From today 11 December and until 22 February, 6.5 million schoolchildren at every elementary school across Japan will be given the opportunity to review the shortlisted three mascot design sets – each containing one mascot for the Olympic Games and one for the Paralympic Games – which have been disclosed by the Tokyo 2020 Mascot Selection Panel.

International schools in Japan, as well as Japanese schools overseas, will be included in the voting process.

The mascot design set receiving the highest number of classroom votes will be announced as the winner on 28 February, shortly after the Closing Ceremony of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games.

The Mascot Selection Panel will then decide names for the winning mascots, and the official Games Mascots will formally debut in July or August 2018.

Mascots are a popular element of modern Japanese culture. Tokyo 2020 aims to create mascots that embody Tokyo 2020’s branding vision, “innovation from harmony”, which implies that innovation will occur when the old and the new of Tokyo and Japan come together in harmony.