2025 Expo Osaka: Expo Opens amid Challenges, Hopes

Jiji Press

10:40 JST, April 14, 2025

Osaka, April 13 (Jiji Press)—Challenges and hopes marked Sunday’s opening of the 2025 World Exposition in the western Japan city of Osaka.

“I’m filled with emotion,” Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the Japan Association for the 2025 Expo, said on Sunday morning. “We made it to the opening after overcoming various difficulties and hurdles.”

But India, Nepal and three other countries were unable to open their pavilions on the first day of the Expo, due to construction delays.

The Osaka Expo has faced criticism each time estimates for its construction and management costs have been raised. Some people argued that the Expo was unnecessary.

Amid a lack of nationwide momentum for the Osaka Expo, sales of advance tickets were slow. Although daily sales increased toward the opening day, reaching about 100,000 tickets on Thursday and about 180,000 tickets on Friday, the total number of tickets sold as of Friday was about 9.34 million, falling short of the target of 14 million.

The 2025 Expo association aims to sell 23 million tickets by the end of the event. Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura pins hopes on a possible upsurge of public interest in the event. “If something comes along that people think is ‘awesome,’ it will become a main attraction,” Yoshimura said.

“Word of mouth is the key” to boosting the event, said an Expo official.

With the aim of organizing an Expo where visitors do not form lines in front of the gates and pavilions, the association decided to ask them to in principle buy tickets in electronic form and reserve their visits for a specific date and time.

Nevertheless, long lines were seen on Sunday even before the opening. As visitors flocked to pavilions that did not require reservations, hundreds lined up within an hour at the U.S. pavilion.

Amid occasional heavy rain, the road between the Expo venue and Yumeshima Station on the Osaka Metro Chuo Line, the only rail access to the venue, was heavily congested.

Adding to the confusion was a telecommunications problem that occurred around the entrance gates, making visitors unable to show their digital tickets.

A 40-year-old corporate employee had to wait more than two hours to enter the venue. “The reservation procedures for the venue and pavilions were so difficult, and there are few guide signs,” she complained.

“We need to make improvements on the hardware side, including antennas,” said a senior official of the 2025 Expo association.

“Over the six months (until the end of the Expo), we will make every effort to finish the Expo safely without accidents or injuries,” said Yoshitaka Ito, Japan’s minister in charge of the 2025 Osaka Expo.

The Osaka Expo comes at a time when the global situation is becoming increasingly unstable, partly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the tariff war between the United States and China.

“The world is facing a crisis of division,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said at the Expo opening ceremony on Saturday.

Among the participating countries, there are calls for peaceful and sincere exchanges in the world, as seen at the Expo.

Some Japanese ruling party members hope that the Expo will also serve as a place for peaceful diplomacy. “Through the Expo, Japan can build win-win relationships with other countries,” said a senior official of the industry ministry.

One of the countries that Japan competed with to host the 2025 Expo was Russia. “If Russia had been selected, the Expo might not have been held,” a Japanese government official said. “Holding an Expo that brings together participants from all over the world itself is meaningful as the international situation is chaotic right now.”