Ikarus360

Well....the hangover after the mess which was Tokyo 2020 ceremonies is long over. While I still feel contempt about these games I guess its still my duty to inform about whats going on. Bird Nest is undergoing works in preparation for the opening ceremonies. They also seem to want to make them more simple, though knowing China i'm sure "simple" to their standards will still be a spectacle. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-07-24/Beijing-2022-vows-to-present-ceremonies-in-simple-safe-manner-129hByxhPBS/index.html https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1111049/beijing-2022-national-stadium

https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/liveblog#postid:d5ac562c-fda4-4d7b-b94f-895e7591c260 Yulimar Rojas (VEN) just broke both Olympic and World records in Jumping.

Another composer who worked in Tezuka animes (Black Jack and Jungle Emperor Leo). Whoever was in charge of choosing the music is obviously a Tezuka fan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Tomita

They're going with something more modern this time, Baron.

Regarding the "commemorating" thing, Naruhito wasn't the only one who did that. Gustavo Diaz (former mexican president) also used the word when opening the Mexico 1968 Olympics. Not sure which were the reasons, but its possible that because of the controversial massacre of students in Tlatelolco which happened just days before the opening, he decided to avoid the word "celebrating" as well. The more you know, the more you realize massive anti-Olympics demonstrations are far from being new. At least Japan didn't screwed up and killed their own protesters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre

A bit boring they're still using London 2012 anthem arrangements almost 10 years later. At least in Nagano Seiji Ozawa made arrangements of the anthems which sounded pretty nice. This is lazy as hell.

Google Translate is being messy but seems like a lot of Bento boxes which were originally intended for the Volunteers got disposed of and it has caused some controversy. https://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye4324093.html

Let's hope the Paralympics ceremonies team wasn't plagued with the same curse/controversies/replacements and put a good show. I'm often surprised at how Paralympics ceremonies can sometimes end up being better than their Olympic counterparts (London 2012's opening ).

Probably increased in order to prevent protests or spontaneous trying to interfere as much as possible. While we didn't saw it on TV, the protests outside the stadium during the opening ceremony were quite loud.

Music used for the last scene (fireworks finale) was Symphony No. 2 at Terra by Takashi Yoshimatsu (starting at 31:11). They're a known classical composer in Japan. Fans of Osamu Tezuka might recognize him for composing the soundtrack of 2003 Astro Boy.

Poor attempt from the IOC boomers to connect with younger audiences.

Maybe in Nagoya/Aichi 2026 they can attempt to do what they couldn't for the Olympics. Though that also depends of who's in charge of the event since these tend to be a bit regionalistic and might mostly feature stuff from the Aichi prefecture rather than all of Japan (in the Nagano ceremonies, most of the cultural performances were folk dances/traditions from the Nagano prefecture, for example. Same with the 1995 Universiade (Fukuoka) ).

Cherry blossoms only bloom in Spring during some days. Sunflower is much more appropiate and representing of a summer event.

After watching some events, its the most simple look since London's, but weird enough it works alright. There are much better Looks, though.

Studio Ponoc (anime studio formed by many former members of the legendary Studio Ghibli) released a 9 minute animated film in celebration of the games. Its actually pretty nice looking. Imagine if the opening show had a theme like this (though I heard Miyazaki himself wasn't a very big fan of the Olympics).