pushes the Expo’s projects into a second year. One year after the gates first opened, the message from organizers is that the fair is over, but its branding, materials and future-facing pitch are still on display. (expo2025.or.jp; bie-paris.org)