Go Tokyo Your Experience
To be honest, I really didn’t expect that one day anime or ACG elements would be associated with the Vatican. At first, I saw this incident in other media reports, which was indeed somewhat unbelievable. Simply put, a foreign Catholic media reported that 2025 will be the Jubilee Year of the Catholic Church, a special celebration held every 25 years symbolizing the grace and pilgrimage of the Catholic Church.
Therefore, the church planned a series of cultural activities to celebrate, one of which was to design mascots in a dimensional style. As a result, our protagonist Luce was born.
Luce’s design was originally intended to attract the interest of the younger generation, so it adopted the anime design style. Although she appears to be wearing a dark yellow raincoat (not a Daxin brand), these elements actually carry the meaning of a pilgrim.
For example, the yellow raincoat pays tribute to the flag of the Vatican, the radiance in the eyes symbolizes unwavering faith, the cross on the chest represents religious faith, the staff in the hand symbolizes the spirit of evangelism, and the seemingly ordinary rain boots actually symbolize the journey of walking on the pilgrimage route.
As for the name Luce, it means “light” in Italian and was designed by Simone Legno, co-founder of the Italian trendy brand tokidoki. He has a special fondness for Japanese culture, so this design is quite handy.
We have already mentioned that one of the design purposes of this mascot is to attract young people. I’m not sure how many people know about Luce in real life, but the online response has been very enthusiastic, and many illustrators have started creating illustrations about Luce. This wave of promotion has undoubtedly been successful.
If Luce can integrate with meme culture and even become a meme directly, then this character is more likely to become popular on the internet.
One of the interesting memes I’ve seen recently is’ The Shining ‘, a thriller film directed by Stanley Kubrick, translated as’ Ghost Shop’ in Chinese. The scene in the film where Jack Nicholson used an axe to smash a door has become a classic meme. This scene is similar in design to the missionary staff, jokingly reminiscent of “Lu Naizi Naizi Staring at You”. Once you think of it, you cannot escape this association… WTF.
Nowadays, Luce is not only causing a sensation on the internet, but she will also participate in the Lucca Comics event in Italy from October 30th to November 3rd; Debuted at Games for the first time. Meanwhile, Luce will also become the representative image of the Osaka World Expo in Japan in 2025, and will be exhibited in the Vatican Pavilion at that time.