Outline of Kansai Expo Opening Ceremony Announced;Pop Duo, Conductor, Kabuki Actor to Play Roles

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:45 JST, February 14, 2025

The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition announced Thursday the outline of the opening ceremony for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo.

The ceremony will be held on April 12, the day before the opening, at the Expo Hall Shine Hat and National Day Hall Ray Garden, facilities set up on the artificial island of Yumeshima in Osaka’s Konohana Ward.

Participants will include Japanese pop duo Kobukuro, who wrote the event’s official theme song “Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo,” conductor Yutaka Sado and kabuki actor Onoe Kikunosuke. The ceremony, with an in-person audience by invitation only, will be broadcast live on NHK.

The ceremony’s theme “Re-Connect” emphasizes the idea that people and nature are all connected in an age when divisions in society are seen as a problem.