[category]
[title]
If you visited Expo 2025 in Osaka and passed through the West Gate at the event site on Yumeshima, you’re likely to have laid eyes on artist Bakibaki’s mural Lineage of Hope.
The fish-focused artwork traces a path from Edo-period (1603–1868) ukiyo-e prints to contemporary street art by way of Bakibaki’s signature ‘Baki-gara’ pattern, a modern take on ancient Japanese family crests and motifs, and features a cameo appearance by the Expo mascot Myaku-Myaku.
The 4.5m x 12m piece had been earmarked for demolition following the close of the Expo, but Bakibaki launched a crowdfunding campaign to save it, and the drive ultimately raised more than double its initial target.
Thanks to 245 supporters contributing ¥6.06 million, the mural has found a new home as one of the artworks on Osaka’s Yodokabe Trail – a street art project led by Bakibaki himself.
Like Taro Okamoto’s iconic Tower of the Sun before it, Lineage of Hope thus joins Osaka’s roll call of landmarks left behind by the world expos that have taken place in the city.
You can now find the mural outside the Hotel Plaza Osaka in Juso.
What is the Yodokabe Trail?
The Yodokabe project was founded by Bakibaki in 2021 in the downtown Osaka neighbourhood of Juso. It started with a single Florence Nightingale tribute, painted to thank frontline medical workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We covered the non-profit project back in 2022, when only a handful of murals existed.
Today, the art trail includes 32 works across Yodogawa ward, created by artists from more than 20 countries with the approval of building owners and local authorities.
That last point matters in Japan, where graffiti and street art remain relatively uncommon and, in many quarters, still taboo. The Yodokabe works, however, slot into Juso with surprising ease.
The neighbourhood is all ads, pachinko signs and izakaya banners, so the murals feel less like an imposition than a natural addition to an already visually busy and often garish area.
Local businesses have now gotten in on the act too. Among them is Nomcraft Brewery, whose taproom sits within walking distance of several walls and whose shutter now looks every part of the trail.
A walk around the trail rewards you not just with a raft of large-scale international art – some of the works are seriously sizeable – but with a raw, unfrequented part of Osaka that most visitors never find.
Among the artists is Austrian-born and LA-based Nychos, who painted his samurai/sushi mural outside Juso Station in a matter of hours.
Just next door, Indonesia’s Dwymabim, who organises the Tangi Street Art Festival in Bali, brings a pop palette to a portrait of a fox-masked woman that fuses Balinese and Japanese iconography.
His compatriot Darbotz, a leading figure in Jakarta’s graffiti scene, takes up the other side of Nychos’s shutter with an almost monotone but vivid mural.
Facing each other across a car park on opposite sides of the street, Hiroshima-based Suiko’s sweeping composition of perfect circles – drawn using a rope and centre wedge, the primary colour balance meticulous and quietly hypnotic – stares down Beijing-based Nut’s snow leopard, rendered with multiple imaginary light sources that give the fur a distinctive ceramic texture.
And in a new undertaking for the project, Hyogo’s Gaimon and Nara’s Kimi painted the first Yodokabe mural on a private residence: Gaimon’s mythical Chinese Baku, iron ball on its nose, set against Kimi’s dense, batik-like geometric background.
The full trail map, including addresses for each wall, can be found on the website.
More from Time Out Osaka
Osaka named one of the world’s best cities for food in 2026
Where to watch the 2026 World Cup in Osaka
Saga prefecture hosts the world’s first centre to combat marine plastic pollution
20,000 illuminated sunflowers will bloom at Osaka’s Nagai Botanical Garden this August
New Ghibli exhibitions coming to Osaka and Kyoto later this year