Hello Kitty fans, rejoice! A whole Japanese airport is rebranded with Hello Kitty theme

Hello Kitty fans, rejoice! A whole Japanese airport has been rebranded with Hello Kitty theme as part of the Osaka World Expo. The Oita airport in Kunisaki, Oita prefecture, was given a makeover with the cute feline character all around, as part of the ongoing World Expo in the Japanese city. 

The cute kitten mascots, images and paintings and other merchandise will adorn the airport till the World Expo 2025 concludes on 13 October.

The makeover of Oita airport was unveiled on April 13, complete with its official renaming as Oita Hello Kitty Airport.

An official ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in the presence of the cute kitten Hello Kitty, and other fictional characters like My Melody and Kuromi from the Sanrio universe. 

Hello Kitty is one of the many 'kawaii' or cute characters created by the Sanrio Company Ltd in Japan.

Hello Kitty is ubiquitous in Japanese popular culture and entertainment, and went on to become a global icon, adorning school supplies, stationery and toy segments.

Oita Hello Kitty airport revamp includes decorations of the terminals, staircases and signages and international arrival hall of the airport with Sanrio characters.

There is also a photo booth with several kawaii characters.

Visitors can snap pictures with various fictional characters like Hello Kitty, Pompompurin, Cinnamoroll, Kuromi and My Melody.

Passengers will get luggage tags themed around Saniro characters.

There is also a bunch of other merchandise to choose from at the souvenir shop, like keychains, T-shirts and cookies.

Oita Prefecture is home to a Saniro character theme park. This is the only such theme park dedicated to Hello Kitty in Japan, other than Tokyo.

World Expo is being hosted by Osaka for the second time, the first time being in 1970.

Organised by the Bureau International des Expositions, the Osaka Expo runs from 13 April to 13 October. 

Osaka is expecting to attract nearly 28 million visitors to the World Expo this year.

The expo's concept is People's Living Lab, with themes like designing a future society; saving, connecting and empowering lives.

The Expo concentrates on creating a society that lives by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

It is also centred around Japan's national strategy of Society 5.0, or a supersmart society.

Society 5.0 comes after the information society, industrial society, agrarian society, and hunter-gatherer society.

It aims at bringing prosperity to people by making the most of information and communication technologies and integrating cyberspace and physical space.