Food scraps rotated on a conveyor belt toward a black hole in the wall. On the other side, visitors walked over bridges past shiny metal tanks where the waste ended up. “Visitors move through a cycle in the building, from waste to reborn material,” employee Toshiki Omori said at the time. NRC visited the Japanese pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka. “What has fulfilled its function is given a new life here.”
According to the information boards, the organic waste from the exhibition site was processed into biogas, but the plant was at a standstill. “It is to give an impression to visitors,” Omori explained. When asked about how much energy is actually generated, an uncomfortable response followed: “We cannot answer that.”
The pavilion – Monday was the last day of Expo 2025 – showed not so much what Japan is, but mainly what it wants to be. Not the aging economy stagnant innovation and scientific stagnation that the numbers show, but a country in which technology and sustainability seem to coincide in harmony with the future.
Humanoid robots
Ever since the first World Exhibition in London in 1851, countries have used the spectacle to reinvent themselves in this way. The Leiden researcher Florian Schneider calls it “utopian spaces who show dreams about the future.” In Osaka, that observation seems to be correct again.
For six months, the artificial island of Yumeshima in Osaka Bay was intended to demonstrate how technology and sustainability can reinforce each other. Under the motto “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”, the Expo presented itself as a laboratory for the future. The site symbolized a sustainable, circular economy. Visitors walked through dozens of pavilions in which countries and companies showed their visions of the future. Behind the shiny facades there was hope and utopian thinking.
This was also visible in the matte black pavilion that robot researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro designed, enveloped in mist that rhythmically pulsated from the walls. Danced inside humanoid robots to hypnotic music, a theatrical representation of his belief that people will one day be able to transfer their minds into machines.
“I believe that technology can liberate us,” he said, referring to the social problems that Japan has struggled with for decades, such as an aging population and rising healthcare costs. “Maybe one day we will be able to swap bodies as if we were changing coats.”
For Ishiguro, this is not a fantasy, but the logical next step in human evolution. “We believe in Japan that everything can have a soul, including machines. Ultimately, the whole world will become Japan.”
The Expo painfully shows the weakening of our national strength
But behind that futuristic appearance, the Expo concealed very contemporary technical problems. Construction on swampy Yumeshima was delayed, and costs doubled. Dangerously high concentrations of methane gas, from the decomposing waste on which the island is built, were measured for some time, trains broke down on a busy day, leaving thousands of visitors stranded until late at night, and mobile internet connections faltered.
“The Expo opens with a mix of rain, excitement, queues and confusion,” wrote the newspaper Asahi Shimbun immediately after the opening. Due to poor internet, the QR codes on entrance tickets could not be processed and long lines arose, while it had been promised that there would be no waiting times. Due to heavy showers, many visitors returned home, causing the nearby train station to become too crowded and some people injured when they fell down the slippery stairs.
Employees of the World Exhibition held a flag parade on Monday on the closing day.
ANP/EPA
Osaka-born writer Kaoru Takamura was at the closing even sharper in her assessment: “The Expo painfully shows the weakening of our national strength,” the influential intellectual said after her visit. “Japan is no longer the country that can be proud of its economy, technology and culture. That makes me sad.”
Solar panels
While the Expo organization struggled with mud and delays with its grandest visions, Japanese companies have been more level-headed about what is achievable. As director Kiyohito Nakahama of the pavilion from Panasonic, standing by a tank full of green liquid between the tomato plants. “We use this to make plants grow faster. It will be on the market from next year.” Transparent solar panels, a little further away, can also be used as windows. “They let light through, but at the same time generate energy.”
Visiting children respond positively and remember us
Panasonic invested millions in its pavilion, but not primarily to showcase technology. The main goal was “brand awareness among the youth,” according to Nakahama. The company that once made it big with televisions and air conditioners now focuses on artificial intelligence and energy solutions, among other things. But this does mean that it loses contact with the normal consumer. The presence at the Expo should restore that.
“Research says we should start with the children,” said Nakahama. One hundred children therefore contributed ideas to the design of the pavilion, the lighting and the height of the screens. “Adults are therefore less enthusiastic. But visiting children react positively and remember us. That is what we wanted to achieve.”
The Expo ended on Monday with a large fireworks display.
ANP/EPA
And there were plenty of visitors. The Expo attracted more than 29 million, one million more than previously estimated. The hotels in Osaka were regularly full and the queues for popular pavilions were sometimes hours long.
After the closure, the artificial island will remain as a construction site. Part of the infrastructure will be reused, and a new city district will be created with a conference center and casino. What is also left behind is a carefully orchestrated representation of technological progress. But that is a future that, no matter how convincingly it was presented, has not yet arrived.
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