HOME
News
Press Release
Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan Signature Pavilion “Future of Life”: Preview of Android Robots to Appear in Main Exhibit “50 Years into the Future!”

Press Release

2025.02.19 Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan Signature Pavilion “Future of Life”: Preview of Android Robots to Appear in Main Exhibit “50 Years into the Future!”

　The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition (hereinafter referred to as “the Association”) and Theme Producer ISHIGURO Hiroshi (Professor at Osaka University and Visiting Director of ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories), who is in charge of the Thematic Project “Amplification of Lives” at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan (hereinafter referred to as “the Expo”), unveiled some of the android and robots that will appear at the Signature Pavilion “Future of Life” on 19February 2025.
　In conjunction with the release, creators who worked with Producer ISHIGURO on the production of “Future of Life,” including concept co-creation, creative, and programme development, gathered together to give presentations on their respective areas of expertise.
“Future of Life” is made up of three zones, where visitors are greeted by a large number of androids, robots and CG avatars that make the most of advanced technology.
Zone 1 presents the history of Japanese people’s life in objects, Zone 2 presents the future 50 years from now, when humans will live using various advanced technologies, and Zone 3 presents the evolution of humans 1,000 years from now.
　The androids and robots unveiled this time were developed for the Expo and will appear as beings that coexist with humans in the pavilion’s main exhibit, Zone 2, “50 Years in the Future.” This zone depicts scenes in which androids and robots coexist with humans, living vibrant lives while utilising a variety of products that use advanced technology.
Producer ISHIGURO said, “Humans grow and evolve using science and technology. That is what makes us human. I believe it is the responsibility of people today to create and design our own future. I want this pavilion to inspire people to think about the kind of future they want to create.”

The Unveiled Robots: (from left: Punica, Petra, and Pangie)

Petra
Petra, which means stone, is a robot that acts as a tool to coexist with humans of the future. In ancient times, humans evolved greatly by making hunting tools using stone and wood. The tools of the future go back to their origins and are designed using materials such as stone, driftwood, circular mirrors from shrines, and moss from Zen temples, emanating a presence that connects the past and the future.
Punica
Punica is the genus name of pomegranate, which has red-seeded fruits, and was introduced to Asia from Persia via the Silk Road about 2000 years ago before being introduced to Japan from China during the Heian period. This is a lifelike robot based on the story of the pomegranate, which symbolizes the meaning of the Expo, where cultures from around the world come together.
Pangie
Like a pollinator, which helps pollinate plants by attaching pollen to its body, this angelic robot will connect with visitors at the venue and promote new forms of communication. Like Punica, it inherits the design of the legendary robot “Deme,” designed by architect Arata Isozaki and unveiled at the Japan World Exposition Osaka 1970.

The Unveiled Androids (Front row left and centre: Asukaroid. Front row right and back row left and right: Yamatoroid)

Yamatoroid
An android avatar created for the Expo. Its name comes from “Yamato,” a word that represents the birthplace of Japanese history in Nara in the Kansai region and Japan as a whole. It embodies the spirituality that has lived in Japan since ancient times.
Asukaroid
A “child” android avatar created for the Expo. Its name comes from the Asuka period, when the world’s oldest wooden building, Horyuji Temple, and the Takamatsuzuka Tomb with its colorful murals were born. It loves Japan’s advanced technology and culture that has been passed down through the ages.

Photo Session

(Participants)
ISHIGURO Hiroshi – Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan Theme Producer of the Signature Pavilion “Future of Life”
[Producer Team]
・UCHIDA Maholo – Planning Director
・KOBAYASHI Daisuke – Production Director
・ENDO Jiro – Architectural Designer
・UKAWA Naohiro – Virtual Space Director
[Concept Co-Creators]
・MATSUI Tatsuya – Android/Robot Designer/Supervisor
・HIROKAWA Tamae – Android Costumer Designer/Supervisor
・KIKUCHI Akane – Android Behaviour Designer/Supervisor
・KANEKO Shige – “Life 1000 Years in the Future: Mahoroba” Space Designer
・KURIBAYASHI Kazuaki – “50 Years in the Future” Creative Director
・SEGAWA Kimio – “Virtual Space” Creative Director
[Android Programming Creators]
・FUNAYAMA Tomo – Interaction Creator
・SAKAI Kurima – Experience Creator
・MIKATA Ryusuke -Motion Creator

About the Signature Pavilion “Future of Life”

[Pavilion architecture and exhibition space]

　The pavilion’s architecture was designed based on the concept that “life is amplified from the shore.”
Osaka is the “city of water”, and water connected inanimate and living things. The shore is where solids, liquids and gases collide, fluctuate and draw boundaries amplifying life. Water and the shore are symbolic elements of the pavilion.
Water flowing from the 12-meter-high roof envelops the pavilion, and as visitors pass through the veil of water, their journey into the future begins.

　The pavilion is made up of three zones. There are about 50 avatars, including androids, robots, and CG characters, using cutting-edge technology, and about 30 of them are featured in the exhibition space.
The introductory zone, Zone 1, “The Journey of Life,” displays the history of how Japanese people have given life to “objects” from ancient times to the present. Zone 2, “50 Years in the Future,” takes place 50 years in the future. Visitors can enter the story and experience how humans coexist with androids and make use of various advanced technology. In Zone 3, “Life 1000 Years in the Future: Mahoroba,” visitors can meet humans 1000 years in the future who have fused with science and technology to be freed from the constraints of the body, in a fantastic space filled with sound and light that evokes the world 1000 years in the future.