Amabie Mascot Drawing Contest

• May 13, 2020 ~ May 26, 2020
• Online Event

Amabie Mascot Drawing Contest

In Japan Mascots are not only for charm character, they also serve as medium between Japan and the rest of the world. During this home stay period, “Amabie “ Yokai (mythological spirit or monster) has become popular in social network and media. According to the legend, “Amabie” has power to stop the pandemic, and people around the world are now draiwng its picture with their imagination and wish to get things back to normal. The Japan Foundation, Yangon would like to invite everyone to join in this Amabie Drawing Contest as an online community fun art activity while staying at home.

About The Contest

This contest is designated as online community fun art activity as one of the stay at home programs. To interact the community with art and to encourage the manga artists and the drawers during in this stay home period.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

1. Draw your own Amabie character either by hand-drawn, painted or digital illustrations.

2. Submit your Amabie drawing to messanger of Japan Foundation, Yangon, together with your name (artist’s name), title of your drawing (if you have), your e-mail, before 12 am on 20 May.

3. Please send only your own creation and appropriated Amabia Yokai art works otherwise we can not accept it.

4.We will upload the Amabie drawings of the contestants on our event page in a timely manner. The audience can come and have a look at the Amabie online exhibition by the contestants.

5.On 21 May, we will upload the poll and starting from that time, the audience can vote the drawing they like best. The deadline for voting is 9 am on 25 May.

6.Three Amabie drawings, which get the most votes, will be awarded E-Certificate of First, Second and Third Winner and rest of the candidate will receive E-certificate of participation.

7.We will announce the winners on 26 May on our Facebook page.

Examples art works on twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/amabie…

(Original Amabie picture used in the event photo is the sketch of Amabie from Shimbun Bunko (Shimbun Collection) and courtesy of the Main Library, Kyoto University.)

About the Amabie
The myth went back to 18th century, Amabie is one of yōkai and It is appeared in Higo no kuni, today’s Kumamoto prefecture, in 1846, when it was spotted by the town’s official. Amabie apparently told him that “Good harvests will continue for six years from the current year; if disease spreads, show a picture of me to those who fall ill and they will be cured.” This story was published with a sketch of Amabie in the woodblock bulletins that year. According to the legend, Amabie is a glowing green creature with fishy scales, long hair, beak and three fin-like legs. It can foresee the future and heal the diseases.Now, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan designated Amabie as a mascot to warn about the pandemic and #amabiechallenge on twitter – drawing the Amabie posting on social media is becomimg popular in respond to current covid-19.