Mocco: the giant puppet striding from Touhoku to Tokyo
For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Japan didn’t limit itself to only organizing the Games. Other events, more specifically cultural events, were organized under the name of NIPPON FESTIVAL.
Mocco is one of these projects, and its main goal is to connect the Touhoku and Tokyo areas, 10 years after the big East Japan earthquake. To do this, a great number of people worked together, children as well as adults. Mocco’s design was created by children of Touhoku during WORKSHOPS, before being finalized by illustrator Ryoji Arai and puppeteer Noriyuki Sawa.
After the 2011 earthquake, Takamori created strong bonds with Touhoku by sending a lot of help and support. This is why Mocco was made in Takamori, to strengthen these bonds once again, before taking Mocco to the Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures who suffered the most 10 years ago, and finally Tokyo where Mocco finished its journey, the heart filled with messages from the inhabitants of the visited areas.
These messages were gathered and used by the rapper Mummy-D. He made a song out of them, featuring the singer Sayuri Ishikawa, that they sang together live during Mocco’s latest performance, in Tokyo, on July 17th 2021.
This performance was broadcasted live, given the fact that no viewer could come to Shinjuku park because of the current circumstances. More than one million people tuned in during the live, and you can still watch the REPLAY on Youtube! (for those who don’t speak Japanese: the performance starts at around 23 minutes)