Don’t we look alike? Similarities between the mascots of the PARIS 2024 and the Kansai-Osaka Expo 2025

This is when the Organizing Committee of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games announced the official mascot of the Games, Phryge, in the fall of 2022. I blinked and looked twice.

I thought it was the official mascot of the 2025 Osaka/Kansai Expo,”MYAKU-MYAKU”.

On vous présente la Phryge Olympique et la Phryge Paralympique !
Les mascottes de #Paris2024 ✨
Sportives, fêtardes… et françaises 🇫🇷

Here are the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge!
The #Paris2024 mascots ✨
They are sporty, love to party… and are so French 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/plupKzQqNs

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) November 14, 2022

If we look closely, we can see that although the details are different, there are many things in common, such as the red, blue, and white tricolor, the perfectly round blue eyes, and the shape of the “crescent moon” mouth.

パリ五輪のマスコット「フリージュ」って何？
ドラクロワの名画「民衆を導く自由」にも登場する帽子がモチーフ

💬「フランスのストーリーを創る力や見せ方は本当に上手いなあ」
💬「ミャクミャク様との縁を感じる」 https://t.co/9E8ea7b2Lm

— ハフポスト日本版 / 会話を生み出す国際メディア (@HuffPostJapan) November 15, 2022

I thought I wasn’t the only one who had the illusion, so I checked Twitter and saw some reactions such as “Are you a relative of MYAKU-MYAKU?”

Osaka and Paris have other things in common

When I talked to Chikako, the CEO of Pen&Co., who has lived in Paris about this, she told me that Osaka and Paris have other things in common. For example, standing on the right side of an escalator. People hold on to the belt on the right and open the left. It’s interesting that Tokyo, Sydney, and Singapore stand on the left, while Osaka and Paris locally stand on the right.

And how to call hamburger chain “McDonald’s”. Just as it is called “Makudo” in Osaka, it is also called “Mcdo” in Paris.

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The island of Paris, a sandbar on the Seine, and Nakanoshima, Osaka, on the sandbars of the Dojima and Tosabori rivers, both have historically concentrated public institutions.

The years 2024-2025 will see the big international events of the Olympics and Expo. It would be great if each other’s mascots could liven up each other’s events. We would like to see these two tricolor mascots perform together, both on social media and in real life!